Mick’s summer is the most interesting one she’s had. She takes care of her little brothers during the day, but her head is full of thoughts and music. At night, she sneaks out to walk alone with her music and ideas. It is also the summer she discovers that her beloved father is his own individual separate from the role of her father. He had called her into his workshop, where he fixes watches after an injury made him incapable of completing his carpentry work. Mick senses that he wants to talk to her, but instead they sit in silence. This is how Mick realizes that “He was lonesome and he was an old man” (41). She figures that her father feels ashamed of not bringing more money into the family and is lonely because his kids don’t spend time with him.

Mick is multifaceted and ambitious. Unlike other girls her age, Mick isn’t afraid to wander alone in the town after dark. She starts taking Spanish lessons and teaches Bubber the new language. Mick enjoys high school, but she quickly learns that her habit of drifting into every clique won’t do in high school.