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Chapter 8: The Yard
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Flipped, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Perception vs. Reality
Family and Identity
First Love
Integrity and Growth
Summary
Analysis
The morning after his talk with Chet, Bryce wakes to find Rick asleep on the living room couch—a clear sign his parents have been fighting. At breakfast, Patsy announces they’ll be inviting the Bakers over for dinner, and Rick is unenthused. Privately, Bryce confesses everything about the eggs to his mother, not wanting Juli to blindside his parents with information he’d kept hidden for nearly two years. Though she’s disappointed in his actions, his mom makes him promise he’s learned his lesson before forgiving him. He begs her not to tell his dad, and she agrees not to.
That Bryce feels safer revealing his dishonesty to his mother than risking his father’s judgment suggests that Rick’s harshness has contributed to Bryce’s conflict avoidance. Patsy’s idea to host the Bakers for dinner, meanwhile, is perhaps a way to assuage her own guilt for the way her husband speaks about them behind their backs, but it’s also an indication that Patsy respects them more than Rick does. In inviting them over, she challenges Rick’s behavior, signaling that his disrespect is no longer acceptable in their home. For Bryce, this talk eases his burden and underscores how the women around him—Juli, his mother, and even Chet’s memory of Renée—are guiding him toward greater accountability.
Active
Themes
Later that night, Bryce pulls out the photo of Juli and stares at it again. When Lynetta barges into his room to borrow a pencil sharpener, he hurriedly shoves the picture into his school binder. But the next day at school, Garrett finds it and starts teasing him. Meanwhile, Bryce can’t stop scanning the halls for Juli, wondering where she is and what’s on her mind. Even though they’ve patched things up after the egg fight, she’s still avoiding him.
Bryce’s fixation on Juli’s photo reflects his growing feelings for her, even as he fails to manage his crush in a socially competent way. Hiding the photo in his binder underscores how immature his crush still is, as he doesn’t know how—and is perhaps still unable—to express his feelings openly. Bryce’s constant scanning of the halls speaks to the fact that he is in brand-new territory: for the first time, he feels the imbalance of being the one waiting to be seen.
Active
Themes
Bryce decides to confide in Garrett about his problems, simply because he needs someone to talk to. He tells him all about the eggs, Juli’s crusade to make her yard beautiful, and Juli’s Uncle David. But when Garrett makes a cruel joke about Juli inheriting her uncle’s disability, Bryce is furious and has to stop himself from punching his “friend.” In that moment, he realizes Garrett has crossed a line—and it occurs to him that Rick, his own father, has done the same thing.
