Freewill Chapter 3 Summary

 Charity 

• Two more teens commit suicide. Yikes, right? Their bodies are found drowned in the bay… and nearby the site are two wooden sculptures.
• Will hears on the radio that police are investigating the placement of the sculptures, but have not determined whether the teens who died placed them there.
• Will starts to freak out, thinking he or his sculptures are somehow responsible for the deaths. His grandmother tries to convince him there's no way he could… ahem, will something like that to happen.
• The phone is ringing off the hook—Will refuses a call from Mr. Jacks, then overhears Pops answering odd questions.
• When he discovers it's a reporter from the local news, he answers a few of his questions.
• Will tells the reporter that he made the sculptures and put them in the sand, but…
• Ignoring his grandparents' fear that he might implicate himself as a suspect, Will agrees to meet the guy at the beach.
• Will tells the reporter he planted the sculptures but has no idea how the two kids died.
• The reporter tells Will there is a rumor going around that some kind of cult is involved in the recent deaths, and wants to know what the "Nazi goth penis weird whatevers"—he can't quite find the words wooden sculptures in his vocabulary—mean.
• Suggesting that the police are going to hunt Will down, the reporter tries to scare Will in an effort to coax an explanation out of him.
• Will gives the guy nothing, though, asks him not to make stuff up, then runs away.
• The reporter baits him further, implying there is a connection between Will's parents' murder-suicide and the suicides happening around town.
• Now in a rage, Will turns back and hits the reporter, knocking both of them to the ground.
• Surprised by his own aggression, Will gets up and walks away as the reporter shouts insults at him.
• Back in his room at home, Will ruminates over his unusual and unfortunate circumstances while he ices his swollen hand.
• The next morning, a detective by the name of Lieutenant Dahl visits the house and questions Will about the incidents, asking him if he might be a "teenage prophet of death" (1118).
• Will tells him he is not a prophet, but perhaps "a carrier pigeon of death" (1032), and that he's worried that kids are coming to his sculptures to do this.
• Will goes to the hospital for x-rays and returns with his hand in a splint and medication.
• While he knows it is admirable to resist taking the meds, Will realizes that he needs help and decides he could use some of that peace of mind stuff.
• Ready to be done with all of this, Will heads to school to clean out his locker.
• Mr. Jacks confronts him, though, and tells him he doesn't think he's ready to be out of the program.
• Will disagrees, and since he needs a medical clearance to leave, he gets himself examined and questioned by a nurse.
• Once Will is cleared, Mr. Jacks interrogates him about his sculptures. Thing is, though, that Will has no idea why they've all disappeared or where they might be going—someone must be taking them.
• At home Will receives a mysterious call from an anonymous raspy-voiced male asking, "who's next?"
• The caller tells Will that he's famous… like Jesus (1160), and calls him an Angel.
• Will hears the Frank Sinatra song "Summer Wind" playing in the background, and asks that the caller reveal his identity and tell him where the sculptures are being taken.
• In response, all he hears is a chorus of snickering voices. Creepy.
• When someone asks Will to tell them who will be next, Will finally hangs up the phone.
• Will heads to the school track meet to find Angela, who has just won an event.
• The two have an awkward conversation in which Will asks if she would miss him if he were gone and she refuses to directly answer his trick question but instead calls him out on the practice of trick questions, which she confesses to believe is part of his woe-is-me act which at this point she's pretty tired of.
• Did we say awkward? Perhaps we meant uncomfortable.
• This gives Angela an opportunity to express her frustration with Will and his withholding nature, which is driving her nuts. He's evaded her questions since day one and she's sick of it—among other insults, Angela tells Will to "grow up!" (1232).
• Will returns to his safe spot—a.k.a. the beach—to do some more ruminating.
• He is surprised to see Angela, who is holding one of the wooden sculptures and curious how it ended up in her front yard. Will has no clue.
• The two are equally freaked-out by the whole ordeal, and Will assures her he will make it stop.
• When he gets home, Will's grandmother tells him he looks bad—and though she says he needs more sleep, we're thinking he needs less creepiness around his sculptures.
• The next morning, Will wakes up to find his front yard covered in wooden statues, along with a sign with the word NEXT? written on it.
• Will's grandparents want to know what's going on, as grandparents are inclined to do, and if Will has been taking his medication.
• Pops and Will get into it again when Will reminds him that he is not his son but his grandson.
• Gran smacks him for saying such a mean thing and finally raises her voice at him saying, "[…] and I am not your mother, or your father. And you are not your father. Nobody is him anymore" (1335), which is certainly a true statement on her part.
• Silence falls over the yard filled with gnomes… that is, until it's broken by Pops and Will yelling. Pops goes on about life and fate and how some people have it harder than others and some people fall but they pick themselves up or, if they're lucky, someone is there to help them get up off the ground. Pops, it seems, has some things to get off his chest when it comes to Will and his attitude.
• Will gets another freaky prank call with a Sinatra soundtrack—and this time, the caller wants to know why Angela isn't dead.
• Will has an a-ha (or oh no) moment, and asks the guy to meet him at the beach.
• The freaky prank-caller dude shows up at the beach in a black leather jacket and matching cap, wanting to know who is going down next.
• With a sudden life-altering burst of mojo, Will wrestles the black jacket and cap guy to the ground and gets him in headlock, then attempts to push him into the ocean, pretending to be a killer.
• The guy in the black cap runs away, and with a sudden mood-enhancing burst of insight, Will recognizes his own power, courage, and authority. In this moment, Will is the man.
• So he goes for a swim, at which point he realizes that not only is he not alone, but he is also not responsible for his father—or anyone else's—deaths. And you know what else? People love him and things are going to get better.
• A wet Will returns home to dry off, greet his grandparents with a better attitude, and admire all of his beautiful wooden fat-faced little gnome whirligigs.