The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-11

Chapters 12-19

Chapters 20-29

Chapters 30-40

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Coming-of-Age: Discovering and Accepting Oneself

Lucy was struck by lightning, became an acquired savant in math, and also acquired obsessive-compulsive disorder. Lucy’s solution at middle school is to hide her genius, because her OCD already is there for all to see, and one unique character trait is all she can manage in public. Through a series of missteps and awkward encounters, Lucy discovers that her uniqueness doesn’t have to be something people mock but a quirky combination of oddities and brilliance that others accept and even admire.

As a new kid at school, Lucy’s OCD behaviors—sitting down three times, cleaning everything before she touches it, tapping her toe three times before entering a room—catch the other students’ attention, and they quickly mock her. One student, the cruel Maddie, quickly dubs her the “cleaning lady” and taunts her.

Luckily, a fellow bright student, Windy, befriends Lucy and doesn’t care about her OCD. Together, Windy and Lucy do typical, everyday things like watching movies, eating junk food, painting their nails, and talking about everything. Windy is Lucy’s first real friend since the lightning bolt; from Windy, she learns a lot about how to interact with others, appreciate them, and accept herself.

Her friendship with Levi grows more slowly. It takes a while for Lucy to understand that Levi isn’t merely a sullen boy who’s no good at math but also a smart, creative photographer with a surprisingly advanced sense of other people and their moods. From Levi, Lucy learns that there is a lot more to the mind than math, and that people can be excellent at important activities that don’t involve numbers.

Windy and Levi defend Lucy against a teacher who doesn’t grasp Lucy’s OCD and instead tries to force her to violate her own compulsions. From their generosity of spirit, Lucy sees that friendship sometimes involves loyalty and sacrifice. That such behavior comes from her own friends, on her behalf, touches Lucy deeply: “No one has ever helped me out like that before. I’ve never helped anyone else like that” (158). This experience adds to her growing belief that she’s a worthwhile person whom friends will protect.

The friend who teaches her about affection and unconditional love, though, is the dog Cutie Pi, whose simple adoration for Lucy opens the door to her heart. Lucy overcomes her fear of germs by accepting Cutie Pi’s affectionate licks, petting him, and letting him jump onto her lap. Lucy’s desperate efforts to find a home for the ailing dog demonstrate her growing compassion for others—which, in turn, shows that she’s becoming confident enough to reach out and offer help.

Nana, Uncle Paul, Mr. Stoker, and Claire all give untiring support to Lucy, but it’s her friends Windy and Levi who most nurture her transformation from “cleaning girl” to “Lightning Girl.” Their teamwork as pet-shelter volunteers teaches all of them that being valuable is natural, and that value grows when they appreciate it within themselves, ignore others’ taunts, and share it confidently with those who appreciate it.

Most of all, Lucy finds that it’s okay to be a bit odd, and that there’s a place for geniuses in the everyday world. She can be brilliant and fit in.

The Struggles of Friendship

For Lucy, who has trouble making friends, having one friend is a big deal. Once she finds a friendship with Windy, it turns out that maintaining the relationship is harder than it looks. Lucy must navigate the problems of betrayal, jealousy, and anger that can ruin a friendship. She does so, but not alone: Her friends rally to her, and she realizes that, though friendships are complicated, friends can help friends to overcome those problems.

Windy befriends Lucy, isn’t worried about the OCD, and takes Lucy under her wing at school. So far, the friendship appears effortless. Harder for Lucy is becoming friends with Levi, who makes her acquaintance by copying her answers to a math test and getting her into trouble. Their agreement not to blame each other in front of Mr. Stoker is Lucy’s first lesson in how friendship relies on loyalty. Levi later confesses to Mr. Stoker, and Lucy feels grateful for Levi’s integrity. This opens her eyes to Levi’s other qualities—his loyalty, intelligence, sensitivity, and artistic ability. She’s learning how to appreciate others for their strengths instead of judging them by her own arbitrary standards.

Her chief enemy, Maddie, gives Lucy her first look at the dark side of friendship when Maddie tries to separate her from Windy at the sleepover birthday party. It’s bad enough that Lucy can spend almost no time there with Windy because Maddie intervenes; Windy’s attempt to stand up for Lucy makes things much worse when she breaks her vow to Lucy and blurts out to the group that Lucy is a genius.

When Maddie complains in class to Mr. Stoker, she hopes to get rid of Lucy altogether. At her wit’s end, Lucy angrily confronts Maddie, and stalks out. On top of this, the only dog Lucy has bonded with, Cutie Pi, has brain cancer, and Lucy doesn’t know how to save him from being put to sleep. It feels to her like her life is in ruins. Relationships can’t be solved like equations; she doesn’t know what to do. Desperate, she walks miles through a bad part of town to the pet shelter.

Her friends come to her aid. Via phone, Levi helps her find her way to the shelter. There, Lucy hugs Cutie Pi and shares tears with Claire. Nana agrees to take Cutie Pi in for one night. At home, Windy is there, apologizing for blabbing about Lucy’s genius and offering to help with a final campaign to save the dog. In the morning, Windy, Levi, and Mr. Stoker join her at the animal control office, where Mr. Stoker volunteers to adopt Cutie Pi.

The problems at school settle down, and Lucy quietly basks in the knowledge that she doesn’t have to figure out everything, but that her friends are there for her, willing to help. Together, all of them can solve problems, if not by math then by the transcendent power of friendship and love.

More than Just Numbers

Lucy lives an isolated life. She keeps all working surfaces clean, taps her toe three times to calm herself, and eats Twizzlers to relax. Lucy’s difficulties multiply once she enters the outside world through public middle school. The trouble is that she can’t solve her new sum of social problems with numbers and equations. Lucy must find other resources within herself to help her navigate the complicated world outside her apartment. She learns several skills that don’t involve counting: teamwork, respect, defiance, forgiveness, affection, and love.

Lucy gets pulled onto Windy’s community project team; they’re joined by Levi. None of them are much good at teamwork, but they begin to learn how to coordinate, be patient, help one another, and brainstorm together. Not one of these skills involves arithmetic.

It’s not in Lucy’s nature to respect others; she usually isn’t interested in getting to know someone unless they’re great at math. Windy has projects and skills outside of science, and Lucy thereby takes an interest in things she’d have ignored in the past. Levi’s award-winning ability with a camera catches her attention, and she begins to understand that the arts are an entire world of sensations, ideas, creativity, and skills that have nothing to do with algorithms.

Maddie picks on Lucy, and it gets worse when Maddie tries to sideline her from her friendship with Windy and, later, requests that Lucy be removed from math class. Lucy finally has had enough, and she confronts Maddie. Her defiance doesn’t change Maddie’s view, but it gives Lucy the experience of standing up for herself. Sometimes it’s anger, not math, that counts.

Lucy needs friends who really understand her. To that end, she confesses her math ability to Levi, who promises to keep her secret. Windy has difficultly keeping secrets, and it takes more time for Lucy to tell her. Trust is betrayed when Windy tells everyone at her birthday party about Lucy’s genius. For Lucy, it’s a deal-breaker, and she wants nothing more to do with Windy. It’s not until Windy makes clear that her betrayal was well-meaning, if clumsy, that Lucy finds her way to forgiving her friend. Though no numbers are involved, Lucy at least understands that it’s always better to add friends than subtract them.

She can’t yet accept affection from people, but Lucy learns from the dog Cutie Pi how to become affectionate. As with all the other social skills she learns during her time at middle school, this one surprises her: “I pet him some more, and I lose count of the number of times my hand moves back and forth” (143). The numbers fade away, and in their place is a new ability, incalculable in its importance.

Disasters pile up: The birthday party goes horribly wrong, Windy betrays her, Maddie piles on the hostile pressure, and Cutie Pi’s death suddenly looms. Lucy reaches out by going to the shelter to see Cutie Pi; her world answers when her friends and family gather at the apartment to help her with one last attempt to find Cutie Pi a home.

The effort succeeds, and her school problems fade. When Lucy adds everything up, the answer is that she is okay, her friends love her, and she loves them. She’s become, not a whole number, but a whole person, no longer divided, who has added new friends, subtracted her problems, and multiplied her joys. For all of this, she never really needed her famous math skills.