Clean Getaway

“Scoob will never forget hearing Ms. Manasmith gasp as he leapt from his seat, hopped the table, and tackled Bryce.”

Scoob’s growing reputation as a troublemaker is the source of much of his consternation and feelings of being misunderstood. It’s what makes him want to flee with G’ma, to make his own “clean getaway.” He understands that he shouldn’t have resorted to violence, but he also wasn’t getting the support he needed from the adults in his life.

“‘You think a police officer will care about you “defending a friend” when they toss you in jail for aggravated assault?’ Dad said on the way home from school to begin Scoob’s three-day suspension. ‘You can’t react violently to someone else’s words. Especially someone like Bryce. When boys like you’—he pointed to the brown back of Scoob’s hand—‘hit boys like him—he opened his own hand and pointed to his pale palm—‘the punishment is harsher and the fallout infinitely worse, William.’”

James is very aware that Scoob’s life is more at risk because he is Black than it would be if he was white, especially since Scoob’s skin is even darker than his. This connects to the theme Racism Towards the Black Community in the United States, since he fears that someone may view Scoob as a dangerous Black man, rather than listening to the full story.

“Though he can totally feel G’ma looking at him, and he knows from the way the hairs on the back of his neck are rising, she’s doing that thing where she tries to see inside his head. If he looks at her now, she’ll see all the other mess—Scoob’s frustration over the fact that Bryce wasn’t punished, his annoyance that all the teachers look at him like he’s a lit stick of dynamite now despite the fact that Bryce is still terrorizing people (though not Drake anymore), his anger over the unfairness of the whole situation—swirling around behind Scoob’s eyes, and she’ll drag it all out of him.”

Scoob knows people might look at him and his grandma oddly since she is white, and he is Black. However, as they drive through states like Mississippi and Alabama, he grows wary as the sneers grow increasingly menacing. It illustrates a lasting racism in the United States and connects to the themes of The Negative Effects of Racial Stereotyping and the Racism Towards the Black Community in the United States.