" 'A couple of months back, I had this talk with Miss Lucy... What she said was that if I didn't want to be creative, if I really didn't feel like it, that was perfectly alright. Nothing wrong with it, she said' " (23).
In another flashback, Kathy reminisces about Tommy's rapid transformation from the kid who was the target of immature pranks to just a normal teenager. It was strange how "the way he looked people in the face and talked in his open, good-natured way" (22) was different from before. The motivation for this transformation was a simple talk with one of the guardians. The author reveals Tommy's motivation after leaving only one page for readers to form their own speculations. This is effective because it does give readers a chance to form their own ideas without making them speculate for chapters only to find out their original thinking was wrong and they have been analyzing the book with false information. The motivation provided by a direct statement from the character to a trusted friend reveals why Tommy seems more confident and less susceptible to the pranks he has been tormented with for years. However, the direct statement is still a bit vague, creating suspense moving into the third chapter. The declaration of Tommy's motivation for his dramatic change is effective because it doesn't directly state everything at once; it gives just enough information to keep the reader in suspense and wanting to find out how this simple statement motivated Tommy to be such a different person. The purpose of telling Tommy's motivation is to describe why he changed and tell readers more about his character and the people that are important to him. Tommy's declaration to Kathy proves that he trusts her as a friend. Likewise, Tommy trusts Miss Lucy because he took their conversation to heart and was able to become a friend and classmate rather than the kid who throws tantrums and is the recipient of a ridiculous number of pranks everyday.
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