Franny Jackson Character Analysis

Because some hearts beat only about 412 million times.

Which might sound like a lot. But the truth is, it barely even gets you twelve years.

“Not everything makes sense, Zu. Sometimes things just happen.”

He looked at me closely. “Suzy, middle school sucks,” he said. “You know that, right?”

I looked down at the floor.

“No, really, Suzy. When I was in seventh grade, all I wanted was to get the heck out of there. And I hadn’t even lost my best fr—” He stopped quickly and shook his head. “I’m just saying. It won’t always be this way.”

HYPOTHESIS: That the Worst Thing was caused by a sting from an Irukandji jellyfish.

“You see, professionals are trained to recognize patterns,” she continued. “Both good patterns and the patterns that a person might want to change. Professionals are trained to help people figure out things they struggle to understand on their own.”

Ming palace was the place where my not-talking began. It was just a few days after seventh grade started, which was just a few days after Franny’s funeral. When I arrived at the restaurant that night, Dad was outside, cradling a phone between his neck and his shoulder. “Uh-huh,” he said. He held up one finger as if to say, I’ll be just a moment.

“But you’d never be like Aubrey,” I say.

“Yeah, but just in case. Send me a signal. Like a secret message.”

The weirdest part of the whole video came after he was out of the hospital, though. Because as soon as he felt better—like, the very instant—he got right back into the water. Just like that, he went back to those jellyfish. He laughed and joked, as if those two days hadn’t even happened. He didn’t even seem mad.

A few weeks go by like that: I sit down and watch the rest of you talk. Then one day, I sit back down at our old table. You don’t join me, and when you sit with those other girls, your back is to me.

The tree is right in front of him. There is a smile on his face. He winds his arm back.

He is about to kill something for no reason whatsoever.

The other kids scream and laugh at the same time.

“Medusa!”

I suddenly saw myself from the outside, as if I were watching from a corner of the classroom. I didn’t see a girl who had just convinced the world of something important. Instead, I saw a weird, frizzy-haired girl with trembling hands and a blotchy red face. A girl with no friends. A girl whose face was screwing up in the ugliest way, tears starting to stream from her eyes.

Then you disappear.

I do not wonder if this is the last image I will ever have of you on this Earth. Why would I wonder such a thing?

What I am thinking now is simply this: You did not look.

Everything was supposedly over and we were supposed to start getting on with life.

But I was sure: I wasn’t going to accept this thing that had happened, the way all those others were doing.

“Don’t worry, Belle,” he said. He patted my arm. “I got this one.”

He picked up the dead earthworm with tweezers and laid it out on the table in front of us. It looked just like every other earthworm I’d ever seen, except that it lay there like a limp piece of string.

Before I had a chance to begin, Franny’s mom said, “You know she always admired you so much, Suzy.”

Here is the last, most important thing about jellyfish.

I’ll bet you could never in a million years guess this one.

They are immortal.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that. I also don’t just mean that they will outlast us, even though they will.

I am sorry I am just a dumb creature on a rock hurtling through space. I’m sorry I made your time on this rock, this stupid little mote of dust, harder and not easier.

Back in 1968, people saw Earth rising over the moon and believed they mattered. They believed they could accomplish anything.

What if we could feel that way again?

But I stopped squinting. I placed my mom’s phone in my shirt pocket, next to the photo of Aaron. I took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” I said to Sarah. “Let’s go.”