Paper Towns Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Quentin wakes up from dreaming of Margo Roth Spiegelman when his phone rings.
  • It's 3:18AM and Ben is on the phone. He's drunk at an after-prom party, and he needs Quentin to take him home.
  • When Quentin arrives at the party, Ben is trying to break a keg stand record, which Quentin thinks is "so trivial, so embarrassing" (2.13.22). Totally unlike sleeping in an abandoned strip mall where a girl you've spent about twelve hours total with in your entire life once spent the night…
  • Everyone is drunk, and Quentin is annoyed at having to talk to them while he waits for Ben to leave.
  • He wanders around and passes a bedroom where Jase and Becca Arrington are having sex.
  • Quentin sticks around, hoping he'll get to see Becca naked, and he hears Jase call her Margo.
  • She gets angry (doesn't he know she's called Margo Roth Spiegelman?) and kicks him out.
  • Quentin goes to the bathroom, and Lacey is sitting in the bathtub, upset because Becca told everyone she has an STD.
  • The conversation turns to Margo Roth Spiegelman, and Lacey speculates that she's dead.
  • Ben finally gets ready to leave at 5:00AM, but he's superglued a sword made out of beer cans to his hands.
  • They dismantle the sword, leaving one can stuck to his hand, and Quentin drives him home.