In this interview, author Laurie Halse Anderson explores why high school can be so brutal, who you can talk to when you are hurting, and how to stay safe. Starting your freshman year of high school is hard enough without being ostracized by the entire school. But no one, not even her best friends, bother to find out why she called the police.
People grab the fast, easy answer.
Especially in a situation like this, where Melinda's actions got everyone in trouble, her friends aren't going to explore her motives. Melinda seems to have a practically nonexistent relationship with her parents. They both work a lot and don't pay much attention to her or each other. Yet, you would think at least one of them would wonder about the scars on her bitten lips, her silence, her sudden downslide of grades, and severe lack of friends. When parents say things like that, I think it means they don't understand what is going on in their kid's life, and they are too ignorant or scared to find out.