Hello, Universe

“Virgil had long suspected that his brothers were crafted out of a factory that made perfect, athletic, perpetually happy children, and he was made from all the leftover parts.” 

As in the previous quote, Virgil is making an unfavorable comparison between himself and his family. His outcast status is emphasized further because his brothers are twins while he is the loner sibling. His choice of words to describe them implies an ideal, while he is made of scraps.

“When they called him Turtle, it was like when Chet Bullens at school called him a retard. He knew his parents weren’t like Chet Bullens, but he also knew that they were poking fun at his shyness.”

Virgil’s dilemma is that he is being persecuted on two fronts. While he can avoid the school bully, his home provides no refuge. Although his family doesn’t mean to be cruel, they erode his self-esteem as surely as Chet’s taunts do. 

“My name could lead people into battle. Valencia! Valencia! Valencia! Whether you think it or write it on paper, it’s a good, strong name. The name of someone who enters a room and says ‘Here I am!’ instead of ‘Where are you?’” 

Valencia is proud of her name and proud of the strength that it implies. This offers a strong contrast to Virgil’s nickname of Turtle, which he loathes. The temperaments of the two children match their names as well. Valencia could lead armies. At the beginning of the story. Virgil would simply hide from them. 

“Respect came in two flavors, Mr. Bullens said: fear or admiration. Sometimes both. Otherwise you’re just a weakling at the bottom of the food chain, ready to get crushed under someone else’s boot.” 

Chet absorbs this toxic doctrine from his father without question. Mr. Bullens views life as a “kill or be killed” proposition. Because of his defensiveness, he is constantly on the lookout for people he can belittle so that they don’t pose a threat to him. Like father, like son. 

“When the class filed out, Valencia stayed behind, studying the snake, and no one even told her to move. Not even Mr. Frederick. It was like she was invisible.” 

This observation is offered from Chet’s point of view. While he correctly notes Valencia’s invisibility, he envies it as a sign of privilege. He also fears it as something almost supernatural. He fails to realize that invisibility also implies isolation. 

“Pah controlled the darkness and used it as a weapon. He knew that darkness turned people weak because it confused them and made them wander. The darkness created easy victims because no one could fight an enemy they could not see.” 

Virgil is talking about the folk tale of Pah, but his words could easily be applied to his own fear. After the well cover is replaced, Virgil has a panic attack because he is left in utter darkness and immediately imagines that Pah is stalking him. Metaphorically speaking, Pah embodies fear, and Virgil’s fear is trying to devour him. 

“I don’t just walk through the woods. I feel them. When the leaves shake in the wind, they tickle my skin. When I step on fallen branches, the snaps move through my feet.” 

Valencia is describing the experience of a deaf person. She compensates for a lack of sound by heightened tactile sensations. Her choice of the word “feel” may also refer to a hyperawareness that can only be described as a sixth sense. Her perception of the forest is no less rich simply because she is deaf. 

“But the hearing aids don’t work by themselves. I have to be able to see people’s faces so I can put the sounds and lip movements together. Like two pieces in a puzzle […] I’m the only one solving the puzzle” 

Valencia describes the peculiar coordination between ears and lips required for her to hear. She has become adept at deciphering what people mean by matching the two. This skill is supremely useful in solving the puzzle of the missing Virgil. As an expert puzzle solver, Valencia is the only one who can put all the random events of Saturday together into a coherent pattern. 

“It’s not that he felt unloved, exactly. He just didn’t know why his parents were so preoccupied with him ‘coming out of his shell.’ What was so bad about a shell, anyway? Turtles had survived on earth more than two hundred million years.”

Virgil comes to this conclusion while at the bottom of the well. Being physically separated from his family gives him the chance to reassess their view of him. By questioning their assumptions, he begins to form a sense of his own value. He doesn’t have to be like them to be worthy, just as a turtle doesn’t need to mimic the behavior of a noisy parrot to survive.

“But Kaori knew better. The secrets of the universe buried themselves in unusual and beautiful objects such as these, and only a select few could pull those secrets out. So she had bought the crystals for ten cents.”

Kaori uses colored glass pebbles as divination crystals. She is perfectly comfortable mixing the mundane with the magical. This is also the reason she can see cosmic connections among events that both Virgil and Valencia are willing to dismiss as coincidence. 

“One time, in Ms. Murray’s class, he had said—in a low, low voice—exactly what he was thinking. ‘But I didn’t raise my hand.’ ‘Sometimes life calls on you even when you don’t raise your hand,’ she’d said.” 

Virgil remembers this incident while sealed at the bottom of the well, although he doesn’t consciously make the connection between his teacher’s words and what is happening to him now. Life has called on him by sending him down the well so that he can defeat his fears and become a hero worthy of Valencia. 

“It’s like you live in a bubble. Everyone looks at you like you’re invisible. And then one day . . . you are invisible. That would be scary to anyone.”

Kaori offers these words as an interpretation of Valencia’s solar eclipse nightmare. She also echoes Chet’s earlier comment about Valencia being invisible. The girl’s deafness has already separated her from casual surrounding conversations so that people have come to treat her as if she didn’t exist. Valencia has augmented to the problem by her self-imposed isolation. Her dream implies that the illusion of invisibility has become real.

“Ruby sighed. ‘That’s the problem. People don’t want to listen to their thoughts, so they fill the world with noise.’” 

Ruby is commenting on Virgil’s raucous family, yet the boy fears complete silence as well because it would leave him with no distraction from his own self-reproach. Ironically, Valencia experiences a world of continuous silence. She has nothing to contemplate but her own thoughts yet isn’t frightened because she carries no negative opinions about herself as Virgil does. 

“There are many different ways to be strong. And being a warrior has nothing to do with size. Surely there have been small warriors before.” 

Ruby makes this comment after Virgil reproaches himself for his predicament. He is again indulging in the self-destructive habit of comparing his puny physique to that of his robust brothers. Being separated from them in the well allows him the time and silence to develop a healthy respect for his own capabilities. 

“‘That’s the universe sending you a letter,’ said Ruby. He thought of Lola and how she always seemed to know what he was feeling. Maybe—somehow—she would feel that he was in trouble now. ‘I think Lola gets lots of letters,’ he said. ‘We all do,’ Ruby replied. ‘Some of us are just better at opening them.’” 

Ruby points out that people receive communication all the time through their thoughts. When Virgil thinks of his grandmother, this thought activates Lola to contact Valencia and ask where Virgil is. Both Lola and Kaori accept the reality of cosmic influences in their lives. This is why they can both open invisible letters from the universe.

“He was suffocating in a land of lost opportunities, where he should have talked to Valencia, told Lola that he loved her, tried to understand his parents and brothers, thanked Kaori for being such a good friend to him. And now it was too late for any of that.” 

Virgil is on the verge of confronting his inner demons. For the first time, he realizes what his overwhelming sense of fear has cost him, and he begins to mourn his losses. Though he hasn’t yet turned his life around, he’s on the brink of making that change. 

“Crying hurt. That’s why he hated it so much. ‘Crying is good for the soul,’ said Ruby softly. ‘It means something needs to be released. And if you don’t release the something, it just weighs you down until you can hardly move.’” 

This quote reinforces the previous one. As Virgil reproaches himself for all his lost opportunities, all he can do is cry. Ruby defines this experience as therapeutic. Virgil wants to hold everything inside, but his only hope of transformation lies in letting it all out. 

“‘Of all the questions you ever ask yourself in life, never ask, “What’s the point?” It’s the worst question in the world,’ Ruby said. ‘You sound like Lola.’ ‘Good.’” 

Virgil has reached a level of complete despair. He’s struck rock bottom. When Ruby urges him to call for help, he doesn’t believe it will do any good, so he doesn’t even try. Since Ruby and Lola represent the tiny glimmer of hope that Virgil still possesses, they both rebuke him for his willingness to give up on life. 

“Friends. Something about the way she says it makes me feel like I found something. I know it sounds corny, but in that moment, with that one word, I already feel like a different person. Is that possible?” 

Kaori has just offhandedly referred to Valencia as her friend. The latter feels changed by that word. Throughout the novel, Valencia has refused to acknowledge her complete isolation, which is why she rejects Kaori’s interpretation of her dream. It’s only when she finds a friend that she allows herself to admit her loneliness.

“He didn’t want to fall asleep thinking about all the ways he’d failed in life, so he decided to imagine what he would do differently if he was ever rescued.”

Virgil is still convinced that no one will ever find him, and he’s surrendered to death. In doing so, he’s finally released his fear. That release makes way for a new set of notions that aren’t fear-based, and Virgil begins to think about constructive change for the first time.

“The world looks different through newly opened eyes, Virgilio. It’s the trick of time. What you believe today, you may not believe tomorrow. Things change when you’re not looking”

After dismissing his fears of Pah, Virgil falls asleep, remembering Lola’s words. His time in the darkness has shifted his perspective away from fear and towards courage. He repeats Lola’s words again when he literally and metaphorically opens his eyes after his nap and finds his rescuers calling him.

“I don’t mind that he’s being quiet. Some people are shy, that’s all. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have manners. I know what it’s like to have people waiting on you to say the right thing, even if you don’t know what the right thing is.”

Valencia isn’t concerned that Virgil doesn’t immediately thank her for helping him out of the well. Her deafness gives her a unique perspective on the value of silence. Perhaps this quality of not overemphasizing speech is what attracted Virgil to Valencia in the first place.

“It doesn’t take many words to turn your life around, Bayani.”

All his life, Virgil has been cowed by his overly verbal family. He prizes speech because they prize it. However, he has just managed to force Chet to back down with a single sentence. Ruby’s comment makes him realize that flowery speeches aren’t necessary to intimidate a bully or to impress a deaf girl.