A List of Cages

Adam narrates this chapter. He visits his friend, Charlie Taylor, at his house. Adam describes Charlie's house as "basically a Charles Dickens orphanage, except the kids are happy and the villain here is completely outnumbered" (29). Roe never reveals how many siblings Charlie has, but Adam interacts with six during this scene. Adam tells Charlie that they'll be late for laser tag, so Charlie won’t stop and reprimand a sibling who put something purple and sticky on the sleeve of his jacket. Charlie gets in Adam's mother's car, a 1968 Saab delivery van, and remarks that his parents could afford to get him a car if they hadn't had so many other children.

Charlie tells Adam that everyone is saying that he groped Emerald during English class. Adam refutes this rumor by explaining Emerald had merely agreed to let him hug her "like a princess allowing a peasant to kiss her hand" (32). Adam says he was hugging her to get some oxytocin, a chemical produced when people touch; without it, people can actually die. Charlie rolls his eyes and says that he and his girlfriend, Allison, are getting plenty of that. Adam believes Charlie still thinks that he wants Emerald as a girlfriend just because they went out for a month in the sixth grade. Adam reminds Charlie that Emerald has a "badass" boyfriend, who is a sophomore in college, on the rowing team, and pilots a plane in his spare time (32).

Adam says he's going to kick Charlie's ass in laser tag. Charlie whines, "‘You said we'd be on the same team this time’" (33).

The first section of Chapter 6 is narrated by Julian. It's 10 p.m. and Julian is closing the curtains to go to bed at his house. He feels a sense of dread, and he can't relax because it's too quiet. He remembers falling asleep to his movies playing on his portable DVD player when his parents were alive. He turns on a flashlight and gazes at the sand-colored walls of his uncle's house. He remembers the brilliant ocean blue of the walls at his parents' house. His walls were covered with colorful posters. He remembers the first time Russell ever punished him was because he had hung a poster in this room. Julian explained he had hung posters in his room at Adam's house, when he was a foster child there. Russell had made Julian believe that Adam and Adam's mother had put him out, and that's why he couldn't stay there anymore. After Russell convinced Julian that this was true, he tells Julian something Russell has told him "a thousand times" before: that the problem with the world was that fathers didn't raise sons anymore, so they never truly became men" (35).Julian's anxiety remembering this conversation keeps coming back, so he tries to focus his attention on the ceiling and think good thoughts. He thinks of an Elian Mariner book, but instead of the hero, Elian Mariner is standing on the deck of a ship in his crayon-colored world. Julian pretends he is also standing on the deck, and his ship "can go anywhere" (36).

Adam narrates the second section of this chapter. He comes home from school and finds his mother absorbed in a TV program, complaining about the plot. They play a game of Connect Four together and talk about Adam's friends. When Adam wins, Catherine tells Adam that she might have early Alzheimer's disease. Adam dismisses this as nonsense, since she is only 37. Adam tells his mother that he saw Julian at school that day, and she tells Adam that she thinks about Julian every day.