The Benefits of Being an Octopus

Zoey Albro is sitting on the couch on a Sunday, eating a pudding cup that she saved from her Friday school lunch. Although this scene shows that Zoey is frugal and conscientious, she confesses that she’s not doing her homework (a debate packet), as she lacks materials like glitter and puffy paint and is preoccupied with watching her young half-siblings, Bryce and Aurora, who ruin the rare calm.

Zoey describes her family and living situation: Lenny, who owns the trailer they live in, is the boyfriend of her mother, Kara, and the father of Zoey’s youngest half-sibling, Hector. Bryce and Aurora’s father, Nate, is no longer part of the family. Zoey doesn’t know her own father, who left when she was a baby. The situation doesn’t seem to bother her. She fondly recounts her hunting trips with Nate and watching football with Lenny.

While Kara is cooking dinner, the power goes out, and Lenny acts as if it’s Kara’s fault. Kara apologizes, and Zoey wonders why her mother can’t do anything right.

Zoey’s mother is more concerned with cleaning the burnt hotdog bits off “Lenny’s pan” than in discovering why the power went out. This moment reveals Lenny’s control over the household. Zoey refers to “Lenny’s nice curtains” (13) in the living room and wonders why her mother prioritizes cleaning the pan over comforting Bryce and Aurora. Zoey goes to check on them.

Bryce and Aurora mistakenly think that the power went out because Frank is mad at them for disturbing his football game. Zoey tells them a bedtime story, a skill that comforts her too because she can weave a magical world and control what happens in the end.

When Lenny gets home from watching the football game at his friend Slider’s, Zoey spies on his conversation with Kara through a hole in the wall. She imagines her stealth as being an octopus-like skill: “On a wave of octopus arms, I roll across our bedroom, sliding around the battlebots, […] simultaneously reaching for the doorknob with one of my tentacles. I silently roll across the main room, my skin changing to match snoring Frank and his recliner as I pass by” (16). Zoey’s stealthy movements end with her pressing her octopus’s unblinking eye to the hole in the wall.

 Zoey notices that when Lenny confronts Kara, he never raises his voice, but his tone is always threatening. Zoey can’t stand to see her mother crying silently, promising to do better. At this point in the story, Zoey, like Lenny, believes that her mother’s incompetence is the reason for the power outage and all the other things for which Kara is constantly apologizing.

Zoey’s morning routine begins with waking up Bryce and Aurora and getting them to the school bus for their Head Start program, a government-sponsored early education program for children of low-income families. On the bus to school, Zoey sees her friend Silas. His personality is bright around her, but he shuts down once he gets on the bus. As Zoey finds a seat on the bus, a girl refers to “that smell,” picks up her belongings, and changes seats. This incident—and the reference to the Head Start program, which teaches hygiene and nutrition in addition to schoolwork—implies that Bryce, Aurora, and Zoey may lack good hygiene.

Zoey realizes that in the rush of her hectic morning she forgot her completed debate packet at home. Although she wants to make her studies a priority, her busy home life makes it impossible.

Zoey admires Matt Hubbard, whom she sees with his family every Saturday evening at the Pizza Pit where her mother works. The regularity with which Matt’s family can go out for pizza impresses Zoey: “It’s like it doesn’t matter if it’s a payday week or not” (24). The factors that allow Matt’s family to go out together for pizza every weekend, including having enough gas in the car, not having one parent working, and not having to wrangle screaming children show the gap between Zoey’s world and his. To Zoey, Matt and kids like him seem immeasurably wealthy. Whether Matt and his friends are middle-class, upper middle-class, or even wealthy, they all act like Zoey and her friends don’t exist. Zoey likens them to people who live on a tropical island while she swims in the water (24).

The narrative reveals that Zoey’s friend Fuchsia changed her name from McKenna to Fuchsia in second grade after kids teased her by ordering “a McKenna and fries” (25). She dyed her hair pink, taking inspiration from one of her older foster sisters. Fuchsia’s tough exterior belies her vulnerability. She doesn’t have a good relationship with her mother, Crystal, and she loves her kitten, Jane Kitty, more than anything. She leans on Zoey for emotional support.