105 pages • 3 hours read
Neal Shusterman, Jarrod ShustermanDry
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 1, Chapters 4-6
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Tap-Out”
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Kelton”
Day Three: Monday, June 6th
Since school has been canceled, Kelton tries to occupy his time with the internet and YouTube, but nothing keeps his attention. He feels strange, comparing the head of the HOA coming to ask for help from his family to a moment of “triumphant despair” in hunting (49). In addition, He thinks about his current interest in his neighbor Alyssa and decides to go over and make his move. He offers to help her family with their recent plumbing problems and even gives Alyssa some water. He overhears Alyssa’s parents discussing how they think the government will help. Kelton thinks about bringing up some flaws he sees in their thinking but decides not to ruin their hope.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Alyssa”
Alyssa’s dad assigns her and Garrett to seal up the plumbing so that the house, devoid of water, stops smelling. While trying to clean a toilet, however, Garrett spills Comet into their bathtub reservoir of water, ruining it. Alyssa thinks, “I go downstairs to tell Mom and Dad, bracing for the worst—but they don’t get angry. Which, I soon realize, is much worse than if they had” (57). However, while she’s speaking to her parents, Garrett runs away. Alyssa’s parents go looking for him, and Alyssa enlists Kelton’s help with the search. While she and Kelton are out looking, they see a military truck, which scares Alyssa. They realize that many trucks are guarding the high school swimming pool, and Alyssa realizes that Garrett must have gone to visit a friend who has a giant fish tank. She and Kelton find the house empty and the fish tank smashed, but Garrett is there. Back at home, Alyssa’s parents collect empty containers and head to a nearby beach where desalination machines were set up.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Kelton”
Kelton decides not to tell his dad about the military, thinking, “There’s no point in rocking the proverbial boat” if they’re going to stay in the neighborhood to wait for his brother, Brady (67). Another neighbor who has a baby comes to the McCracken house asking for water, but Richard, Kelton’s dad, refuses to give him any. Instead, he gives the neighbor some tips on how to find water, but the neighbor becomes enraged that Richard won’t share his supply. When the neighbor tries to break into the house, Kelton shoots him with a paintball, gives the neighbor a water bottle, and then tells him to leave. Kelton’s dad is angry with him for intervening, but Kelton knows that if he hadn’t, his dad would’ve shot the neighbor with a real gun.
Part 1, Chapters 4-6 Analysis
This section of the novel introduces Kelton’s romantic interest in Alyssa, which greatly affects later group dynamics when the two are trying to survive. Even at this early point, Kelton’s interest in Alyssa affects his interactions with his own family. When Kelton goes to finally make his move on Alyssa, he offers to help her family with plumbing problems by giving them a bottle of sealant. However, he also thinks, “When my dad finds out I gave [the bottle] away, he’ll chew me a new one” (51). Although Kelton feels immense loyalty to his family, as a teenager with a long-lasting crush, his urge to make a good impression on Alyssa overpowers the family-first mentality.
Later in this section, as Kelton continues to help Alyssa, they encounter the military for the first time. When they see military trucks outside the local school, Alyssa thinks, “My brain has kicked in by now, and I realize that this is much bigger than my AWOL brother. It’s pretty disturbing to see war machines traverse the neighborhood you grew up in” (60). Alyssa has been taking the Tap-Out seriously, but this marks the moment when the reality of the new, waterless world begins to sink in. The juxtaposition of military presence with the everyday school building jerks Alyssa’s brain into a new level of survival mode, beginning to pull her from her pre-Tap-Out mentality into a new one.
Just as preparation is a strong differentiator among the residents of Kelton and Alyssa’s neighborhood, so too is a willingness to share outside one’s own family. This divides Kelton’s family, which is one of the few families that has enough resources to have the possibility of sharing. Kelton shows his own willingness to share, possibly at the expense of his family, or at least his family unity, when he helps Alyssa to make a good impression on her. His father, however, holds the opposite sentiment. When a neighbor with a baby comes begging the McCrackens for water, Mr. McCracken refuses, although he’s willing to share information about how the neighbor can obtain water. He tells the neighbor, “Roger, I’m offering you a gift much more valuable than a bottle of water. Self-reliance” (69). This angers the desperate neighbor, but Mr. McCracken will not budge. To him, resources themselves are far too scarce and precious to risk his own family by sharing. All he’ll share is information, of which he believes he can’t run out.
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