Orbiting Jupiter: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Some teachers like Joseph. The PE teacher, Coach Swieteck, a veteran missing both legs, quickly realizes that Joseph is a talented gymnast. Mr. D’Ulney, the math teacher, gives Joseph extra problems during Joseph and Jack’s fifth-period “Office Duty.” After Mr. Canton sees Mr. D’Ulney giving Joseph a theorem, he starts giving Joseph and Jack more office work—and Joseph starts eating lunch in Mr. D’Ulney’s room.

One afternoon, while Joseph is at counseling, a man with Joseph’s “black eyes”—Joseph’s father, Mr. Brook—appears in the Hurd barn and asks Jack where Joseph is. The cows moo unhappily, unlike when Joseph arrived. Mr. Brook asks whether “Joe” is there. When Jack says no, Mr. Brook asks what Jack is “here for.” Mr. Hurd checks that the man is Joseph’s father and tells him that he shouldn’t have come. Mr. Brook asks whether Joseph does farm chores, too—whether the Hurds foster children to make them do farm chores. Mr. Hurd calmly insists that Mr. Brook leave. Mr. Brook curses but goes.

Around Thanksgiving, the weather gets even colder. The Monday after Thanksgiving, while walking home from school, Joseph abruptly turns off the road and heads for the Alliance River. Jack—who knows that the river ice stays thin until deep winter—asks what Joseph is doing. Joseph replies, “Figure it out, Jackie.” While Jack follows him along the riverbank and tries to warn him, Joseph slides out onto the ice. Panicked, Jack yells the name that he’s heard Joseph cry in his sleep: “Maddie!” Joseph tells Jack to shut up. He starts jumping on the ice. Then, suddenly exhausted, he starts toward the riverbank.

Jack remembers how, at age six, he was walking home with Mrs. Hurd when he saw a yellow dog half-fallen through thin ice on the river, scrabbling silently to climb out of the water. Jack wanted to help, but his mother held him back. Eventually, the dog fell under the ice. Though Jack had seen animals die on the farm before, he had nightmares for months about the dog’s drowning—often nightmares in which he was the dog.

When Joseph falls through the ice on his way to the bank, it’s like Jack’s nightmares. Joseph catches himself on the remaining ice. Up to his shoulders in water, he scrabbles at the ice. Jack dumps out the contents of his backpack, edges toward Joseph onto the ice, and—holding one backpack strap—throws the backpack at Joseph. Joseph catches the end of the backpack. As Jack pulls, his feet go through the ice, but he doesn’t let go. Joseph pulls himself out of the water and wriggles up onto the bank. Then he heaves Jack out of the water, and both boys fall into the snow.

Jack yells at Joseph that he’s crazy and tells him that people can freeze to death after getting out of the water. Joseph suggests that they should head back to the Hurds’ in that case. When Jack starts to ask why Joseph did it, Joseph cuts him off and walks away. Mr. Canton drives up, orders the boys inside his car, and turns up the heat. He tells them that a passerby called the school “about two crazy kids on the ice”—and that he knew which two kids it would be. He says that he’ll be talking to both of them about their behavior during their Office Duty the next day.

When Jack and Joseph get home, Mrs. Hurd orders them to strip in front of the wood stove. Then she wraps them in blankets and gives them hot chocolate. When Mr. Hurd gets home, he scolds Jack, reminding him that he’s not supposed to go out on the ice until Mr. Hurd tells him it is safe to do so. When Joseph interjects that Jack came out onto the ice because of him, Mr. Hurd says that he’ll be talking to Joseph about that later. When he does talk to Joseph, he sends Jack into the kitchen to do homework. Afterward, Joseph comes in and apologizes to Jack.

At bedtime, after Jack gets into the lower bunk of his and Joseph’s bunkbed, Joseph comes over. Jack sees a scar all down Joseph’s side. Joseph tells Jack not to worry about Mr. Canton because Mr. Hurd will call him—and to never say “Maddie” again. He also says that he’s the only one who called Madeleine “Maddie.” Jack agrees not to call her that. Joseph walks to the window and looks at the sky. Then he climbs into the top bunk. After a pause, Jack asks Joseph why he went onto the ice. Joseph says that Maddie liked to skate.