Freak the Mighty

The one thing Freak wants more than anything is a new body to replace his tiny, stunted one. He has learned about robotics and explains to Max that bionics is “the science of designing replacement parts for the human body” (52). Freak imagines that the local hospital will build an entire mechanical body for him—it will be highly experimental, but he doesn’t fear the danger—and he’ll come out of it tall and powerful. Max believes him, and when he learns that Freak may be dead, he rushes to the hospital’s research wing, breaks in, and pounds on the inner doors, trying to reach his friend. Freak isn’t in there; his story about a new body turns out to be a fantasy that wards off his and Max’s fears about Freak’s shortened lifespan.

Max’s criminal father, Kenny “Killer” Kane, gets released from prison and promptly shows up at Max’s house to kidnap him from his grandparents. Max first becomes aware that Kane is in the room with him because of his father’s “cool breath like the wind” (100). Captured by Kane, Max sits alone in an abandoned apartment, and when his father returns, Max notices it because “I feel the cool air of him on the back of my neck” (109). Kane realizes that his son still remembers seeing him kill Max’s mother; he puts his hands around Max’s neck, telling him that he can’t possibly remember such a thing, and Max feels “his cool breath in my face that makes me want to fall asleep” (129). The coolness represents the coldly evil spirit of a man who has the hypnotic chill of death about him.

Max visits Freak in the hospital, and Freak gives him a book with empty pages. It’s for writing a journal; Freak says, “I want you to fill it up with our adventures” (150). He explains that he’ll soon receive a bionic robot body, and he’ll be too busy learning how to use it to do their story justice, so Max has to do it. Max protests that he’s not a writer, but Freak replies, “It’s all in your head, Max, everything you can remember. Just tell the story of Freak the Mighty, no big deal” (151). The next day, Freak is dead, and Max slowly realizes that Freak knew all along that his days were numbered. The empty book is Freak’s way of keeping Max connected to the memory of their friendship, and to memorialize their adventures so that others can take inspiration from those Arthurian quests. Also, it’ll help Max to be a better writer. The empty book becomes Freak the Mighty.

Freak explains that an ornithopter is “an experimental device propelled by flapping wings. Or you could say that an ornithopter is just a big word for mechanical bird” (13). Freak receives an ornithopter for his 12th birthday, and it gets stuck in a tree in his backyard. Max retrieves the ornithopter and gives it back to Freak; this is how they meet. Max later brings the ornithopter to Freak at the hospital where he spends his final hours.

Freak sees one of Blade’s gang members cram a purse down through a grate in the street; Freak and Max venture out on a late-night quest to retrieve the purse and return it to its owner. They manage to reel up the purse, which belongs to a lady named Loretta Lee who lives in a poor part of town. They bring the purse to her, but she and her husband, motorcycle gang leader Iggy Lee, taunt and torment the boys and later help Killer Kane hide Max from his grandparents. The boys thought the return of the purse would be a pleasant and noble deed; instead, it leads them into a harrowing, life-or-death adventure that demands every resource they can muster.

Using knights as an example, Freak describes quests: “Every now and then King Arthur would send them off on a special secret mission, which in the old days they called a ‘quest.’ They had to slay dragons and monsters and evil knights” (17). Freak’s idea of fun is to go on a quest—retrieve a lost purse, explore nearby neighborhoods, locate a medical research building—while riding atop Max as if he were Freak’s stately horse. Max enjoys these adventures because they take him out of his boring life and stimulate his mind.