Dead End in Norvelt

DEAD END IN NORVELT CHARACTERS & THEIR DESCRIPTIONS Jack Gantos Jack is our hero—but to be honest, he's not much of a hero, at least at first. Instead, he's a skinny twelve-year-old with a tendency to get nosebleeds and not much of a backbone. (Okay, we don't know for sure that he's skinny—but we imagine he is.) For one thing, Jack does some dumb stuff for a brainy kid. For instance, shooting his dad's sniper rifle before making sure it's not loaded. That, Shmoopsters, is a dumb move. (In fact, here's a tip: just don't pick up the gun in the first place, unless you're actually out, say, hunting something. With a responsible adult. And safety gear.)

But for the most part, he's fairly smart. How do we know this? One of his favorite hobbies is reading history books, so we know that he's curious about his world. His physical description captures this: "My brown curls stood up like a field planted with question marks" (2.7). Because he's so curious, Jack is prone to being distracted, like when he gets the ticket for the weeds obstructing the gutter. He took a break from his work, and ended up getting so caught up in a history book that he never went back to properly dispose of the weeds.

But this curiosity isn't all bad. Jack's insatiable need to know about things (whether it's the history he reads in books or the "whisper history" of Norvelt gossip) actually ends up helping him to mature. For example, take the moment he decides to sneak out of his house at night because Bunny has promised that she will tell Jack why her dad is selling the Norvelt houses to Eleanor, West Virginia. This is a secret that Jack's just been dying to learn about. Now, sneaking out of his house might not seem like the most mature action, but it actually ends up helping him gain courage. The little escapade leads him into dangerous situation where he and Bunny are confronted by a Hells Angel who is trying to burn down a house. While Jack isn't very brave (he runs away—smart boy), his experience does help him step down the road to more courage.

Jack's little nosebleed problem gives him a sort of "wimpy" feel, especially compared to spitfire Bunny. Miss Volker even calls him a "spineless jellyfish" at one point, because he seems like he's afraid of everything (2.63). (Um—not nice, lady.) But it's no casual phobia. Jack's fear of death is real, and it's serious. In his own words: "[T]he subject of death made me pale and feel cold except for the very tip of my nose, which was heating up like a match head about to combust" (5.5). He’s a good kid. We won't lie to you: Jack gets into plenty of trouble. He's even been known to "melt a plastic army man over a burner on the stove when [his] mother isn't looking" (2.1). (Who doesn't like a little toxic stew for breakfast?) But for the most part Jack is a good kid. He's polite, and only uses the fakest of fake swear words ("Cheeze-us," which is basically one step up from "Gee wilikers!"). Our boy Jack honestly has the best of intentions when he makes questionable decisions and then has to pay for the consequences—like, he really does plan to pay for that ticket for gutter obstruction. (So it's okay that he doesn't tell his mom about it—right? right??)

It's important that Jack's a good kid, because it ties him in to the whole "spirit of Norvelt" thing that the book has going on. He has a strong sense of duty and compassion to his fellow citizens that increasingly guides his actions in the novel. First of all, Jack doesn't like to disappoint authority figures. That's why he gets caught in the battle between his mom and dad. In wanting to please both of them, he ends up making both of them mad. Think about how Jack cuts down the corn because he wants to make his dad happy by helping him build the runway and bomb shelter. And he tries to please his mom by using the ONE FLIGHT IN THE J-3 coupon to instead play baseball (disappointing his dad in the process). Jack also doesn't want to disappoint his best friend, Bunny, who's not thrilled that he's gotten himself grounded for the summer. She continually tries to get him out of the house (and possibly into more trouble), but Jack shows his developing maturity by canceling an afternoon playing baseball with Bunny when Miss Volker shouts out to him as the two pass her house: Here, Bunny challenges Jack's kindness, compassion, and sense of duty—but he's strong enough to resist, because he's learned that being a part of the Norvelt community is not all happy colorful butterflies and rainbows like his mom makes it out to be. It also involves working hard to balance the competing, annoying, but vital demands that people make on him.

Miss Volker Miss Volker is Norvelt's medical examiner and obituary writer. Well-respected in the town (though slightly feared because of her morbid profession), she's "worth her weight in gold" (2.20). That's definitely true for Jack, since she teaches him important lessons relating to responsibility and duty (all of that boring grown-up stuff). But along the way, she also becomes his friend.

Miss Volker's jobs tell us a lot about her character. She was hired by Eleanor Roosevelt to be Norvelt's "chief nurse and medical examiner" (2.107), and, throughout her career, she has delivered babies, stitched up countless wounds, set numerous broken bones, and even once "pop[ped] an eyeball back into its socket" (10.67). (Okay, that one's going to trigger our own nosebleed. Or gag reflex.) And when she can't help her patients any longer, she writes their obituaries.

See what all these jobs have in common? Miss Volker is a caretaker and a nurturer. She helps to fix Jack's nose, because the family can't afford to have the town's doctor do it; she writes obituaries to remember the old folks who nobody else cares for. She's a real class act.

Miss Volker is also an amateur historian, becoming mouthpiece for the book's insistence that you have to remember your history. She writes Jack's favorite column in the Norvelt News, This Day In History, and she also connects each obituary with an interesting historical person or event that holds some significance for that day. We suspect that she might stretch the truth in more than one of these instances, though. One example is when she recounts the story of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying on the same day (July 4). She says that each of them says as their last words that the other still lives (16.71), which seems—dubious. But we shouldn't necessarily look at this as outright lying, and it doesn't make readers consider her a dishonest character. It's more like Miss Volker participates in the longstanding tradition of American urban legends and tall tales. She, herself, even recognizes this when she says, "Most of what I say is true [...] But if you don't know your history you won't know the difference between the truth and wishful thinking" (16.21). She makes meaning out of historical events, and she helps the townspeople find the lessons they should draw.

Many of Miss Volker's history lessons feature people who are downtrodden and oppressed in some way. Two memorable stories: first, her sister adopted a Japanese baby to save him from going to an interment camp during World War II (14.52-53); second, how the first African American resident of Norvelt came to live there (24.18-20). She also has very definite opinions on who the "real American heroes" are, such as the anarchists who fight for "workers' rights and justice" (17.63). So, does Miss Volker have a kind of subversive, "occupy" vibe to her? We'd say so. Plus, at one point she even admits that she would "love to step into a hole and vanish with a handsome revolutionary and live a life of exotic adventure" (17.87).

Fun fact? "Volk" means "people" in German. Coincidence? We don't think so. Miss Volker really is a woman of the people. One resident of Norvelt memorably describes Miss Volker as having a "machine gun for a mouth" (27.5). You know: fast, unstoppable, and… lethal? Well, she's at least feisty, outspoken, and well able to hold her own with almost anyone in town. At various points, she takes on both Mr. Spizz and Mr. Huffer in fast-paced verbal tennis matches. She's also quite the active orator when she dictates her obituaries.

Miss Volker takes her duty to Mrs. Roosevelt seriously. Deadly seriously, it turns out. Since she vowed to write the "final health report" for all of Norvelt's original citizens (2.107), she puts her own life on hold until she has done so, which means she has to stay in Norvelt until all of the original residents have either moved out or passed away. That's a major commitment, and it means that she can't marry Mr. Spizz (whatev: she doesn't really want to anyway, since she only agreed to it in a "weak moment" [10.56]). What she would really like to do is to visit her sister in Florida, but her duty comes first.

Jack's Mother (Mrs. Gantos) Jack's mom embodies the spirit and values of the original Norvelt: she is community-focused and is always ready to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it. She grew up in Norvelt, and "[s]he knew and loved everyone in our little town and they loved her too" (4.44). No matter what you think of Mrs. Gantos's communitarian ideals, you have to admit that she's one nice lady, selflessly donating her time and labor for helping the poor and elderly in the town. That's one reason she's so mad when Jack mows down her cornfield: she was growing that corn to sell in order to buy food for making charity dinners for the sick and elderly (4.30-32). She comes down pretty hard on Jack for this, and we can see how important taking care of the less fortunate is to her: "You took food away from hungry people. From poor people. Nothing can be lower and more cruel than that" (5.63).

But there's a problem with this mode of thinking. Jack's mom is sort of living in the past—like, the way past—when it comes to how things work financially. She tries to buy things by bartering (exchanging one item for another of similar value). For example, she tries to buy Jack's nose surgery with some home-canned fruit, and offers to exchange Jack's labor for the services of the farrier. To her, a trip to the doctor is similar to borrowing a cup of sugar (7.9). Problem is? These trades are worthless, because everyone wants cold, hard cash—and they want it now.

Jack's mom is a strong female character, just like Miss Volker. (Huh. Speaking of, what is it with all the bad dudes in this book?) She's the primary adult figure in the household, since Jack's Dad is so childish, and she pretty much "wears the pants in [the] family" (13.9). Even Jack's dad is afraid of getting in trouble her, going so far as to hide out in Jack's room and the garage to avoid being scolded by his wife. Actually, he goes even further, getting out of town when she's extra mad (6.1).

She can also hold a grudge and hang onto anger: "It was as if she could preserve her anger and store it in a glass jar next to the hot horseradish and yellow beans and corn chowchow she kept in the dank basement pantry. And when she needed some anger she could just go into the basement and open a jar and get worked up all over again" (6.1). With such a strong personality for a mom, is it any wonder that Jack is a little, well, weak? Maybe not. But it also makes sense that he ends up finding the same kind of strength—and even anger—by the end of the novel.

Jack's Father (Mr. Gantos) Well, they do say opposites attract, right? That's about the only reason we can imagine why Jack's mom and dad got together, because Jack's father is his wife's polar opposite. For example:

 He hates living in Norvelt and wants to leave to find better business opportunities— especially in Florida.  He's immature, and does some pretty dumb things in the book, including damaging other people's property.  He thinks Norvelt's principle of community is basically just another word for communism— and he sure hates communists. It's true that some of his bad points might be explained by his time served in World War II. We learn in several places that he's seen some horrible things and has probably had to do some pretty bad things, too. But does going to war give you an excuse to be, well, a terrible person? Let's take a closer look.

Dads are supposed to be role models for their sons, right? Not in this case. Most of the time, Jack's dad is off chasing after his own pursuits, and they're pretty childish pursuits. Like the airplane he builds. Not only does he create an illegal runway for it, but he explains his wanderlust in pretty juvenile terms: "You and I are building a runway out back and we need that field so we can fly anywhere we want at any time" (4.62). He doesn't really know where he's going or what he wants to do; he just knows he wants to get out of Norvelt. Did you ever try to run away when you were younger, and get like halfway down the street before thinking, "Gee…I have no clue what I'm doing?" That's Jack's dad.

That might be excusable for a kid, but for an adult—with a child and a wife—it just seems selfish. And Mr. Gantos's other actions aren't any better, like when he has Jack mow down his wife's cornfield, because he wants to build a runway and a bomb shelter. He makes this decision all on his own, without even discussing it with her first. So much for teamwork in the family, not to mention that she was growing the corn for Norvelt's poor people. Now, all of this wouldn't be too terribly bad, but by the end of the book, Jack's father goes from being someone who is just kind of an immature jerk to someone that we (probably) actively dislike.

One of the main reasons Jack's dad hates Norvelt is because he believes it's a "Commie town" that focuses too much on communitarian values instead of Good Old American Capitalism. He thinks Florida is "where a hardworking man could make big money building houses for rich people" (4.51). In contrast, he views Norvelt as "a dirt-poor Commie town that is dying out" (4.41). He considers himself a "real man" (4.43), compared to all the "Commies" that live in the town.

Is this true? Without saying anything about whether he's right, we can point out that, well, we wouldn't believe much of anything that Mr. Gantos said. He's such an unsympathetic character that all of his ideas (and ideals) seem just a little suspect. Not to mention that his hatred of communists seems just a little bit irrational. Sure, lots of people in the 1960s were worried about Russian communists. But Jack's dad goes a little further ... all the way into crazytown territory. He believes that the Russians "had already sneaked into the country and were planning to launch a surprise attack" (1.33).

Stella "Bunny" Huffer Bunny is Jack's best friend. She's also got one ironic name, because she's anything but Bunny like—except for her size. See, she's a very small girl who can "run full speed under her dining room table without ducking" (5.1). Wow. Either that's a tall dining room table, or she really is a wee little thing. There's a big personality in this little package, though: she's "tough, smart, and daring," and Jack thinks she's "better than any guy" (5.3). (Gee, um, thanks?) As you can probably guess, she's kind of a tomboy, too. She's active and hands-on, constantly shoving, poking, and throwing things. And people. Her dad is the owner of the town's funeral parlor, so Bunny basically "grew up in a house full of dead people" (5.3). Sounds kind of gross, right? Sure, if you're not used to it—but so is peanut butter, if you're not used to it. Bunny doesn't think it's gross, and she's not afraid of anything. She even tries to get Jack to overcome some of his fears, like when she physically makes him touch a dead body. (Maybe not the most sensitive way to do it.)

Bunny has a good sense of humor and—-no surprise—a morbid one. She tells lots of dead people jokes ("Look alive, you bunch of stiffs" [5.2]), and gets a huge kick out of Jack's squeamishness.

Mr. Spizz He's a jack-of-all-trades, a man-about-town, and (apparently) a pillar of the community: as a member of the Norvelt Association for the Public Good, a volunteer firefighter, and a volunteer policeman, he's got his eye on the whole town. He's also the "town busybody" (he always seems to know what's going on with everyone) (2.15), and he seems to think that the whole town should operate just the way he wants it to. He has an obnoxious, fog-horn voice (e.g. 26.59); he's a "heavy breather" (3.1); and he has gross habits, like picking yellow earwax out of his ear (15.25). As if that weren't enough, he also rides around town on a ridiculous "giant adult-sized tricycle" (3.17).He is nothing but a really old man-child. When he doesn't get what he wants, he obsesses about it for, oh, almost half a century.

Mr. Huffer Mr. Huffer owns the funeral parlor that sponsors Jack's baseball team, and, more importantly, he's Bunny's dad. The author) really has fun with Mr. Huffer's description, making him seem like the perfect person for the job: his suit is "the color of black lungs" and "spongy" (5.2), and he smells like "pickled onions" (5.2). Are you charmed, yet? He also has a limp handshake and smells like rotted meat —on top of the pickled onions. In a nutshell, he's a creepy dude and everything about him just screams death. No wonder he doesn't seem very sincere when he comforts people at funerals, resembling a human teapot with his "[c]lassic one- hand-on-hip mournful pose while his other hand reached out to pat someone on the shoulder" (9.97).

We quickly start getting the idea that this "humble, sad-man" pose is just pretense (23.30). Turns out, Mr. Huffer is actually just in it for the money. Take cremations: he hates them, since they don't make his business nearly as much money as a funeral with a "casket and all the pricey trimmings" (8.34). To boost his income, Mr. Huffer starts selling the unoccupied houses (unoccupied because their owners are recently deceased) to the town of Eleanor, WV. He plans to re-locate there, because the town has more people—which means more people to die. Oh, and he's also got plans to build a development called "Hufferville" on the empty land left behind in Norvelt.

Like Jack's Dad, Mr. Huffer represents the more capitalistic, individualist mindset, and not the more communitarian spirit upon which Norvelt was founded. He doesn't actually do anything illegal, but you definitely get the sense that he's not too concerned with the community. And the biggest problem? He has no sense of history. He thinks Norvelt is just a "museum," and, well, he doesn't see the point of museum. He'd rather just sell off all that old stuff—as long as he could get a good price for it. Girl Scouts (Mertie-Jo Kernecky and Betsy Howdi) There aren't too many other kids in Dead End in Norvelt—but there are a couple of girl scouts. (Where else do you think they got the cookies?)

Mertie-Jo Kernecky Mertie-Jo Kernecky is the closest thing to a love interest Jack has, and that's not saying a whole lot. Her smile is "naturally sweet" and she has the habit of speaking in a soft voice while dropping her head to the side like a "dazed sunflower" (21.4). (Ha! That made us laugh.) Unfortunately, she's not nearly as sweet as her smile. In fact, she's kind of manipulative and calculating, as we find out when her smile is wiped away with "one lizard lick of the lips" when Jack refuses to buy any of her Girl Scout cookies. Being compared to a reptile? Pretty much always bad. In fact, we can't think of a single instance in which being compared to a lizard would be flattering. (Unless you were talking about limb regeneration, maybe. Now that's cool.)

Anyway, lizard-lips aside (see? not flattering), it's obvious Jack likes Mertie-Jo. He tells us as much, but he also adds that he doesn't like her too much because she most likely wouldn't like him back (10.111). She makes fun of him for being afraid of the skeleton in the car trunk (21.27), so she comes off as a kind of manipulative mean girl.

Betsy Howdi Betsy Howdi is the only other teenage girl we meet in Dead End in Norvelt. She is also part of the Girl Scout troop, but plays a minor supporting role. Jack describes her as having a "mocking dark-eyed face" (10.110), which doesn't make her sound too nice—but still comes off better than lizard-lips. Mr. Greene Mr. Greene is the publisher of the Norvelt News. We don't see much of him (only when Jack delivers the obituaries), but what we do see of him suggests that he's smart and perceptive. Jack shows us how a "cloud of smoke hung over his head like a cartoon thought bubble full of swirling, unformed thoughts" (16.33), a nice visual of his quick mind. How quick? He's the first person in the town to put things together and suggest that maybe someone should look into all of the deaths (21.59

Mrs. Slater Mrs. Slater was one busy bee when she was alive. She was a beekeeper (a really important job in a farming community, because of the pollination—and also the delicious honey), and was also active in the "Mother's Club of Norvelt, the Fancy Hat Club, and the Lutheran Church" (2.79).

Fun fact about the Slaters: they're known for their hard heads (hard like slate, maybe?) (2.77). One notorious Slater daughter had been captured by Indians in the 1830s (heads up: this novel takes place in the 1960s, so we're going with the book's 1960s terminology). The girl was scalped during this kidnapping, but ended up living to a bald old age. She's so hardcore that, instead of hiding her experience, she ends up wearing a "wig made of curly hamster fur" (2.77). We have to ask: just how many poor hamsters does it take to make such a wig?

Mrs. Dubicki We kind of want Mrs. Dubicki to be our grandma. She's feisty and fearless, chasing Mr. Spizz off her lawn with her husband's shotgun and telling Jack, dressed as the Grim Reaper, to come back in two weeks, when she'll be ready to die (8.74). She says this will give her time to "wrap up her business" and "say [her] goodbyes," since she is "ready to meet [her] husband in heaven" (8.74).

We learn that she was also fearless as a little girl. Her family emigrated to America from Slovenia during a famine. They nearly starved on the boat trip to America, and Mrs. Dubicki was accidentally left behind on board. Instead of freaking out or giving up, she hid out in the captain's pantry and fattened herself on his food while waiting to be reunited with her family.

To be honest, she does seem a little bit lonely—lonely enough to invite the Grim Reaper (Jack) for a cup of tea (8.78), although Miss Volker thinks that this hospitality "reveals her good upbringing" (8.90). But if our friends, family, and husband were all gone, well, we'd be lonely too.

Mrs. Linga Mrs. Linga is a nice old lady who has been suffering from a broken hip. She's quite the artist: her house is filled with amazingly lifelike carvings of ducks, and she also carved her husband's wooden leg. Now that is cool. We know that she's a kind- hearted woman, because for many years she helped take care of the mules (used to haul heavy coal-mining carts into and out of the mines) until machines replaced the animals.

Mrs. Hamsby Miss Volker describes Mrs. Hamsby as "one of the good ones" (21.40)—and think we know why. As Norvelt's first postmistress, and she saved undeliverable mail throughout her whole career. Miss Volker thinks of these letters as pieces of history: "within the lost letter was the folded soul of the writer wrapped in the body of the envelope and mailed into the unknown" (21.44).

Each room in Mrs. Hamsby's house is wallpapered with postage stamps—some with people and some with landscapes. Because of this, her house is like a "tiny museum of lost history" (21.44)—and you know Miss Volker and Jack feel about history. No wonder she rates so highly in their books. (And this one.)

Mrs. Vinyl We don't get a whole lot of info on Mrs. Vinyl. The main anecdote that Miss Volker tells about her centers on Mrs. Vinyl's 60th birthday party, which took place right in the middle of World War II. All of her friends contributed "teaspoons and tablespoons" of flour and sugar to help bake her a huge birthday cake (23.35). What does that show us? Well, during World War II, those items were rationed. People were only allowed to buy a certain (small) amount at a time. And you're not going to give up your precious baking supplies for someone you only kinda-sorta like. Since Mrs. Vinyl dies on August 6, Miss Volker uses the obituary to share some history about the bombing of Hiroshima. And as a nice morbid touch, author- Gantos gives us an image of the partygoers having "black lips as if they had eaten a plateful of ashes" after eating the cake—which had burned when the birthday candles blazed up too high (23.35).

Mrs. Bloodgood The only thing we really know about Mrs. Bloodgood is that she fought against the first African-American family (the Whites) moving into Norvelt. And isn't that enough to know? She got all of the town's residents together to make sure that that the family's application to live in Norvelt was denied (24.18).

This is one of the few instances where the book raises issues of race and ethnicity, which really would have been on people's minds in 1964. Mrs. Bloodgood's name even speaks to this issue: She felt that African Americans did not have "good blood" (were not equivalent to whites), so should not move into the town.

We don't like to speak ill of the dead, but, yikes. It's hard to get too sad about this one.

Mrs. Droogie Rounding out the old lady crew is Mrs. Droogie, a violin prodigy who had played with the NY Philharmonic Orchestra—and all around the world. It turns out, though, that Mrs. Droogie only did this to please her parents (apparently they had tiger moms even back then). So, at the age of 23, she quit. Just like that.

So, instead of being a world-famous violinist, she ends up marrying Mr. Droogie, who made his living by dressing up as a clown for children's birthday parties. She then "became famous for her laughter" (26.47), which is a different sort of music. Mrs. Droogie is a good example of Miss Volker's insistence that "self-love" is the most important kind of love: "[Y]ou don't have to do what your parents want or what your boyfriend wants for you to be happy. You just have to be yourself, for there is no love greater than self-love" (26.48).

Hells Angels It's not too surprising that, with a name like Hells Angels, these guys are bad news. (Although you'll be glad to know they've cleaned up their act a little since the 1960s.)

Dead Hells Angel The first Hells Angel we meet, if you can call it that, is an unnamed biker dude who danced—yes, you read that right, danced—into Norvelt from a nearby town right before he was flattened by a cement truck. The only time we see him is when he's laid out on the mortuary slab as Miss Volker examines him, but it's quite a view. He was apparently mean and tough and a devil worshiper to boot, or so the Norvelters judge by his tattoos. He has tons of them, including a snake with "666" in its mouth and a devil's tail spiraling down one leg (9.93). As if those didn't contain enough heavy-handed devilish imagery, he also has a gruesome meat cleaver tattoo on his chest. This one looks like "the cleaver has chopped open his flesh so you can see his open heart, which is black. And in the middle of the black heart is the laughing red face of the devil" (9.103). Clearly, this dude was bad news, and kept equally bad company.

But: Miss Volker describes him as a "nice young man" and she sells her sister's house to him (12.56), so maybe appearances are deceiving. There lots of reasons someone might choose to get a devil's face tattooed on his chest. Right?

Alive Hells Angels The other Hells Angels are (of course) mean, tough, threatening. They roll into town on their loud motorcycles (duh), wearing black leather jackets. Some even wear brass knuckles and Nazi helmets (11.31). Not surprisingly, they're also thieves (they steal one of Mr. Huffer's most expensive caskets), arsonists (they burn down one house, and attempt to start at least one other fire), and brawlers (one aims a throat-slitting motion in Jack's direction) (11.33). Basically, they're major anarchists—but not the gentle, Emma Goodman kind. They believe in destroying communities rather than building them, and so they represent everything that's the opposite of Norvelt. Miss Volker's Sister We never actually meet Miss Volker's sister (she doesn't even get a name), because she left her hometown recently, and now lives in Florida. She is an important presence in the book, though, since a key moment is when her former house is burned down. During her time in Norvelt, she was the head of the Federal Art Project, and taught art classes (ceramics and painting) (14.51). She also helped Miss Volker with the obituaries, like Jack now does. We know from Miss Volker's stories that she's a kind and generous person who embodies the community ideals of Norvelt. Because she couldn't have her own child, she and her husband adopted a Japanese baby whose parents were being sent to an internment camp (14.52). Sadly, they only had the baby for six months before the government took him away. No one ever found out anything else about him, and Miss Volker's sister was heartbroken.

The Farrier Here's another unnamed character who seems to be here pretty much to teach a lesson: don't make snap judgments based on appearances. Jack mistakes him for a Hells Angel, which isn't too surprising: he's huge, and "had a long beard combed down the middle and pulled back over his shoulders and tied together in a knot behind his neck" (20.2). Oh, yeah, and he rides a chopper. We soon find out that he actually used to be a Hells Angel, but got tired of "fighting all the time and being really drunk" (20.8). So, now he "just takes care of animals" (20.8). His work is careful and gentle, and he gives War Chief a nice bunch of carrots when he is finished. He's also gentle with Jack. Here's what he does when he thinks Jack is suffering from heat exhaustion: "He looked me in the eye then reached forward and placed his big, soft hand on my forehead" (20.16). Lesson learned: even scary- looking biker dudes can have hearts of gold.

Dr. Metz and Mrs. Woodcliff Dr. Metz is the town doctor, and—Mrs. Woodcliff is his receptionist. Dr. Metz recommends that Jack have his nose fixed and eat iron-fortified cereal to help his nosebleeding condition (7.18). He's a man of science: he shows Jack how iron-rich the cereal is by crushing some up and holding a magnet to it, drawing out the iron flecks (7.18). But he's also a man of business: Dr. Metz will only take cash in exchange for his services, and not any of the home-canned fruits or vegetables that Jack's Mom offers to exchange. Dr. Metz represents the future of Norvelt: less community; more cold, hard cash.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Even though she’s not in the book directly, she is a huge part of the story. You can find information about her online.