Previous
Alive (p. 75–80)
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ghost Boys, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Progress, Storytelling, and Justice
Racism and the Law
Childhood
Fear
Education
Summary
Analysis
Preliminary Hearing. Chicago Courthouse. April 18. The lawyer asks whether Officer Moore can’t distinguish between a child and an adult. When Officer Moore stumblingly claims that “it was dark,” the lawyer points out that it was daytime. Officer Moore says that Jerome was larger than an average 12-year-old. The lawyer asks whether Officer Moore is “prejudiced,” Officer Moore denies it, and someone in the courtroom yells, “Liar!” Jerome, standing beside Officer Moore, glances at Sarah—who is staring at the proceedings with her hands on her head.
Since bullies regularly beat Jerome up, readers have reason to disbelieve Officer Moore’s claim that Jerome was bigger than the average 12-year-old. Moreover, Officer Moore is obviously not telling the truth when he claims that “it was dark” when he shot Jerome. Thus, readers can infer that Officer Moore is trying to deny an obvious conclusion: that he misperceived Jerome as large and scary due to racial bias against Black boys.
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When the lawyer asks whether Officer Moore has heard that “racial bias” can influence people’s behavior subconsciously, Officer Moore claims he’s “not racist.” The lawyer suggests that Officer Moore may have acted according to subconscious stereotypes about “large, threatening, dangerous” Black men. Then he asks how tall Officer Moore’s daughter (Sarah) is. The defense objects, and the judge sustains the objection. The prosecutor, rephrasing the point, asks whether Officer Moore would be shocked to learn that Jerome was five feet tall and weighed 90 pounds. Officer Moore is visibly shocked.
When Officer Moore says that he’s “not racist,” he presumably means that he wouldn’t consciously endorse racist attitudes. The lawyer is making a different point, however: even if Officer Moore wouldn’t consciously endorse racism, he still misperceived Jerome as “large, threatening, [and] dangerous”—even though Jerome was a short and skinny child—because of subconscious racial stereotypes. This distinction shows that making overt racism socially unacceptable isn’t enough to end racist practices. To make further progress, society must figure out how to diminish or end subconscious racism.
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Sarah covers her ears and ducks her head. Suddenly, the other ghost (Emmett Till) appears and tries to take her hand. It doesn’t work, but Jerome realizes that Sarah can see the other ghost. The other ghost reaches out to Jerome and Jerome recoils, wondering what the gesture means. Officer Moore’s lawyer asks for a break, the judge agrees, and Jerome thinks that the judge potentially seeing Officer Moore’s lies matters in a way that Sarah seeing the other ghost doesn’t. Everyone but Jerome files out of the courtroom, though Sarah and the other ghost glance back at him.
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Lost. Later, Jerome asks whether the other ghost (Emmett Till) told Sarah anything. She says no but suggests there’s a reason she sees him too. Then she speculates that maybe there’s an additional reason that Jerome sees him—and while Jerome cuts her off, claiming that he only sees the other ghost because he’s dead, he senses that she’s right. Jerome and Sarah hear yelling, door-slamming, and glass breaking downstairs. When Sarah comments that her father (Officer Moore) hates “administrative leave,” Jerome says that Pop would probably like a salary “for not working.”
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When Sarah starts crying, Jerome apologizes, but he doesn’t mean it. He thinks that while Sarah is smart, her life is essentially unreal, like something from a television show. His family’s poverty—for example, getting food from their church’s food pantry when Ma ran out of sick leave after her appendix burst—is “real.” He wonders whether Pop is aware that Officer Moore is still being paid. Jerome wants to throw a fit, but he knows it won’t affect anything. This is because Officer Moore killing him is also “real,” even if Sarah thinks her father is telling the truth.
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Jerome examines Sarah’s books. Some have stickers declaring that they belong to Sarah Moore, and Jerome thinks how much Kim would enjoy owning a book and writing her name in it, rather borrowing every book she reads from the library. Seeing a book titled Peter Pan, he asks Sarah whether it’s good. When she claims it’s the “best,” Jerome opens it and reads the first line: “All children, except one, grow up.” Jerome, confused, asks whether Peter Pan dies. Blushing, Sarah explains that Peter Pan just stays a child because he wants to.
As if summoned, the other ghost (Emmett Till) appears. Jerome, noticing his round cheeks, tells him he looks like a chipmunk. Sarah and the other ghost laugh. Then the other ghost asks who wants to stay a kid. Suddenly feeling less lonely and fearful, Jerome admits that he wanted to grow up as quickly as possible, because being a child means being ordered around, being bullied, behaving yourself, and so on. He planned to become a great basketball player. The other ghost shares that he wanted to be the first African-American player on the Chicago Cubs. Sarah asks when that was, and the other ghost says it was 1955.
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Jerome, horrified at how long the other ghost (Emmett Till) has been dead, thinks that he wouldn’t mind staying a child forever if only he were alive. On the cover of Peter Pan, Peter is flying—and Jerome remembers how he believed he could “fly from a bullet.” Sarah starts crying, and Jerome demands that she not pity him. When she offers to help him and the other ghost “like Wendy helped Peter,” Jerome asks whether Peter was white. The question seems to confuse her. Jerome, yelling, asks what Sarah will be when she grows up, since she’s “the only one who’s going to grow up.”
The other ghost (Emmett Till) puts a hand on Jerome’s arm—and Jerome, to his surprise, can feel it. The other ghost tells Jerome that Sarah is becoming different and that he has come to help both Jerome and Sarah. Jerome denies that the other ghost can help him: all he wants is to “move on” and escape his family’s suffering. When Sarah insists that Officer Moore’s motive for killing Jerome matters, Jerome asks whether Sarah thinks so because the motive could comfort her. When she starts crying, Jerome “feel[s] like the bullies [he] hate[s].”
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Jerome turns to the other ghost (Emmett Till) and demands to know whether they’re both stuck somehow. The other ghost ushers Jerome to the window and tells him to look. Slowly, thousands of shadowy ghost boys begin to appear on the street, staring up at the window. When Jerome expresses confusion, the other ghost explains that the ghosts are “our people.” Jerome punches the wall, to no effect. Sarah whispers, “Black boys,” and covers her mouth. After a moment, she asks the other ghost whether all the ghosts outside were killed like him and Jerome. The other ghost confirms that they were.
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Jerome, recalling Peter Pan’s first line, says he’d do anything if it meant he could grow up. Sarah shoves her face into a pillow—and Jerome, though frustrated with her crying, awkwardly compliments the pillow. Then, remembering that kindness never helped him, he throws Peter Pan across the room. From downstairs, Officer Moore calls up to ask Sarah whether she’s okay. She calls back that she’s fine, but she looks scared. When the other ghost (Emmett Till) looks disapproving, Jerome asks why he needs help from “a white girl.” The other ghost suggests that Jerome might be meant to help Sarah instead—but Jerome declares the idea “sick,” given that Sarah’s father murdered him. He demands to know the other ghost’s identity. The other ghost replies, “Emmett Till.”
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Jerome, remembering how Grandma compared him to Emmett Till, asks whether he’s the other boy from Chicago who was murdered. Emmett confirms that he was murdered in the South in 1955. When Jerome says, “Everybody knew the South was dangerous then,” Emmett tells him that the South remains dangerous today. Jerome, frustrated, vanishes, thinking that he died unfairly, close to his own home in the North, whereas Emmett acted like an idiot traveling to the “old South.”
Real. Jerome thinks it would be “real” to finish his education, get a job, help his family financially, and maybe find a girlfriend. Instead, he sits with Emmett Till on his church’s steps, miserable, realizing that his death is also real. Emmett Till tells Jerome how baseball was real to him, as was college: his mother, an honor-roll student and later a teacher, wanted him to get a professional job more prestigious than hers. Jerome, intending to be cruel, says kids play basketball now and hero-worship Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or Steph Curry—baseball is passé. When Emmett Till admits he doesn’t recognize any of those players, Jerome feels like a bully.
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When Emmett Till—talking about baseball and basketball—says that culture changes over time, Jerome replies that people should change. Emmett Till expands on Jerome’s insight, saying that while people do change, they don’t do it quickly enough in large enough numbers, or they backslide and “keep hurting.”
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Emmett Till shares that while Chicago was safer in his childhood, his mother still kept a close eye on him, which his polio made easier for her. When Jerome asks what polio is, Emmett Till explains that it was a disease that gave him a limp and made him stutter, whistling when he tried to pronounce letters like W.
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Abruptly, Jerome asks how Emmett Till died, thinking that his “softness” would make him an even bigger target for bullying at Jerome’s school than Jerome is. Emmett Till says that Jerome isn’t prepared for the whole story; he’ll only say that he visited his cousins in Mississippi—and it was a bad decision. When Jerome expresses frustration at this cryptic answer, Emmett Till says it’s important that Sarah can see him and asks whether Jerome has “anything better to do” than help her. To himself, Jerome admits he doesn’t.
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Me & Sarah. Jerome attends the preliminary hearing again. Protestors and police in riot gear are thronging outside the court. He ends up leaving for Sarah’s house because she alleviates his loneliness. Protestors are picketing her house too. He mentions his suspicion that a white man murdered Emmett Till, and Sarah asks whether it was a police officer. Jerome admits he doesn’t know.
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Jerome asks about Sarah recognizing his ghost from a photo. Sarah says that she’s only seen one photo because Officer Moore and her mother wanted her not to “see it.” When Jerome echoes, “See it?”, Sarah realizes there might be a video of the shooting and heads for her computer. Jerome—recognizing that the video could prove to Sarah that her father lied—warns her that she maybe shouldn’t watch it: despite everything, he doesn’t want her to be harmed emotionally. Sarah, resolute, searches for the video anyway.
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Sarah and Jerome play a video of Jerome being shot from a police car. Sarah, horrified, questions why Officer Moore gave Jerome no verbal warning before shooting him. As the video plays, they see Officer Moore and his partner just watching Jerome’s body for whole minutes. Jerome remembers lying on the ground, unable to move his head to see where the toy gun landed but hearing Ma and Kim screaming. Sarah finds an article that claims the EMTs arrived “too late.” Jerome wonders why the person who took the video didn’t help him or call the police—and then wonders whether it’s possible to “call the police on the police.”
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Sarah, looking grim, apologizes to Jerome repeatedly and wishes she could hug him and resurrect him. She says that Officer Moore “didn’t really see” Jerome. Jerome, snapping back, asks whether Officer Moore even sees his daughter: did Sarah’s father make good on his offer to take her skating, or is he just stewing in self-pity? Then, embarrassed, Jerome apologizes for his words. Sarah says it’s fine: she “understand[s].” Jerome, surprised, realizes she’s telling the truth. He spies Emmett Till’s ghost in his peripheral vision and wishes he and Sarah could hug.
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Preliminary Hearing. Chicago Courthouse. April 18. The lawyer questions the 911 operator, a redheaded young woman who says that a caller told her “a boy, no, a man” had a gun. The lawyer points out that the call transcript contains the phrase “toy gun” and asks whether the operator told the police that the gun was a toy. The operator, nervous, says that she doesn’t know why she didn’t. The lawyer asks whether she has heard of Tamir Rice, another boy killed by police who thought his toy gun was real. The defense objects, the judge sustains it, and the questioning ends. Jerome feels bad for the operator; he believes the police would have killed him even if she had said the gun was a toy.
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Civil Rights. Jerome goes with Sarah to her school, which has a predominantly white student body and very good facilities (by contrast, Jerome notes that his school lacked a librarian). He thinks that he—as well as the other students at his school—would’ve enjoyed their education a lot more if they could have gone to school in such a nice building.
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In the library, the librarian, who has a nametag reading Ms. Penny, asks Sarah whether she ought to be in class. When Sarah doesn’t answer, Ms. Penny asks whether she needs to speak to the counselor—and Sarah says no, she just wants to sit in the library forever. Ms. Penny suggests that that would get dull. Sarah laughs—and then blurts that kids in her class are praising Officer Moore for being a “good cop,” praise that can’t be right because her father shot a child. Ms. Penny hugs Sarah.
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Jerome asks Sarah to ask about Emmett Till. When Sarah does, Ms. Penny says Sarah can learn about him later. Sarah asks why she can’t learn about him now. Ms. Penny says that she’ll be taught about Emmett Till when her curriculum covers civil rights, which will happen “bit by bit” in social studies or as part of Black History Month. When Sarah points out that she’s already in seventh grade and has never learned anything about Emmett Till, Ms. Penny suggests that his case might be too awful for middle-schoolers because it involves “grown men kill[ing] a child.” Sarah retorts: “Like my dad?”
When Ms. Penny starts apologizing, Jerome shouts that she was right: adults killing children is awful. Sarah, glancing at Jerome, says that Emmett Till was from Chicago, the same city where Jerome was shot. Ms. Penny admits it but points out that Emmett Till’s murder occurred in the South six decades ago. When Sarah asks why that matters, Ms. Penny says that the case was an inciting incident for the Civil Rights Movement. Sarah asks whether that means Martin Luther King, Jr. Ms. Penny agrees but also mentions Rosa Parks, desegregation, and the Voting Rights Act.
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Sarah asks whether Ms. Penny is saying that Jerome’s death doesn’t matter as much. Ms. Penny says no—when the Civil Rights Movement began, she was a child from a Jewish family that also suffered from prejudice; people from many different demographic groups worked to make society better. She explains that Mrs. Till was a courageous woman who made sure Emmett Till had an open-casket funeral, writing, “Let the world see what I have seen.” Right away, Sarah asks to see. Though shaken, Ms. Penny mentions that she was Sarah’s age when she saw Emmett Till’s body and goes to the computer to do an image-search. Jerome—who thinks what a body looks like doesn’t matter if it’s already dead—walks out of the school into the sunlight, but he hears Sarah weeping loudly from inside the building.
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Wander. Jerome wanders randomly, wondering why he’s still haunting the living world. Suddenly, Emmett Till appears beside him. Jerome is annoyed, not wanting to hang out with a ghost from long ago. He wonders whether Ma, Pop, Grandma, and Kim will ever move on from his death; he both fears and hopes that they will. Getting angry, he shouts at Emmett Till to go away—and then asks why they were both murdered. Another ghost in a gray hoodie appears up ahead; when Jerome asks who he is, Emmett Till replies that he was killed in Florida six years prior. Jerome thinks how much he hates Peter Pan.
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Preliminary Hearing. Chicago Courthouse. April 18. Officer Moore, with red eyes and a fallen face, takes the stand. The lawyer asks him whether he told Jerome he was police, asked Jerome to drop the gun, or asked Jerome to put up his hands. Officer Moore says no to each question. When the lawyer asks whether Officer Moore shot from the police car before the car stopped, Officer Moore first waffles and then says he did, because “a police car is a coffin” and Jerome was brandishing a firearm.
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The lawyer—over the defense’s objection—asks whether Officer Moore gave Jerome any medical help or called 911. The judge sustains the objection, but Officer Moore still admits he didn’t give Jerome any medical help. Sarah and her mother hug. Pop holds Ma as she falls against him, but Jerome doesn’t think Pop or anyone can make it right. As the judge adjourns the hearing for the day, Jerome leaves, feeling powerless to comfort his family.
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Carlos. Grandma has been walking Kim to and from school every day. As of January, Carlos has been walking Kim into school and accompanying her and Grandma back to their apartment from school—standing in for Jerome. Though Kim is even thinner than she used to be and very serious, she sometimes smiles or laughs when Carlos tells her jokes, draws her pictures, or does cartwheels for her. He tells her stories about San Antonio, but when she asks whether he’ll move back, he says no—he’s staying in Chicago.
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One day, Grandma tells Carlos that he’s a “good boy” and asks whether he’ll walk Kim home by himself. He volunteers to walk her to school too, but Grandma says she’s not “ready” yet. When she tells Carlos that she trusts him, he acts proud—but when she comments that she didn’t know Jerome had such a good friend, he jogs off to join Kim up ahead. Jerome, watching Carlos, notices how mournful Carlos is—much sadder than he was when Jerome met him.
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Preliminary Hearing. Chicago Courthouse. April 19. On the hearing’s second day, Jerome notices that courtroom benches resemble church pews. He also notices that Sarah isn’t at court—he suspects that her parents are trying to shield her from the truth, not knowing she already understands Jerome more than Officer Moore did. Emmett Till appears, and his presence seems to give Grandma subconscious comfort.
When Officer Moore takes the stand, the lawyer asks why Jerome was shot “in the back.” Reporters and activists in the courtroom erupt—though Jerome realizes that everyone must already have known from the video that Officer Moore shot him in the back. The judge calls for order, and the lawyer asks why Officer Moore fired when Jerome was fleeing. Officer Moore claims that he was “in fear for [his] life”—and repeats it even when the lawyer reminds him he’s under oath. Jerome realizes that Officer Moore is telling the truth and wonders whether a feeling can be true and false at the same time.
Roam. Afterward, Jerome is glad not to see Emmett Till or Sarah. He’s heard the phrase “rest in peace,” but it hasn’t applied to his own afterlife. He wanders around Chicago, seeing beautiful neighborhoods and public attractions he’s never visited before. He regrets not learning that there was more to the world than his own neighborhood during his lifetime. He has stopped following Ma and Pop around: their numb, deadened misery is too painful. He doesn’t want Ma and Pop to choke off all their emotions. He prefers Grandma and Kim’s vivid remembrances of him and willingness to cry—though when they walk past where he was shot on the way to school, he refuses to look at it.
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Preliminary Hearing. Chicago Courthouse. April 19. The courtroom returns from its lunch break. The judge announces that Jerome’s death was a horrible, regrettable event—but given the difficulties inherent to policing, Jerome’s “realistic-looking” toy gun, and Officer Moore’s “fear for his life,” the judge has decided not to charge Officer Moore.
School & After. One day in May, six weeks before the end of school, Carlos is walking Kim and Grandma to school and helping Kim carry her backpack—when Jerome sees Eddie, Mike, and Snap waiting on the school stairs. Grandma is worried about the boys beginning to bully Kim (as is Jerome), but Carlos tells her that it’s fine and takes Kim’s hand. Jerome fears that Carlos will pull out another toy gun, which might put Kim in danger if police officers arrive.
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Carlos tells Eddie, Mike, and Snap, “Kim es mi familia.” When Eddie steps toward them, Jerome yells in fear. Then Eddie offers Carlos his hand and replies, loudly so everyone can hear, “Bueno. Con respeto.” Eddie tells Kim that he’s sorry about Jerome, and Kim thanks him. Then Carlos, Eddie, Mike, and Snap walk Kim to class. Jerome thinks they’ve come to a “truce.” He cries, though not from sadness: he’s glad that Carlos is helping Kim and Grandma heal from their grief, but he wonders when he, Emmett Till, and the “other ghost boys” will be allowed to move on. His afterlife still seems unjust to him.
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Walking Kim home, Carlos makes drumsticks out of a tree branch and plays percussion on random objects for her. Kim tells him to play faster and starts dancing happily along with the drums. Then, suddenly, she stops, becomes serious, and tells Carlos he needs to “tell Grandma.” When Carlos, cringing, agrees, Jerome pities him.
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Tell No Lies. Jerome, on his apartment’s steps, hears various neighborhood people telling stories. Their stories seem to make the neighborhood a brighter place. He thinks that Kim is correct: Carlos has to tell his own story about the toy gun to Grandma, in the same way that Emmett Till will eventually tell his own story to Jerome. Jerome wonders whether he’s haunting the world to prepare himself to hear Emmett Till’s story.
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Jerome keeps seeing ghosts, including one, holding a toy gun, who might be “Tamir.” The ghosts make him think that people’s lives never really terminate. One night, Emmett Till appears—and Jerome realizes that he seems to be the “leader” of the ghosts but probably isn’t the oldest. Others must have died during slavery and early KKK lynchings. Jerome realizes that he’s part of a “crew”: “Everything isn’t all about me.”
Jerome again asks Emmett Till how he died, while looking around his neighborhood, noticing how “poor” and “segregated” it is, and wondering why he scared the police officers. Emmett Till asks whether Jerome is prepared. When Jerome nods, Emmett Till says that he and his cousins wanted to go to Mississippi to visit his great-uncle and -aunt and their three boys, Simeon, Robert, and Maurice. Emmett Till’s great-uncle was a sharecropper who lived in a “shack,” but the cousins didn’t mind crowding in. Emmett Till’s mother used to say she moved away from Mississippi to escape the sharecroppers’ poverty, but Emmett Till liked how he could explore with his Mississippi cousins in a way his mother wouldn’t allow in Chicago.
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Emmett Till says that he took a train to Mississippi that arrived on August 21, and he died a week later. Suddenly, Jerome is pulled into the story as if it were a film: he sees Emmett Till playing with his cousins by a river. Emmett Till’s hat drops, unnoticed, by the bank. The oldest boy, Maurice, suggests that they go into town—but warns Emmett Till to call white people “ma’am” or “sir” and never to make eye contact with them. When Emmett Till protests at Maurice ordering him around, Maurice reminds him that they’re in Mississippi and tells him to get out of white people’s way on the sidewalk. Emmett Till, under his breath, says that he doesn’t fear white people.
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In town is a store called Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market. Maurice explains that the clientele in Bryant’s is primarily Black; the white people drive to another town with better options. When Emmett Till asks whether Bryant’s sells bubble gum, one of the cousins warns him not to say anything. Emmett retorts that he talks to white people plenty in Chicago and asks whether the cousin thinks he’s “scared.” (Jerome, watching, begs Emmett Till not to do anything foolish.) The cousins try to explain that in the South, white people don’t see Black people as human, but Emmett enters Bryant’s anyway.
Inside Bryant’s, Emmett Till selects a piece of bubble gum, hands the white woman behind the counter a penny, says goodbye, and leaves. (Jerome sees the woman’s infuriated, loathing expression. He yells at Emmett Till to run). Outside, Emmett Till tells one of the cousins that he said goodbye to the white woman and handed her a penny. That cousin, horrified, immediately informs the others that Emmett addressed and initiated physical contact with a white woman. Emmett Till’s Chicago cousins don’t understand what’s wrong, but Maurice says they need to leave.
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The white woman, Mrs. Bryant, runs out of the store. One of the cousins says she’s going to get her gun. Emmett Till, stuttering, asks “W. . .w. . .w. . .what’s wrong?”—and the W makes a whistling noise. Mrs. Bryant, imagining that Emmett Till has whistled at her, turns and gives him a killing stare. A crowd, Black and white, gathers. Maurice yells at Emmett Till to run, and another cousin echoes him. Emmett Till sprints off.
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Outside the flashback, Emmett Till tells Jerome that he pleaded with his cousins not to tell his great-uncle and -aunt what had happened because he didn’t want to be punished. He had no idea of the danger that was threatening him. When Jerome protests that Emmett Till did nothing bad, Emmett Till replies, “What mattered was what they—white people—thought I had done.”
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Deep in the night, a pair of white men with guns break into Emmett Till’s great-uncle’s house. When his great-uncle tries to tell the men that Emmett Till is just a kid and not from the area, one man threatens to kill him. As Emmett Till screams for his mother and his family members beg, the men drag him into a truck. One of the men beats Emmett Till, saying, “Nobody disrespects my wife.”
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The men drive Emmett Till to the river, where they pull him from the truck. Mrs. Bryant’s husband hits Emmett, accusing him of whistling at Mrs. Bryant, and asks, “Who do you think you are?” Then he shoots Emmett Till. After Emmett Till dies, the men tie his body to a wheel with barbed wire and dump him in the river. Jerome, watching, notices Emmett Till’s hat abandoned on the bank.
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With the story finished, Jerome tells Emmett Till how sorry he is. Emmett Till replies that all ghost boys feel that way about one another; all of them died because someone thought they were “a threat, a danger.” Jerome, recognizing that he’s a member of the ghost boys’ family now, has an impulse to give voice to his feeling of injustice: he begins crying out loudly and wordlessly. Emmett Till and the other ghost boys join him, lamenting their unjust murders and short lives.
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Afterward, Jerome speculates that maybe a person is singing the hymn “Amazing Grace” someplace in the world. He wonders about whether Kim, Grandma, Ma, Pop, and the parents of the other ghost boys are peaceful. He wonders whether Emmett Till’s mother is still living and whether she ever found peace. Suddenly, Emmett instructs Jerome to “bear witness.” When Jerome asks what that means, Emmett explains that they show one another care, respect, and genuine connection by listening to each other’s stories, because “everyone needs their story heard.” Jerome, standing in the street until daylight comes, feels that he’s come to a new awareness.
School’s Out. As the seasons pass, Jerome keeps warning Black children who can’t hear him to stay “safe.” He roams his neighborhood and, noticing again how unsafe it is, is surprised anyone can be happy there—but he feels as though some change is coming, something that he is going to make happen. Reminiscing about Carlos, he recognizes that Carlos wanted to make him happy—and briefly succeeded. He liked having a friend, and he wonders whether he’d do it all again, knowing that it would end in his death.
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Carlos. Jerome hasn’t seen Carlos since the day Kim told Carlos he needed to tell Grandma. He concentrates on Carlos and teleports to an apartment bedroom, where Carlos is lying on the bed. Jerome notices a newspaper photo of himself, a rosary, a drawing of him and Carlos playing percussion in the bathroom stalls, and a few other mementos, together with some candles, on Carlos’s bureau. He realizes that it’s a “memory altar,” somewhat like the one Grandma has set up to Grandpa Leni. Grandma talks to Grandpa Leni at the altar every week, even though Ma tells Grandma it makes her look crazy. Jerome hopes that Carlos talks to him too.
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Jerome remembers that he touched Sarah’s book and wonders whether he could do that with Carlos’s papers—but he recalls that he was furious then, which he isn’t anymore. Looking at Carlos’s bare room—just two pieces of furniture and the altar—Jerome longs to give Carlos some gift, like toys or his own posters. Concentrating hard on his friendship with Carlos, Jerome manages to waft the photo of himself from the altar onto Carlos. Carlos picks it up, looks around for Jerome, and asks whether Jerome forgives him.
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A man walks into Carlos’s room and asks whether he’s okay. Carlos reassures the man, whom he calls “Papi,” that he’s fine. When Carlos’s father asks whether Carlos is upset about the boy in the photo, Carlos says “not anymore,” explains that the boy was his first Chicago friend Jerome, and bursts into violent tears. When Carlos’s father sits on the bed and hugs him, Carlos admits everything that happened with the toy gun. When Carlos’s father looks infuriated, Carlos apologizes—but then Carlos’s father says that Carlos “shouldn’t have to go to school scared.”
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Carlos’s father suggests that Carlos should have come to him with his fears. When Carlos admits that he was embarrassed, his father tells him that he shouldn’t have been: because everyone feels fear, what’s important is how you deal with it. Then he says: “It could’ve been you.” Frightened by this realization, Carlos grabs his father’s hand. Jerome lays his ghost-hand on top of theirs, though they can’t feel it.
Carlos says that he has to admit what happened to Jerome’s family. Carlos’s father asks whether Carlos wants accompaniment. Jerome sees that Carlos wants to say yes, but Carlos resolves to do it alone. Carlos’s father tries to reassure him that Jerome would have understood—and his family will understand—that Carlos never intended what happened. When Carlos asks whether that’s true, Jerome says that it is. Carlos tells his father that he wants to honor Carlos on the Day of the Dead—and then addresses Jerome directly, repeating that he wants to honor him. Jerome, wondering whether Carlos can sense him, nods. Carlos’s father agrees to the plan and says that he knows Carlos “tried being good to” Jerome. Jerome silently agrees.
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Carlos & Grandma. Kim spots Carlos approaching through one of the apartment’s windows and runs outside to meet him. When he tells her that he’s going to do it, she offers to help—and when he demurs, she tells him it’s what Jerome would have wanted. Surprised, he thanks her. They walk through the living room, where Carlos seems happy to spot a drawing he made of Jerome on Grandma’s memory altar. Jerome, following them, realizes that he no longer belongs to the living world, which seems cramped to him.
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When Carlos and Kim find Grandma in the kitchen, she insists—over Carlos’s objections—that he take a cookie. Judging from Carlos’s expression, he can’t enjoy the food. Grandma says that she wishes Jerome had invited Carlos over, because she was worried he didn’t have friends, and asks whether Carlos was Jerome’s “good friend.” Carlos says he was—and then he blurts that he gave Jerome the toy gun, because he wanted to be “nice” to Jerome the way Jerome had been to him. Carlos and Kim start sobbing. Grandma hugs them. Jerome looks out the window, where he knows the ghost boys are, and back at Carlos, Kim, and Grandma, his “living family.”
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Grandma says that she regrets not keeping Jerome inside the day he was shot, but she suspected he was doing something “a bit naughty” and she wanted him to enjoy himself a little, because he was so intent on behaving himself most of the time. When Kim says Jerome never got to have “much fun,” Grandma guesses that Kim knew about the toy gun. When Kim looks ashamed, Carlos jumps in to say that she tried to stop him from giving it to Jerome. Grandma comforts Kim, telling her she’s loved and saying, “Can’t undo wrong. Can only do our best to make things right.”
Grandma asks Carlos to share “three good things.” Kim, laughing and crying, explains that Grandma thinks the number three is lucky. Jerome notices that Carlos is standing in for him in a lucky trio: Grandma, Kim, and Carlos. Carlos asks for a second cookie. While he, Grandma, and Kim eat, he apologizes for not admitting he gave Jerome the gun sooner because he was ashamed. He credits Kim’s faith in him for making him courageous enough to admit it eventually. Jerome, witnessing Carlos, Kim, and Grandma, believes that the three of them will help Ma and Pop through their grief. This belief comforts him. He now thinks he has only one task left.
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Silence. Sarah has stopped talking to Officer Moore and has removed all the pink items in her room—developments that worry Jerome. She’s on the computer all the time. Jerome has noticed that while her neighborhood is well-maintained, no one spends time outside; if his family lived there, they’d be outside all the time. One night, Jerome orders Sarah to get off her computer and do something else. She explains that she’s creating a website called “End Racism, Injustice” and starts quoting him statistics about murders of unarmed Black people and racial disparities in police-involved shootings.
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Jerome, looking at Sarah’s computer. He recognizes that she’s put a lot of effort into the website but wonders whether it’ll make any difference. When she starts talking about the links on her page about him, he asks her to stop. She retorts that she’s helping him. Jerome—thinking of Officer Moore drinking downstairs, and Sarah’s mom, who has started sleeping throughout the day—tells her that she can’t help him: he’s dead. Sarah, miserably, insists that people have to learn what happened to Jerome so that no more children are murdered.
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Jerome notices how “fierce” learning about violence against children has made Sarah, yet he’s troubled that the Moore family, his own family, and the entire rest of world seem so sad. He suggests that Sarah talk to Officer Moore. Sarah insists that she hates him and asks whether Jerome does too. Jerome thinks about it. After a moment of reflection, in which he remembers that Ma, Pop, and Grandma have told him hatred is wrong, he replies that he doesn’t hate Officer Moore and thinks Sarah shouldn’t either. When Sarah retorts that her father is a racist who murdered Jerome, Jerome replies that he’s a person who made a terrible mistake.
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In his mind, Jerome compares the terrible mistake that Officer Moore made to the terrible bullying that Eddie, Mike, and Snap inflicted on him and Carlos on a whim. He tells Sarah that while random bullying is bad, targeted bullying motivated by bigotry is worse. Then he asks who “taught” Officer Moore his bigotry, given that Sarah isn’t bigoted herself. When Sarah suggests that her father is just a bully, Jerome tells her the issue is more complex than that. He thinks that, after all, police officers carry firearms whereas Eddie, Mike, and Snap just insult and beat up their victims.
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Sarah, looking at her computer, says that there are “so many stories.” Jerome looks at the names of other murdered Black boys on Sarah’s screen and thinks that people may remember him. He again suggests that Sarah should talk to Officer Moore: “Something inside him isn’t right.” When Sarah agrees with Jerome’s insight, saying her father is fearful, Jerome asks whether she can help him stop fearing Black boys. Sarah starts crying. Jerome says goodbye and vanishes, having honed his skill at ghost travel.
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Popping back up in Sarah’s room, Jerome tells her that her attempts to bear witness for him do matter. Tentatively, Sarah ventures that maybe if people are better educated about one another, everyone will be less fearful. Jerome asks whether she means like how she isn’t “even scared of ghosts,” and Sarah laughs. When he asks whether she plans to tell everyone his story, she says she’ll tell the stories of “anyone else hurt out of fear” too. Jerome suggests that police officers must be afraid a lot, and Sarah counters that they shouldn’t be differentially afraid of Black people.
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Sarah nervously admits to Jerome that in a way, she’s happy Officer Moore won’t be tried for murder, because she loves him and knows his actions were a mistake—but then, pleadingly, she asks why he and his partner didn’t even try to give Jerome medical aid. Jerome says that he doesn’t know, but a moment later, he asks Sarah to list three positive characteristics of her father’s. Sarah lists how much her father loves her and her mother, how he takes her skating (not realizing she loathes skating), and how much he loves being a police officer. Talking about how he saved lives and earned medals for courage, Sarah crumbles emotionally, wondering aloud how he could make such a terrible mistake.
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Jerome tells Sarah again that she should talk to Officer Moore. She admits she’s afraid. Jerome tells her that everyone is—though he realizes that he isn’t afraid now that he’s dead. He reflects that he and Emmett Till were “good kids,” but while their killers lived their lives badly, he barely got to live his life at all. He remembers how Emmett Till said that his killers never repented of murdering him and were acquitted by a jury composed entirely of white people. Jerome notes that Officer Moore at least isn’t “celebrating” dodging charges and wonders whether that’s “progress.”
Jerome imagines Sarah growing up to be a writer, protestor, teacher, and mother who raises her children to be unprejudiced. He encourages her to teach people how to “really see” others’ humanity so that no more children die senselessly. He reflects that Sarah will grow up well, because she’s an individual who’s a white girl rather than the stereotype “white girl,” just as he and the other murdered Black boys whose stories Sarah shares on her website were individual human beings.
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Jerome wonders whether white people are afraid of Black people due to slavery and wishes he could announce to the world that racially stereotyping Black boys doesn’t help anything. He and Sarah say goodbye to each other. Jerome contemplates how surprising it is that he made a new friend after he died, while Sarah promises never to forget him or let anyone else forget him.
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Jerome, outside Sarah’s house, hears Sarah call to Officer Moore. She runs downstairs and finds him looking discombobulated and miserable on the sofa. He offers her a hug, and she embraces him. He kisses her hair three times. Then Sarah pulls back and asks her father to be her collaborator. Going pale, he asks whether she’s talking about her work on “the young man I killed.” She explains that her project is about all deaths due to “mistakes” and “prejudice.” Officer Moore, struggling with his emotions, eventually hugs her again and agrees. Sarah tells him she loves him. Jerome feels that he’s received what he “needed” from Sarah and Officer Moore.
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On November 1—which Grandma celebrates as All Saints’ Day and Carlos’s family celebrates as the Day of the Dead—Jerome’s and Carlos’s families have a picnic on Jerome’s grave. Grandma, Carlos, and Kim ornament Jerome’s gravestone and talk to his spirit (Kim mentions that Sarah gave her a Little Women as a gift and that Kim has decided to imagine all the sisters as Black). Meanwhile, Carlos’s parents interact compassionately with Ma and Pop. When Carlos puts a basketball on Jerome’s grave and tells him to play with his friends, Jerome thinks that maybe he’ll organize a “ghost boy tournament.”
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Grandma, gesturing with a piece of paper, tells Carlos it’s very meaningful to her. Jerome looks at the paper and sees a drawing of himself as a skeleton. Carlos explains that pictures like that are a Mexican tradition honoring the dead. Kim asks whether Carlos will teach her to draw, and he agrees. Grandma announces that she’d like to give Jerome’s video games to Carlos and suggests that maybe Jerome can watch while Carlos plays. Carlos enthusiastically agrees to that too. Their closeness makes Jerome happy.
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Emmett Till, popping into existence beside Jerome, says that Jerome and all the ghost boys are remembered. When Jerome asks whether the murders will ever stop, Emmett Till says he’s “got to believe” that someday they will. Jerome, noticing how aged and exhausted Emmett Till looks, worries that grief will age him too. He realizes that the ghost boys haven’t moved on because they’re still “trying to change the world.” When he asks Emmett Till whether all the ghost boys have some person who sees them, Emmett nods and says, “Only the living can make change.” He says that the lawyer at his trial, Thurgood Marshall, was the person who saw him, and that Thurgood Marshall became a major civil rights activist and a judge.
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Jerome tells Emmett Till that Sarah will “do good”; internally, he adds that Carlos and Kim will also do good. Emmett tells Jerome that they have to leave. When Jerome asks where they’re going, Emmett says they roam the world helping the dead speak until the racist murders end and understanding reigns. Jerome adds to this speech a wish for peace.
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