Monday's Not Coming

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018

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Chapters 6-8 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary: “The Before”

A month passed and there was still no sign of Monday. Claudia tried to keep busy, spending time with her family, but she worried about Monday every day. School was difficult without her only friend: English was a struggle, and the popular girls bullied Claudia.

Monday used to have to wait in line for the free school lunch; Claudia always waited with her, even though Ma packed her lunch. One day, Claudia skipped lunch to speak to the coolest teacher in school: their former English teacher from seventh grade, Mrs. Valente. Claudia knew Mrs. Valente is gay and married her partner the summer before. Feeling safe enough to be honest with her, Claudia told Mrs. Valente that she hadn’t seen Monday since last June.

Mrs. Valente took Claudia to the office to look into it, and they discovered that neither Monday nor her two younger siblings registered for school that year. Mrs. Valente asked the front office clerk if this school followed up with students who didn’t register. “A lot of students didn’t return this year,” the clerk responded. “Most had to move due to rent going up and stuff. But I’ll pass a note along” (49).

Chapter 7 Summary: “The After”

Claudia gets moved up into Group Five in jazz dance, with the high school girls. She writes this news to Monday in the journal. One of the girls questions why Claudia is there, since she is so young, but Ms. Manis and the other girls stand up for her.

Claudia is shy, content to not speak to the other girls in the class. She constantly thinks of Monday, wondering what Monday would do or say in each given situation. Her school is an all-black dance school in the center of D.C. Up to 500 people attend their recitals, including the mayor and senators. Every dancer has to do a solo, and Claudia will perform her first solo dance ever.

In her first solo rehearsal, Claudia dances well. Ms. Manis and the other girls are impressed.

Chapter 8 Summary: “The Before”

Claudia practiced twerking for the first time, thinking of how Monday used to do it in her mirror. She recognized that she was becoming a woman.

Later, she accompanied her mother to the supermarket. She thought she saw Monday when she saw a girl wearing the jacket she’d given her friend. Claudia rushed over to the girl, but it wasn’t Monday; it was Monday’s older sister, April, who looked deflated. Claudia asked where Monday was. April told her Monday was staying with her aunt in Maryland. When Claudia pressed, April told her to stay away and not to do this. April then rushed away.

Chapters 6-8 Analysis

In a school community that saw much transience, especially as gentrification pushed up rents, forcing families to move to more affordable locations, a disappearance like Monday’s didn’t seem suspicious. Mrs. Valente, a teacher Claudia trusts, was the first to ask questions about Monday’s disappearance. The fact that Monday hadn’t registered for classes and the school did nothing to investigate shows how often kids moved in and out of the district without follow-up.

In a present-day chapter, Claudia pushes herself out of her comfort zone in the more advanced jazz dance class. She performs well despite being nervous, and despite older girls questioning Claudia’s right to be there. Even so, Claudia’s thoughts are still consumed with Monday. Monday’s death has already happened, but Claudia doesn’t understand where she is in time.

Chapter 8 returns to the past, when Claudia ran into Monday’s sister, April, at the supermarket. Claudia’s excitement at seeing a Charles family member besides Mrs. Charles quickly dwindled, as April looked unwell and was unwilling to talk about Monday. April’s disheveled appearance revealed the hardship she endured as she worked to provide for her siblings. Later chapters will reveal that April knew what happened to Monday and even played a part in it, motivated by her desire to keep her remaining family members together. At the store, she brushed Claudia off and tried to keep her from investigating further, deepening the mystery.