Restart

Shoshanna laments what a terrible judge of character she is for trusting Chase and believing he had changed. She blames herself for convincing her parents to let Joel come back to Hiawassee and feels she cannot face him because of her guilt. She believes that Chase planned his entire conversion to niceness to facilitate the prank in the music room. She hates her video project now as well. Pursuing the National Video Journalism Contest is meaningless to her, as all she is concerned about is her brother’s well-being.

She relates a conversation with Brendan, in which he held out the possibility that Chase was an innocent dupe in the football players’ ploy. Shoshanna’s argument, that Chase is a cunning fiend who only wanted to attack her brother, overwhelms Brendan. She assures herself that everyone knows Chase is guilty. In the video club she chastises the others for continuing to mention Chase’s name and his accomplishments. Joel speaks up to say that the club’s work “has gotten kind of lousy” (183). He expresses that, while he hates Chase, he is no longer willing to be cowed. The kids cheer. Shoshanna is proud of his new brave attitude.

Chase returns to football practice, where he is not allowed to wear pads or have full contact for two weeks. The other players constantly jostle him and prevent him from getting a drink. His “muscle memory” (185) of how to play the game is slowly, returning, and Chase enjoys it.

While most of the Hurricanes welcome Chase back, his friendship with Aaron and Bear has ended. They are no longer the “Three Musketeers” (186). Chase steers a clear path around them, even during football practice. This bothers Aaron and Bear, though Chase cares nothing about their feelings.

Left to run sprints while the other players go to the locker room, Chase is running when he is blindsided by Bear. He and Aaron stand above Chase, taunting him as he tries to catch his breath. The three begin to argue about Chase avoiding them. Bear says they want to “get square” (188) with Chase and accuse him of faking his amnesia. Furious, Chase says he hates them for ruining the life he built for himself and vows to take them on physically if he must. He threatens to go to the police about the theft of Mr. Solway’s Medal of Honor. When they react, he tells them he figured it out based on their behavior at the retirement home. He berates them for the way they treated a frail war hero. Bear acknowledges that Chase does have amnesia, telling Chase that he was the one who stole the medal. Despite his rage at the accusation, Chase realizes Bear is right. The boys tell Chase he has to split the value of the medal with them and that he will regret it if he does not. Chase says he has no idea where the medal is. He turns and races away from them, weeping at the thought of what he has done as he runs home.

Kimberly has left the video club, as she was only there because Chase was a member. While Brendan misses her, she added nothing to the club from an “artistic standpoint” (192). As much as he misses Kimberly, Brendan misses Chase even more. The club has ceased to be creative since he was dismissed from it, and no one is producing any video. Brendan resents the club members for not giving Chase a second chance. He recognizes that Chase was a sincere contributor to the club, something everyone took advantage of, and then they abandoned him when trouble arose. Angry as he is at the “vidiots” (193), Brendan decides he must jumpstart the group by making some kind of video. He resorts to making a film about a slug slowly climbing up the side of his house.

As he is setting up the flip-cam, Brendan discovers that its memory is full. Pushing the play button, he sees a video from the music room. Brendan had assumed the video was lost; Kimberly was supposed to have wiped the camera’s memory but forgot. As he watches the recording, Brendan realizes he has evidence of what happened. It reveals that, while Chase may have lied about there being a fire, he was innocent of planning and participating in the attack. Brendan struggles with how to break the news of this to everyone who needs to know and in what order. Deciding that he must show the video to some of the club members first, he texts them to come to his house the next day, Saturday morning, at 10 a.m. He tells Kimberly that Chase will be there so she will come as well.