The Sky is Everywhere Chapter 2 Summary

  • So this chapter opens up with a poem, which you should get used to, because poems are scattered throughout this novel.
  • The poems are in a different font that makes them look handwritten, and are in the voice of the narrator.
  • This poem describes the main character's last morning with her sister. Bailey was trying on shirts and asking her opinion about them, but she was too tired to care.
  • The main character's name is finally dropped in the poem: It's Lennie.
  • Cut to regular prose writing. It's Lennie's first day back at school after her sister's death, and everyone's either treating her very delicately, or telling her about the Hot New Boy who arrived during her absence.
  • Lennie finds Hot New Boy in her seat in band class and totally agrees with the hype.
  • The boy, whose name is Joe Fontaine, chats with her; Lennie feels guilty for flirting when her sister is dead.
  • Apparently, this has been happening to Lennie a lot lately. Ever since Bailey's funeral, she's been thinking inappropriate sexy thoughts about almost every boy she meets.
  • But Joe, she decides, glows in a class above the other boys. She thinks he looks like a well-adjusted version of Heathcliff, the brooding main character from Wuthering Heights. (Heads up: Those Wuthering Heights references are going to keep on coming, so if you want to pause for a little crash course in the book, just click here.)
  • We're introduced to some more characters: Sarah, Lennie's happy-goth bestie, and Mr. James, the band teacher.
  • Then there's Rachel Brazile, whose saxophonist ex-boyfriend starts playing the Jaws theme song as she approaches. Which basically tells us everything we need to know about Rachel.
  • But just in case we need more reasons to hate her, we learn that Rachel got first chair over Lennie, plus, when she says Joe moved from France, she pronounces it, "Fronce." Ew.
  • Rachel starts flirting with Joe, and to Lennie's chagrin and disgust, he flirts back; Lennie changes her mind and decides he looks nothing like Heathcliff.
  • The chapter ends with another narrative poem, this one about how after Bailey died, "time didn't stop." People kept doing the normal everyday things—crushing crackers into clam chowder, etc.
  • Did we mention all the poems are end-capped with the weird places where they were found? This poem was found on a piece of staff paper spiked on a low branch at Flying Man's Gulch.