Chapter Twenty-Five

Contains spoilers

Overview

This chapter details the fourteen-year-old future artist’s depression, neglect at home, and escalating torment at school under a cruel art teacher nicknamed the Owl. A classroom humiliation and confrontation trigger the boy to flee with pills in his backpack, but a chance collision with janitor Christian leads to painting a mural and a life-saving affirmation. Joar, Ali, and Ted search frantically and find the artist smiling by the wall, where Joar declares the artist now knows he does not want to die.

Summary

The narration opens by examining the despair of depressed children, focusing on the future artist’s profound anxiety and suicidal ideation. Ali, Joar, and Ted were also fragile, but the artist was described as a paper boat heading toward a waterfall, his silence suffocating the group. The artist’s mother lived with severe mental illness and detachment; his father, an alcoholic, derided his son as abnormal. The boy grew up with minimal affection, learning to hide himself and accept that no one at home recognized his gift.

At school, the artist was bullied for drawing winged, naked men and became increasingly withdrawn, losing weight and hiding under oversized hoodies. His friends suffered alongside him: Ali with desperation, Joar with anger, and Ted praying to the demons to spare his friend. The demons, the narration says, did not listen.

In eighth grade, a new art teacher—soon mocked as the Owl—insisted on rigid rules and theory, turning art into punishment for the artist. When the teacher needled the artist over an assignment to draw a flower, Joar publicly taunted the teacher, sparking school-wide ridicule of the Owl and ultimately ensuring that the teacher would target the vulnerable artist in retaliation.

The Owl escalated the cruelty, setting tasks designed to humiliate and banning the artist’s comfort habits. In one class, after the artist failed to draw a box and froze in panic, the Owl blocked his exit and grabbed him. The boy jerked free, the teacher fell and hit his head, and the incident was framed as an attack, compounded by Joar smashing up the classroom while defending his friend, shouting that the teacher only fed the boy’s self-hatred.

The artist fled the school with a backpack full of pills and a head full of demons. By chance, he collided with janitor Christian, and the ensuing encounter led to painting a mural together—an echo and deepening of their earlier meeting—where the boy’s sense of possibility returned, described as the day “the wings grew out.”

Meanwhile, Joar, Ali, and Ted searched all afternoon, terrified for their friend. They eventually spotted the artist with Christian retrieving more paint and followed to the gymnasium wall. Seeing the mural and the artist’s unguarded smile, all three were overwhelmed. Joar told the artist, with relief and certainty, that now he knew he did not want to die.

Who Appears

  • The artist
    future painter; suffers severe depression, bullying, and humiliation by the art teacher; flees school intending self-harm but reconnects to life through painting with Christian.
  • Joar
    friend; defends the artist by mocking the teacher as “the Owl” and later destroys classroom furniture in anger; searches for the artist and affirms his will to live.
  • Ted
    friend; prays for the artist’s survival and searches with Joar and Ali; witnesses the mural and the artist’s renewed hope.
  • Ali
    friend; shares concern and searches for the artist; present at the mural reveal.
  • The Owl
    new art teacher; cruelly targets the artist with rigid rules and public humiliation; physically blocks the artist, falls, and later portrays the boy as an attacker.
  • The artist’s mother
    depressed, detached parent; inconsistent presence and heavy sedation; urges conformity but offers little affirmation.
  • The artist’s father
    alcoholic; derides the boy as abnormal and unwanted.
  • Christian
    janitor; previously met; collides with the fleeing artist and facilitates painting the mural, effectively rescuing him.
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