Arnold Spirit, Jr. (“Junior”) describes how he was born with excess cerebral spinal fluid, or “water,” on his brain. A surgery to remove the fluid during Junior's infancy is supposed to make him brain dead, but the complications turn out to be relatively minor. As he grows up, he ends up having 42, instead of 32 teeth.
In the book Junior describes himself as a hydrocephalic, he has water in his brain which makes him handicapped on a certain level. Besides having seizures regularly, he also suffers from stuttering and lisping.
Penelope explains that she has depression and anxiety and that she takes medication. That she stood him up because she stopped taking her pills. He accepts her being depressed and they start making out. Schneider arrives and sits next to them as they do.
For Junior, the worst thing about being poor is being powerless—particularly being powerless to care for the people (and animals) you love. Because of this, poverty is also cyclical, as poor parents can't do much to help their kids achieve their dreams.
Junior remembers how, at the age of twelve, he fell in love with a Native American girl named Dawn.
Junior is enraged that he's being taught with more than 30-year-old course materials, and before he realizes what he's doing, he throws the book as hard as he can into Mr. P's face.
On Halloween, Junior and Penelope both arrive at school dressed as homeless people—an easy costume for Junior, he notes, since his clothes are in poor condition anyway.
Turtle Lake, at the center of the Spokane Reservation, is unfathomable—no one, not even scientists using a small submarine, has been able to measure its depth. In this way, it represents the deep mystery that resides with the Spokane people. Junior learns a frightening story about Turtle Lake from his father.
As he grows up, he ends up having 42, instead of 32 teeth. When it comes time to have the extras removed, Junior learns Indian Health Services does major dental work only once per year. So Junior has all ten extra teeth pulled during one day.
Junior needed surgery when he was six months old. Why? Because he was born with water on the brain. How many teeth do most humans have?
Weeks later after being forced back to work in the kitchen, Penelope was desperate to get back into the king's good graces. She stopped by his chambers, where she announced she was pregnant with his child.
Penelope, in Greek mythology, a daughter of Icarius of Sparta and the nymph Periboea and wife of the hero Odysseus. They had one son, Telemachus.
When Telegonus discovered his mistake, he buried Odysseus and mourned his death. He then took Penelope and Telemachus with him to his mother's island of Aeaea. There, Telemachus married Circe, while Telegonus married Penelope.
Junior doesn't find it comforting that his sister was “too freaking drunk to feel any pain when she burned to death.” The absurdity of the situation sets him off again, and he laughs uncontrollably while his dad silently drives him home.
Junior's own dad, Arnold Spirit, Sr., is an alcoholic who disappears for days at a time. But, unlike Rowdy's father, Junior's dad is not physically abusive.
The Absolutely True Diary begins by introducing Junior's birth defects: he was born with hydrocephalus and therefore is small for his age and suffers from seizures, poor eyesight, stuttering, and a lisp. As a result, Junior has always been picked on by other people on the reservation.
Jay, aged 21, was featured on Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies. You might have seen him, a patient who hadn't brushed his teeth for 20 years – essentially his whole life. As a child, Jay hadn't been pressured to take care of his teeth, and this led to him developing a fear of the dentist, making the problem worse.
Rowdy's alcoholic father beats him, and Junior is afraid of being attacked by drunks. The alcoholic brawling at the powwow also shows how violence and alcoholism have been absorbed into Spokane culture. Meanwhile, Rowdy's protection of Junior is one of the most important dynamics of their friendship.
Why is Kentucky Fried Chicken important to Junior? Junior tells us how a bucket of KFC after a few days of being hungry is the most beautiful thing in the world.
Junior sees his grandmother as an embodiment of the most important virtues in life: tolerance and forgiveness. He sees her tolerance—her acceptance of people who are different —as uniquely Indian.
This flashback reveals that Junior was a much more supportive friend to Rowdy than Rowdy has been to him, but it also illustrates the private discussions of dreams that Junior had identified as a hallmark of their friendship.
Rowdy is probably the most important person in Junior's life, since he spends more time with Rowdy than with anyone else.
Most teenagers stop dressing up and trick-or-treating somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16 — but that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad manners for them to go door-to-door, as long as they are polite while out on the streets.
Later, just when Junior thinks things can't get any worse, the school guidance counselor calls him into the hall to tell him that Mary has died. Junior's dad picks him up from school and tells him that Mary and her husband's trailer caught on fire while the two were passed out from excess drinking.