In the reading, the main character is described as a newbie in the context of being clueless about his upcoming days in middle school. At first, he doesnt realize that everything has changed but the more time he spends as an older kid, he views the world from a different lens now. The author uses the word Lion as a way to symbolize the unknown. Everything changed. Just like that. Like the rug, the one that gets pulledΒor better, like the tablecloth those magicians pull where the stuff on the table stays the same but the gasp! from the audience makes the staying-the-same part not matter. Like that. He describes a rug being pulled to his quick change in life from being a child to a grown adult. For example, junior high is being compared to his old elementary Alma Mater, in which he discusses the differences between the teachers and how they are more strict and less babysitter-like. Β we felt personally abandoned somehow. When a person had all these teachers now, he didnt get taken care of the same
way, even though six was more than one., this quote, out of many, directly shows the idea of how growing up comes into play. The narrator discusses how the jobs of teachers have shifted from holding hands to Cutting off your hand. This shift of care between his two schools, represents the phase of becoming more independent, strengthening the idea of maturity.
After they got used to the way of middle school, they found a river. They called it the Arroyo. At the river, they live their lives as teenagers, talking about things they want to do with girls, and we would yell about girls and all the things we wanted to do with them, as loud as we could. The theme of the story embodies mainly the Arroyo. When the boys go to visit, they scream at the top of their lungs with every dirty word they could think of. They no longer faced the restrictions that youth put on them which elementary school symbolizes. This idea further proves how the act of growing up loses the innocence that being young has to offer.