Freak the Mighty
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Search all of eNotes Search rows Navigate Study Guide Introduction Kevin is brilliant, but his body is so crippled by birth defects that he has to wear braces on his legs. Max is huge and powerful, but he has been so scarred by life that he feels dumb and worthless. Independently, each boy seems like half a person, but when they meet the summer before eighth grade starts, they join together, becoming inseparable friends as Freak the Mighty. The novel Freak the Mighty tells the story of one defining year in the boys’ lives. It follows them through their first meeting, their summer adventures, their return to school, and even Max’s Christmas Eve kidnapping at the hands of his murderous father. Although the boys are eventually reunited, their happiness cannot last forever. Kevin’s health problems worsen, leading to his death and the end of Freak the Mighty. A devastated Max learns how to face the world without his best friend. Full of what could be trite or maudlin subject matter—a learningdisabled narrator, a physically challenged boy, a convict father—Freak the Mighty integrates every element smoothly and naturally. The result is a charming, funny blend of realism and fairytale dreaming that in the end is very moving. Freak the Mighty Summary Max and Kevin met for the first time when they were both in day care. Max was an angry kid called Kicker because he kicked everyone, while Kevin called himself Robot Man because of the leg braces he had to wear. Then Kevin stopped coming to day care, and the boys lost contact until they saw one another briefly in third grade. The summer before eighth grade, Kevin and his mother moved in next door to Max’s grandparents’ house, where he lived in the basement. The boys meet again when Max helps Kevin get his mechanical bird from the tree where it is stuck. The two boys become friends, and the two families start visiting back and forth. On the Fourth of July, the boys are on their way to see the fireworks when they run into Tony D. and his gang of teenage thugs. Kevin teases them, and the situation potentially turns dangerous until a police car shows up. The boys have a great time watching the fireworks, with Kevin sitting on Max’s shoulders, but as the crowd breaks up, Tony D. and his friends find them again. Kevin guides Max as the pair runs away, leaving Tony and his gang stranded in a muddy pond. Max’s grandparents are happy that Max was there to help Kevin (though Max knows it was really Kevin whose quick mind helped him). This starts a happy and extended partnership between the two boys. Every morning Kevin comes over to rouse Max, who carries Kevin all over town. They have imaginary quests, such as looking for dragons, and as they do, Kevin encourages Max to think, dream, and read. On one of these quests, Kevin guides Max to the hospital’s medical research building, claiming that the hospital staff is developing robot bodies and when they are ready Kevin’s identity will be transplanted into one. Their quests become real one morning when Kevin arranges for Max to get up at 3 a.m. and dress all in black. Kevin then guides Max to a sewer grate where a purse has fallen. They return it to the owner the next day, which means going into the tenement housing on the far side of the pond, a poor and crimeridden place. The purse’s owner, Loretta Lee, lives with Iggy Lee, head of a local motorcycle gang. The adults tease the boys a bit and talk to them; they recognize Max because he looks so much like his father, Kenny “Killer” Kane, who is currently in jail. When school starts, Kevin’s mother gets the school to agree to let Max and Kevin be in the same classes so that Max can help Kevin get around. This is a big change because Kevin is in the advanced classes while Max had been in classes for slow learners. The first time their English teacher calls on Max, the other kids start teasing him. Kevin then climbs up on Max’s shoulders and declares that together they are Freak the Mighty, winning everyone’s approval. Soon after this, Max is called to the principal’s office, where he learns that his father will soon be released on parole. Max becomes unhinged and has to be restrained. Later that day, Kevin is eating chop suey in the school cafeteria and has a seizure. That Christmas Eve, after the two friends exchange their first gifts, Max goes to bed. However, instead of Santa Claus coming to bring presents, Max’s father, Kenny, sneaks into the house and kidnaps Max. Kenny takes him first to Iggy and Loretta’s place in the tenements, and then to an old woman’s home nearby. Kenny claims that Max’s grandparents have poisoned his mind against his father, so Kenny keeps Max tied up and explains what Max’s new life will be like. Because police keep coming around the old woman’s house, Kenny hides with Max in a burnedout building across the alley from the tenements. Kenny ties Max in the basement and then leaves to see if he can get a car. While he is gone, Loretta sneaks in to help Max escape. They have just managed to cut Max free of the ropes holding him when Kenny returns and begins choking Loretta for helping Max. Max attacks his father, screaming that he saw Kenny kill his mother. Kenny turns his murderous attention on Max, starting to choke him. Suddenly Kevin shows up with a squirt gun that he claims is filled with acid. He squirts Kenny in the eyes, and while they are burning (from what is later revealed to be soap, vinegar, and curry), Max escapes. Kenny is arrested and returned to jail. The rest of the school year goes well, but once school is out again, Kevin has a seizure on his birthday. He is taken to the hospital, and it is some time before Max gets to visit. While he is visiting, Kevin has another attack and Max has to leave. When Max returns the next day, Kevin has died. Max is distraught and punches through the glass door to the medical research area. Once he is restrained and calmed down, Max asks Dr. Spivak, Kevin’s doctor, about the bionic body. Max learns that there had never been any plans for one—that it had just been a dream of Kevin’s to help him cope with his condition. Max withdraws from the world, grieving the death of Freak the Mighty for about a year, but eventually heals as he writes down the story of their adventures and friendship. Freak the Mighty Chapter Summaries Chapters 1 and 2 Summary In the summer before their eighth grade year, Freak moves in down the block from the house where Max lives with his maternal grandparents, whom he affectionately calls “Grim” and “Gram.” Max had met Freak in daycare a long time ago, but his memories of the past are confused. As Freak says: Remembering is a great invention of the mind, and if you try hard enough you can remember anything, whether it really happened or not. Max recalls that back then, he had had a reputation for “booting anyone who dared to touch” him. Having just been taken in by Grim and Gram, he had been an angry child who quickly earned the nickname “Kicker.” Max remembers that Freak had not attended daycare regularly; when he did show up, he got around on crutches or with “shiny braces strapped to his crooked legs.” Little Freak would pretend that he was Robot Man and quickly made it clear to everyone that despite his small stature, he was not someone to “mess with.” Max does not recollect seeing Freak again after daycare until “like...the third grade or something,” when he caught a glimpse of “this yellowhaired kid scowling at [him] from one of those cripple vans.” By that time, Mad Max, as he was most commonly called, had a variety of nicknames; ironically, the name he hated most was his real name, Maxwell. Max had once overheard his grandparents whispering about how much “Maxwell was getting to look like Him.” He knows that Grim and Gram were talking about his father, whom they referred to as if his name was “too scary to say.” Grim has built a small room in the basement, which Max calls his “own private down under.” Even though he describes himself as “this critter hiding out in the basement, drooling in [his] comic books,” Max actually enjoys having a room of his own where he can escape the scrutiny of others. Max does not think of himself as being a very smart person, and he makes frequent references to his perceived intellectual deficiencies. He concludes that he had “never had a brain until Freak moved [in] down the street.” Freak moves back into the neighborhood on the first day of July. Max is “hanging out” in his backyard when he sees the moving van. He notices Freak’s mother, who “looks like some kind of movie star” and seems vaguely familiar. His attention is then drawn to “this crippledup yellowhaired midget kid strutting around the sidewalk,” imperiously giving orders to the men unloading the van. Freak has a “normalsized head,” but his body is twisted, and “shorter than a yardstick.” He is on crutches, and when he sees Max, he points a crutch at him, hollering, “Identify yourself, earthling!” Max, who by now recognizes Freak as “the weird little robot kid from day care,” gives no response.