The Great Gilly Hopkins

Agnes is outside Trotter’s house to walk with Gilly to school the next day. Gilly ignores Agnes until Agnes tries to touch her, and then she snaps that she doesn’t want any of the help Agnes has offered. Still, Agnes trails Gilly to school and offers to walk with Gilly every day. Gilly ignores Agnes until they get to school, when Agnes offers her bubblegum. Then, conspiratorially, Agnes points to a girl and says her mom ran away with a sailor, and according to Agnes’s grandma, the girl’s family is “trash.” Gilly promptly asks what Agnes’s grandma has to say about Agnes’s own family. Suddenly anxious, Agnes insists her parents will be back before Christmas and asks if Gilly is mocking her. Blowing a bubble that almost pops in Agnes’s hair, Gilly insists she’d never do that.

In Miss Harris’s class, Gilly focuses. She can’t look dumb in front of these kids, so she plans to work hard until she passes them all. Once she accomplishes that, then she’ll stop trying in school. Teachers usually take it personally and get really angry, and she’d love to make Miss Harris angry. At lunch, Gilly decides to find some use for Agnes, so she sits with her. Agnes observes that they both get free lunch—she has no sense of privacy. To punish Agnes, Gilly says Agnes makes her sick and that she won’t “put up with” Agnes’s “big mouth.” So Agnes should be quiet, both so she doesn’t embarrass herself and so none of her brains fall out her open mouth. Agnes follows Gilly meekly for the rest of the day, until Gilly leaves her at Trotter’s gate.

Upon entering Trotter’s house, Gilly ignores the smell of cookies baking (she’s too smart to be drawn in by food) and hurries upstairs, where she begins to tape her cash to the bottom of a drawer for safekeeping. But William Ernest bursts in without knocking, carrying a tray of milk and cookies. He looks terrified. Sighing, Gilly takes the tray from him and he immediately races away. The cookies are heavenly, and as Gilly eats, she decides to use William Ernest rather than Agnes in her scheme. Pleased with her cleverness, Gilly takes her tray downstairs, smiles at Trotter, and joins William Ernest in front of Sesame Street. She smiles kindly when he glances at her, lets him fetch Mr. Randolph for dinner, and folds him a paper airplane afterward.

Gilly suggests she and William Ernest go outside so he can fly the paper airplane. It turns out to be the best plane Gilly has ever folded, and she encourages William Ernest to climb on the porch railing to throw it, supporting him so he doesn’t fall. He throws it into Mr. Randolph’s yard and climbs over the fences to get it. When he praises Gilly’s plane upon his return, she smiles a real smile and praises his throwing technique. When Mr. Randolph and Trotter come outside, William Ernest asks them to watch. Confident now, he climbs the railing himself and throws the plane. Trotter praises Gilly’s plane, but William Ernest repeats that he’s just really good at flying it. Gilly agrees with him.

As Gilly offers to walk Mr. Randolph home, Trotter gives her a look and thanks Gilly. Gilly is confused. She’s wanted to see the look now on Trotter’s face her entire life—but not from Trotter.