Percontation Points

P: 7/31/26 M: 8/7/26

Chapter 6

But you don’t really get a chance to mull it over for very long because you are too busy trying to keep the guy from getting off another shot, which you do by yelling, “Gun! Gun! He’s got a gun!”

Why did she jump on the man with the gun? Why didn’t she simply scream this out instead?! This girl has zero survival instincts, and the only reason why she’s still alive is because the author demanded it.

When they give you a hospital gown to wear because your clothes are wet, and you refuse to put it on because the back is all cut out, they give you another one, so you can wear one that opens in the front and one that opens in the back, thus covering all of you. No one else in the entire hospital gets two gowns but you.

I promise you that they will give you another gown if you ask for one. This isn’t special treatment; everybody knows that hospital gowns suck.

You scream so loudly when you see your hideous school photo on national television that about thirty Secret Service agents burst into your room, pistols drawn, demanding to know if you’re all right.

Chapter 6 summary: So yeah. Like an absolute moron, Sam jumps onto this guy holding up a gun. With the intent of murdering the POTUS. The gun goes off, but fires up into the air. But the man is startled by Sam suddenly being on his back, and they both go down. At this point, and only after this, does Sam think to scream out “He’s got a gun!” Then secret service are everywhere. They pull the man off from her, and think that she’s with him. Even though… I’m certain half of the people on the street watching the presidential motorcade could have said otherwise. They probably did, when they were talking to Sam. She says that she’s only a junior in high school, and that does seem to calm everybody down. They put her into an ambulance, since she hurt her arm when the guy landed on her. After a bit, the EMTs say that her arm is for sure broken, and she needs medical treatment. Literally the only thing Sam can think about is the fact that everybody is going to know that she ditched her art lesson. Like literally the only thing. She doesn’t want to go to the hospital, because she thinks that it will somehow out her evil deeds. But the secret service take her anyway. The chapter ends on… you guessed it. Another list. But at least this one kind of glosses over what happened in the hospital. The doctor who put the cast on her asked for her autograph. When she was alone, Sam turned the TV on and was shocked when the special news report flashed her student ID… Which she was less embarrassed about it happening and more about how ugly she looked in the student ID photo. Also… I love how they openly told the world about this literal child. Protections for minors? Lol what’s that?! But then again, maybe the press simply were there and got a hold of the ID card while the secret service was looking it over.

Chapter 7

I needn’t have bothered. They were both completely clueless about the whole drawing lessons thing. They were just glad I was all right.

Unlike Sam, the parents seem to have their priorities straightened out. The bar is on the ground with them, but still. At least they showed up when their literal daughter stopped an assassination plot on the POTUS.

My dad told me after he came back with a Quarter Pounder for my dinner, since I absolutely could not bring myself to eat the food the hospital provided, which was some kind of stew with peas and carrots in it. Like people in a hospital don’t feel sick enough already. This is what they give them to eat?

Seriously.

“Ohmigod,” she gushed. “All I did was try to slip the folks from MSNBC a more flattering photo of you. I mean, they keep showing that hideous shot from your school ID. I was all, “Dudes, she is way more attractive than that” and I tried to give them that photo Grandma took at Christmas—you know, the one where you’re in that Esprit dress, which used to be cute until you dyed it black, but whatever.”

Say what you will about Lucy, but she seems like what we would now call “a girl’s girl”. I know that Sam doesn’t like her sister, but that’s typical sibling stuff. Lucy, you can’t convince me to hate you! You’d have to start kicking puppies!

“Imagine how I felt,” she said, “when the policeman told me I could not get through to pick you up because there’d been a shooting. I thought you were dead!” Rebecca was more philosophical about the whole thing. “Sam’s not a member of the group with the highest risk of death from gun violence —males ages fifteen to thirty-four—so I wasn’t particularly worried.”

You do realise that you don’t have to be in any target demographic in order for some psycho with a gun to come and start spraying bullets everywhere… right? Oh America before the extreme gun epidemic. I miss your cheerful optimism about psychos with guns.

“I overheard the chief hospital administrator ask Dad when you were ready for your press conference.”

I feel like, in her giddy eagerness to write about this… The author forgot one key thing: TO ASK PERMISSION FOR SAM TO DO ALL OF THIS. Again, Sam is literally a minor. The secret service handed over her student ID to news outlets. Her location was leaked and hundreds of people showed up outside the hospital and at her house. The entire state of Ohio sent flowers. Like maybe sending flowers and fruit baskets isn’t shocking but like… At no point does anybody stop to remember that this is a literal child who went through the most traumatic thing imaginable. No she does not want to have a fucking press conference!

“Um, Samantha. There’s someone here to see you,” and I turned around and there was the President of the United States.