41 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen AF Venable, Illustr. Stephanie YueA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Katie is forced to break into her own apartment after realizing she has forgotten her keys. In adjacent panels, an unnamed figure in a costume with a long tail can be seen breaking into a different window. Once inside, Katie reads a note from her mom saying that she is at work and didn’t have time to get groceries; Katie should take money from the “Fun Fund” if she is hungry. Katie goes downstairs to Mr. B’s bodega with a measly amount of pocket change and has Mr. B make her a PB&J sandwich. While she eats, a news report about a fire at the New You Cosmetics factory plays in the background. Police Chief Pardo is interviewed about the fire, and a superhero named the Eastern Screech interrupts and claims the fire was likely because someone thought the building was “ugly.” The reporter disagrees with him. Hundreds of bunny rabbits can be seen on the ground around her and the police chief.
Later that night, Katie calls her best friend, Bethany, and tells her about the news report. She suggests that the bunnies must have been used by the cosmetics factory in some sort of animal testing. She calls the Eastern Screech “dumb,” and jokes about how their friend Jess has a crush on him. They end the call talking about how they are going to miss each other over the summer but will write to one another every day. As Katie laments that “nothing ever happens around here,” a mysterious figure with a long tail can be seen sneaking into an apartment two floors above her (7). The next morning, Katie’s mom returns home from work with spicy jalapeno poppers for breakfast. As Katie begins to tell her about the news report, her mom falls asleep on the couch, exhausted. Katie tucks her in and kisses her forehead.
The next day, Katie’s art teacher gushes about the Eastern Screech, and incorrectly credits him with saving the rabbits from the fire. As she rambles on, Katie and her friends, Bethany and Jess, talk about the upcoming summer holidays. Jess excitedly talks about summer camp, but Bethany tells her to stop because Katie cannot afford to go with them. They suggest that Katie could go for just one of the four weeks, and that Bethany’s mom would even pay for it. Katie ignores the offer. Instead, she decides she will try to earn the money doing chores for people around her apartment building.
Her first client is an older man who offers her $2 a bag to help him carry his groceries to the sixth floor. The man then runs up the stairs carrying nearly all of the bags himself while Katie struggles with a single bag. In the end, he gives her a dollar for getting the bag halfway. Mrs. Bell hires her to water her plants for the rest of the week. She offers $10 a day. She has a variety of plants that all have different watering requirements, and though Katie tries her best, she gets the instructions mixed up and the plants begin to wilt.
On the last day of school, Katie admits to Bethany and Jess that her summer camp fund isn’t going very well. She heads home with Bethany, and they discuss the free things she’ll be able to do around New York while Jess and Bethany are at camp. At Bethany’s house, Bethany’s mom offers to pay for Katie to go to camp for a week, but Katie insists she will earn the money herself. That night, Katie and Bethany dye their hair a matching color and are thrilled with the results. The next morning, before they say goodbye, Bethany gives Katie a set of markers to use when writing postcards, and they agree to write to one another every day. While they say their goodbyes, Bethany’s dad reads the newspaper and informs everyone that a supervillain named the Mousetress has burned down another factory.
Katie, resolved to earn the money for a week of camp, collects some cleaning supplies and goes knocking door-to-door for clients. She has no luck and tears down her advertisement poster in frustration.
At the bodega, Katie complains to Mr. B that it’s not fair that she can’t go to camp. As they talk, Mr. B’s cat, Scratch-Off, attacks another customer, forcing Mr. B to wrestle him off the man. As this is happening, a third customer, Madeline, walks in. Scratch-Off immediately jumps at her, but instead of attacking her, cuddles happily in her arms. Katie goes to pet Scratch-Off. Madeline warns Katie not to because he isn’t a friendly cat. However, Scratch-Off purrs and jumps onto Katie’s shoulders, surprising Madeline. Before leaving, Katie asks Mr. B for a job. He declines, but says he’ll hire her once she’s 15. Madeline overhears the conversation and appears to have an idea.
The graphic novel juxtaposes images of Katie and the Mousetress both breaking into windows at the opening, foreshadowing their eventual relationship. They are doing the same thing, and the color palette of the panels suggests their connection. The background of the Mousetress panels is pink, while the background of the Katie panels is green; these are both important colors for Katie that signify friendship throughout the novel. For example, Katie’s shoes are green and pink because she has traded one of her shoes with her best friend, Bethany, and later, she and Bethany will dye their hair the same teal color. After her friendship with Bethany has deteriorated, she begins a new friendship with Marie, who happens to have pink hair. These details imply that Katie and the Mousetress—eventually revealed to be Madeline—are much more alike than would initially appear to be the case.
Venable explores The Difference Between Appearances and Reality, a key theme in the novel. People and things are often not as they seem. Katie learns this through her interaction with the older man who asks for help with his groceries. Based on appearances, he seems old, frail, and incapable of carrying heavy bags up six flights of stairs. However, he surprises Katie by not only carrying nearly all the bags, but doing so at a pace Katie has no chance of matching. In the end, it is clear that the man asked for Katie’s help because he wanted to help her, more than needing the help himself.
This gap between reality and appearances also comes into play with the Eastern Screech. Despite his popularity, he is completely useless. He misses the fact that the factory was burned down because it was a site of animal cruelty, but is given credit for saving the bunnies because he is popular and people find him attractive. By introducing the Eastern Screech in this way, the novel highlights that popularity does not equate to effectiveness or ability, and that reputation may not reflect reality—ideas the text returns to later with the Mousetress and the way her actions are perceived by the public at large.
The opening chapters establish that Katie and her mom live in a state of financial precarity. After Katie forgets her keys, she is able to break into her apartment through a window that is duct taped in place, suggesting they cannot afford to properly fix it. She discovers that there is no food in the fridge, and that her mom is working a late shift and will bring food home from work. The money Katie takes from the “Fun Fund” to get herself dinner is a very small number of coins that she isn’t even sure should be considered money. These details suggest that Katie and her mom are living paycheck to paycheck and doing whatever they can to get by. They underscore why Katie cannot afford to go to camp—she and her mom are struggling to afford day-to-day necessities; the idea of spending hundreds on a week of summer camp is simply out of the question.
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