The Bell Bandit

Evan Treski is the other protagonist of The Bell Bandit. He’s a 10-year-old boy with compassion and emotional intelligence. Evan is good with people and hones these skills throughout the text by supporting his grandma as she copes with memory loss. Despite his youth, Evan offers support to his mother and sister by helping repair his grandma’s house and taking on a lot of the emotional labor of caring for Grandma. 

When Pete asks if Evan is the “man of the family,” Evan must think before responding: “Even though Evan’s dad had been gone for more than two years, Evan still didn’t think of himself that way. He tried to help his mom as much as he could, but he was only ten” (25). In the events that follow, Evan learns that while his mom and sister are both capable, Evan has significant skills around caretaking and emotional support that go a long way toward keeping his grandma safe and helping Jessie cope with Grandma’s changes.

Evan’s main strengths include his ability to accept Grandma’s condition and to learn to help manage her memory loss symptoms. At first, Evan wants to treat Grandma’s memory loss like a house project, something fixable with a clear beginning and end point. When out on a walk with Evan, Grandma forgets his identity, and they both grow anxious and fearful: “Grandma, it’s me. Evan. I’m your grandson. I need to get you home now, okay?” (75). This tactic does not help, and Grandma falls backward into the snow. Evan momentarily struggles with how to approach the situation to keep them both safe. Calling on his skills of empathy and understanding, he stops fighting her memory loss and uses it to their advantage: “Susan sent me, Mrs. Joyce. She asked me to bring you home.” (76). Because Grandma doesn’t recognize Evan at this moment, his insistence that he’s her grandson would only agitate her and upset him. Consequently, he enters her world by calling her Mrs. Joyce and explaining that he’s been sent to bring her home. This strategy benefits both of them; Grandma allows Evan to take her home, and Evan is relieved that he can help her. By putting himself in Grandma’s shoes and thinking how stressful it must be to think you are out in the cold at dusk with a stranger, Evan puts her at ease and gets them both safely home.

Evan also supports Jessie as she discovers that Grandma’s memory loss is not going to change. He calmly explains to her: “Somewhere in her brain she knows exactly who you are. She just can’t reach it right now. It’s like my bedroom at Grandma’s house. It’s still there. We just can’t get to it for a while. [...] But she’ll remember you again” (148). Evan uses an age-appropriate analogy to explain Grandma’s changes to his younger sister while letting her know the changes will remain. Like his bedroom at Grandma’s house, her memory can never be exactly as it was, but there will be moments where she is her old self again and, importantly, “She’s still Grandma” (152). Evan’s experience with his grandma in the text has taught him that while memory loss is painful when someone you love forgets you, it is important to have empathy as they navigate this destabilizing experience.

Evan exhibits maturity throughout the text and, at the end, implies that he understands he has undergone significant changes and growth. As he listens to the ringing of the bell, he thinks it sounds “different this year. Maybe because he was ringing it? [...] It sounded lower, a little bit sadder. Then he listened again and thought, no, it sounded the same as always. Different but the same” (173). This quote alludes to the change Evan has undergone through his experiences in the text: the bell does sound the same; it is he who is different.

Grandma is Susan Treski’s mother and Jessie and Evan’s grandmother. She is an older woman who has begun showing signs of dementia and memory loss, resulting in a damaging fire to her home. Throughout the text, her family struggles with these changes and must figure out how to best support her. Grandma’s house is where the Treskis go every year to celebrate New Year’s Eve, an important tradition of community and belonging. Grandma’s great-grandfather placed the bell at the top of Lovell’s Hill, where the tradition takes place, further strengthening Grandma’s bond to the New Year’s Eve tradition.

Throughout the text, the reader does not see Grandma as she once was, apart from a few moments. The reader mostly learns about who Grandma was before the memory loss began through the eyes of her grandchildren. When she goes missing during a walk, Evan calls on his knowledge of Grandma to determine where she may have gone:

[What] if Grandma had gone to the bell? What if the bell had ‘called to her’? That’s what Grandma said. Sometimes things called to her, and she had to go follow their voices. A bird. A cluster of irises. The pond. The moon. All these things called to Grandma from time to time. And she always went when she was called (109-10).

This description implies that Grandma spends a lot of time in nature and feels connected to the natural world, as her frequent walks demonstrate. This woman seems quite different from the one Evan knows, who comes home from the hospital unsure and anxious: “She couldn’t seem to settle her gaze on anything. Her eyes kept flitting around the room, like a bird that won’t perch on any one thing” (48). Grandma exhibits familiar signs of memory loss throughout the text, such as anger fueled by confusion, especially when she does not remember Evan.

Her anger also comes in more lucid moments as well. Grandma grows frustrated with losing autonomy because of her memory loss. When Evan relays the message from his mother that Grandma cannot go for a walk because Mrs. Treski would like her to rest, she responds, “I’m not four, Evan. I know when I’m tired, and I know when I’m not” (88). This quote articulates the frustrations of someone who has, at the moment, complete control of their mental faculties and feels their freedom curtailed.

Grandma’s future is uncertain because her memory loss will not improve, but despite these challenges, she remains beloved by Jessie and Evan. At the end of the text, after Jessie and Evan help find her, they are sad when Grandma decides not to attend the New Year’s Eve bell ringing. It feels wrong to be on Lovell’s Hill without her, especially considering she would be the eldest in attendance that year. Therefore, her appearance just before midnight is triumphant and a cause for celebration. In keeping with the theme of change, Grandma decides to break with tradition and invite Evan, Maxwell, and Jessie to ring the bell with her: “I don’t care! [...] This year I want something different” (171). As an elder in the community who is struggling, Grandma reserves the right to make changes necessary to honor the community in its current moment.