Slider

“Being the middle kid of three is like being the beef in a SooperSlider—you’re just there to weld the bun together.”

With this whimsical metaphor, David expresses his frustration over being relegated to a mere supporting role in the family and laments the fact that he does not receive as much care or attention as his siblings do. Because his own interests lie in the realm of competitive eating, the author extends the novel’s food-related imagery when David discusses his family dynamics as well.

“I walk home. Mom is in the front yard working on her peonies. She asks me to go check on Mal. It’s automatic. She says it a hundred times a day. I check on Mal.”

This quote illustrates the dynamic between David, Mom, and Mal and emphasizes the fact that David feels underappreciated and taken for granted. The short, abrupt sentences illustrate his frustration and show how automated this process is for David and Mom, as their lives revolve around meeting Mal’s needs.

“My situation is seriously desperate, and I’m not talking about the sliders in my gut. Sometime in the next few weeks, an envelope will arrive in the mail, and it will contain my mother’s Visa bill, and there will be a two-thousand-dollar charge from BuyBuy, and life as I know it will come to an end.”

After failing to win any cash at the slider contest, David senses that he will reap devastating consequences for his auction mishap. David’s guilt and worries about his parents’ discovery and reaction to his mistake motivate him to hide the problem entirely, and as a result, his error is compounded by The Consequences of Lying by Omission.

“I keep thinking about HeyMan and Cyn. It bugs me that they would be hanging out together without calling me, even if it’s just to watch Cyn put up a bookshelf.”

In this passage, David struggles to sort through his conflicting feelings upon learning that his two best friends have begun spending time together in his absence. These shifting dynamics emphasize the coming-of-age elements that are common to middle grade and young adult novels. The developing relationship between HeyMan and Cyn in the background of the novel also adds to David’s internal conflicts as he navigates his own emotions about the issue.

“I, Jooky Garafalo, hereby certify that I did not eat this half hot dog.

I read it twice. Kind of a weird way to say it.”

The letter of authenticity that comes with David’s $2,000 Jooky dog is worded in a way that evokes David’s suspicion, for he already bitterly regrets the purchase. This note foreshadows the eventual admission that the entire auction is a scam that has been rigged from the very beginning. The Jooky dog therefore comes to symbolize the consequences of lying by omission.

“I have stepped into that oldest of parental traps. First, they make me feel bad about wanting something, and then they give in, and then they hit me with the heavy-duty payback. Talk about being pinned to a wall.”

David feels as though he is trapped by his parents’ desire for him to watch Mal and their reluctance for him to compete in the eating competition. He knows that by agreeing to their demands, he has a higher chance of getting what he wants. The comparison to being pinned to a wall is a reference to Mal’s Wall of Things, where he pins his collection of nature-based items.

“I imagine my mom’s face and my dad refusing to look at me, and Bridgette’s smug, I-always-knew-you-were-a-loser expression. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in about ten years and have it all be different.”

As David feels increasingly guilty about the $2,000 charge and worries that his parents will discover it, he imagines the various reactions that his family members might have. These thoughts reveal volumes about the existing snags in the family dynamics, especially when he imagines how his parents and sister might look down on him.

“I can feel myself hitting the zone. I forget about the other eaters and the crowd of onlookers. My entire universe is reduced to hands, mouth, teeth, and gullet. Time passes slowly. I don’t even stand up to do the Joey Jump—my stomach has infinite capacity.”

In this passage, David expresses his intense interest in the sport of competitive eating, and it is clear that he also sees this pastime as a welcome distraction from his usual responsibilities. As he enters the zone and concentrates on nothing but his speed-eating, the importance that he attaches to this ambition becomes central to the narrative.

“There are two ways it can go. Either I lose the contest and my life is over, or I win the contest and pay Mom for the Visa bill and my life is still over because they will never trust me again. Because Bridgette is perfect and Mal is Mal, and I will always be a disappointment.”

As David contemplates the way his future is heading, his guilt about betraying his parents’ trust manifests in feelings of self-loathing. His belief that he will always be a disappointment reveals his struggling self-esteem and implies that David, just like his siblings, is deserving of a greater degree of support from his family.

“In a way, Mal is invincible, immune, blameless. And here I am rolling around on the grass getting kicked in the shins and head-butted and singing a song I hate from a movie I hate, and I have my arms around my brother and I won’t let go because he is Mal, and I am me, and I am weirdly envious.”

David’s tumultuous frustration is expressed in a deliberate run-on sentence that mirrors his racing, furious thoughts and emphasizes his frustration over his role in the family. David is envious of Mal, whom everyone supports and pays attention to, and David resents bearing the weight of simultaneously caring for Mal and meeting his parents’ rigorous standards.

“Mom always talks about teaching Mal to do things, teaching him to act a certain way, teaching him what’s okay, teaching him to use a spoon and how to tie his shoes…but it’s really us learning about Mal, learning what works for him. We have to learn Mal’s Rules.”

David tells his father what he has learned about working with and accommodating Mal’s disability. By approaching Mal as someone to learn about rather than someone to teach, David has forged a much more meaningful bond with his brother and sees the value in understanding Mal on the boy’s own terms rather than forcing him to adopt neurotypical norms.

“I see us standing together, me and my brother, and I realize how similar we are—same color hair, same nose, same chin, same eyebrows. But we are different, too. The way we hold our mouths, the way his shoulders are pulled tight, the way I am looking straight at our reflection and he is staring off to the side. I put the glasses back on. His eyes shift. He is looking at me in the mirror now.”

David observes the similarities and differences between himself, and when he gives Mal sunglasses, one of the differences resolves itself. This quote is a demonstration of the fact that David’s accommodations for Mal help the boy to enjoy new activities and try new things. Although Mal remains uncomfortable with direct eye contact, he discovers that he can make indirect eye contact with David through the mirror.

“I’ve never seen Mal walk like this. We turn left at the sidewalk, and all the time his head is up, and he’s looking around, and I am thinking that a miracle has occurred.”

After David gives Mal the sunglasses, Mal looks up and around at the world, and David realizes that the boy’s aversion to looking at the world is largely due to his unsupported sensory sensitivities. Now that David has discovered this new form of accommodation, Mal can take greater enjoyment from the world around him.

“Now Mom is off doing something she’s wanted to do forever but she’s been stuck here because of Mal, and the only reason she can do it is because I’m taking care of Mal now and all you can think about is your problems and you don’t care about anybody except yourself and your stupid boyfriend who doesn’t really like you and—”

David unloads his frustrations on Bridgette, revealing his feelings about her self-centered behavior and emphasizing her failure to appreciate how much Mal’s needs impact his own daily life. This quote provides greater insight into David’s feelings of being the neglected middle child and having no support from his family.

“I’ve been managing not to think too much about the Visa bill. Every time I walk past the bureau in the front hall I think about that envelope and I get a little queasy.”

As he experiences the consequences of lying by omission, David feels mounting guilt about the hidden Visa charge. His unease suggests that lying by omission is still a form of dishonesty that has serious repercussions, for the longer his silence lasts, the worse his predicament becomes, and the more he undermines his parents’ trust in him.

“Gently, we roll him up in the rug. I find his sunglasses where I dropped them and put them on his face. Mal turns his head this way and that, looking at each of our faces, all of us kneeling around him as if he’s a miracle child in a manger.”

This quote establishes Mal’s rug as a symbol of security and relief. This quote also features biblical imagery, alluding to the nativity scene and casting Mal as the child at its center, advancing the idea that Mal unites the other members of the family in a common purpose.

“Sometimes you just have to do the wrong thing for the right reason.”

While sharing stories from his past, Dad explains to David why he crossed the picket line to deliver a refrigerator part to a client even though he supported the picketers’ cause. The idea of doing something that is technically wrong in order to achieve a just or fair result becomes a significant theme in the final chapters of the novel.

“El Gurge. My heart is pounding and I can hardly breathe. I have never hated anyone as intensely as I am hating the Gurge at this moment. I want to run after him and grab him by his greasy hair and pound his stupid face into the ground, but I can’t move. It’s probably just as well—he outweighs me by a hundred pounds.”

When David learns that he will be competing in the finals against The Gurge, who David already suspects has scammed him with the Jooky dog, David feels violent hatred. This quote establishes The Gurge as the main antagonist of the novel, for David not only has lost money to the man, but he now must compete against the same person to win the prize money and pay his parents back.

“‘David! Go!’

I keep going. As long as Mal keeps yelling my name, I’m not about to stop.”

As David competes in the finals, he hears Mal screaming his name for the first time ever, and this unprecedented event gives him the strength to push onward to victory. This quote develops The Importance of a Family Support System and emphasizes that Mal is just as capable of giving support as he is of receiving it.

“We’re not perfect, and we know you don’t get acknowledged for everything you do, but we love you and we’re so proud of you and we’re grateful for you every single day.”

In this quote, David’s dad concedes that he and David’s mom have not always acknowledged David’s important contributions to the family unit or fully supported his needs. This passage develops the theme of family as a support system by showing that David’s parents are willing to correct their own patterns and provide him with the comfort that he needs.

“I’m happy for them. For a while I thought maybe I was jealous, but I’m not. Just a little envious. I’m wondering how it will be for the three of us, how it will change.”

David comes to a place of acceptance with HeyMan and Cyn’s developing relationship even as he expresses his concerns about how this new connection will change their existing friendship. His newfound acceptance of this change highlights the novel’s status as a bildungsroman, for David is also undergoing many changes that come with adolescence.

“Well…yeah, it was a half hot dog I didn’t eat. But that thing I signed doesn’t actually say it was the particular half dog that Chestnut beat me by.”

After David and Cyn track him down, Jooky Garafalo admits that The Gurge has sold to David is fake. This quote develops the theme of lying by omission and stresses the status of the Jooky dog as a symbol of this theme.

“You didn’t cheat, son. You took advantage of a situation, turned the tables, and eliminated the real cheater.”

Egon Belt reassures David that he didn’t cheat by using The Gurge’s ipecac against him during the contest. This quote develops the theme of Navigating Morally Ambiguous Scenarios by emphasizing Egon’s belief that David helped to achieve a more just outcome.