Crash

Crash seeks the attention and validation he hopes to receive from his parents from the sport of football instead. Football becomes a symbol of the acceptance Crash sorely desires from home but does not receive. Unlike a parent who provides equal parts encouragement and wisdom, football only serves to boost Crash’s arrogance. He is rewarded for his physical prowess and his aggression, which spills over into his life off the field. The sport which rewards Crash a sense of purpose and adoration doesn’t provide the moral compass Crash needs to know when he’s crossing the line.

Football also serves as the lens through which Crash processes his identity. In his moments of insecurity, he bolsters himself with self-encouragement reminiscent like that of his football coaches. When he attempts to dance with Jane, he tries to present himself as an attractive choice for her through his size and the number of touchdowns he scores. Gathering his confidence, he thinks to himself, “On the football field I don’t run around people, I run through them. Life is football […] I was the holder of the single-game touchdown record for Springfield Middle School […] I was Crash Coogan” (83).

Football becomes a way for Crash to explain away his aggression, until he tackles Scooter. Caught up in the adrenaline of a family football game, Crash doesn’t even realize he tackled his grandfather until his father begins to scold him. Once Scooter is hospitalized for a stroke, Crash begins to reflect on his aggression and his arrogance fizzles. While still an athlete, Crash transitions to the running track, but uses his size and speed for good, gifting Scooter, Henry, and Penn with the ability to watch Penn in the Penn Relays.

The Achilles tendon is a thick cord that attaches the calf muscles to the heel. The tendon is named for Achilles, a mythological Greek hero whose mother dipped him, as an infant, into the river Styx, which coated him with invulnerability except for the spot where she held him just above the heel. Achilles dies during the Trojan War when his opponent drives an arrow into that weak spot and disables him. Thus, the tendon has become synonymous with a strong person’s weakness.

Crash, as a physically powerful person, is affected when Jane Forbes kicks at his Achilles tendon on the dance floor. This moment pegs both Crash’s bruteness and his inability to form real relationships with people as his personal weakness.

The mouse that Crash and Mike find in the Coogan family kitchen is a symbol of Crash’s own emotional maturity throughout the novel. Much like how the mouse stowed away in Crash’s bag without Crash knowing, Crash isn’t self-aware and ignores unpleasant feelings. When confronted with his feelings, he takes a nonchalant approach that ignores the deeper issues with his emotionally unavailable parents. Crash immediately rejects the mouse, terrified of its presence and willing to do anything to expel it from the home. He adopts the same approach with any deep emotion, expelling rejection from others and neglect from his parents through the aggression and entitlement he displays at school.

The mouse is forgotten once it is directly out of sight, only to be rediscovered by Mrs. Coogan after Thanksgiving dinner. The mouse existed in limbo until its discovery, much like Crash’s emotional maturity exists in a limbo after Scooter’s arrival to the Coogan home. With Scooter’s appearance, Crash still bullies Penn and accosts Jane Forbes, but his attention is diverted to Scooter’s presence at his football games and practices. The period is one of transition, where Crash begins to realize the effects of his actions. He still perpetrates moments of aggression, but an emotional development is brewing that comes to a head when Crash tackles Scooter and Scooter is landed in the hospital three weeks later.

In contrast, Crash’s little sister welcomes the mouse to the backyard and eventually provides a “Mouse House” in the form of her old dollhouse in the backyard. Unlike Crash, Abby has been quick to acknowledge the mouse and care for it. She invites the intrusion, much like she invites emotional intelligence.

As Crash develops emotional maturity after Scooter is hospitalized, he maintains a watch over the Mouse House. He notes that it is slowly being swallowed by the woods and taken over by the mouse. Abby lays out pizza for it, and Crash gives her advice on how to get the mouse to stick around. Crash develops the idea to gift Penn the Penn Relays spot in honor of Henry and Scooter while he notes his father’s attempt to mow the lawn and Abby’s sabotage. The mouse’s reflection of Crash’s emotional maturity comes full circle when Mr. Coogan fences in the backyard as a compromise to Abby’s wildlife habitat and Mouse House, and Crash details that he has become best friends with Penn Webb.