Last time on the Summoning, Chloe may be displaying the first stage of another schizophrenic symptom, paranoia. The EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL nurse tells her clearly what the boundaries are and says to just be honest about things.

Because everyone seems confused (and it isn’t really that clear in the book either) here’s what’s going on as far as we know:

1)Chloe runs screaming through the halls into an empty classroom.
2) Teachers see Chloe, somehow instantly know she’s thinking of jumping out a window despite the window being closed.
3) Teachers tackle Chloe and wrestle her to the ground while she yells about a scary guy they can’t see.
4) ??? Some sort of minimal testing was done, presumably drug testing at least. Doctors don’t tell Chloe their findings but she claims they’re acting like it’s serious.
6) Chloe’s sent to a group home while drugged into incoherence, then given unknown meds on her first day.

Or, in short, nothing makes sense. Some of the pieces here connect up to others, but nothing in sequence and a couple don’t even work in isolation.

Anyway, she’s set to her chore for the day because she doesn’t have class. It’s peeling carrots. Because clearly, the psychotic girl should be given sharp objects on her first day.

You can probably tell this is a bad idea, but that’s not going to stop me from giving you a nice mental image of why to never, ever do this: Suddenly, Chloe felt bugs moving under her skin. You’re welcome.

So, clearly, the people here think she’s fine, and this is the student insanity equivalent of a politician going to a homosexuality-curing retreat for a few weeks to prove to your contingency that your gayness is fixed.

I didn’t dare tell her I’d never peeled one in my life.

…again, the other nurse just told her to be honest. There’s no reason she couldn’t mention this and ask for an explanation of what to do, instead of stabbing her finger as part of the learning process. Why would someone be mad about that?

Also, why is she all by herself anyway? There must be someone in charge of cooking who should be overseeing her, or else a buddy. Especially for a serious issue like hers. What if she had another episode? She hasn’t even been there twenty-four hours yet, they have no idea what her episodes are like.

Her mind starts wandering.

I called in my best defense: turn it all into a movie.
As traumatic experiences went, the last few days were my best film fodder ever. But what genre would it be? Straight horror? Or psychological suspense? Maybe a combination of elements, surprising the viewer with—

Author.

Look. If you want your main character to be obsessed with movies, it would be nice if you knew jack shit about movies. Failing that, you could at least put effort into what you’re making up. Your knowledge here appears to be “movies have genres, and here are some words I’ve heard that are genres, and sometimes people talk about combining them.”

I know more than this, and I don’t even watch movies.

Here’s something she could be thinking of, and it doesn’t even require all that much knowledge: actual fucking details in which she plots out a movie where the main character is actually seeing real things that are invisible to everyone else. There, it’s at least not vague bullshit and you’ve made a nod to the plot. Or where there’s some plot against her to make her think she’s crazy. Or even the harrowing tale of a girl who thought she was crazy but then got better and never had trouble again. Or something. It’d give us some actual insight into her head beyond that she’s into film, which we’ve known since Chapter Two.

Her thoughts are interrupted.

A guy, in fact, maybe a year older than me, a half foot taller and slender, with high cheekbones and dark blond hair worn in short, messy spikes.

(What the hell is with YA and sentence fragments?)

Anyway, as you may guess by the fact he’s got all the usual love interest hallmarks, he’s a real boy she physically touch. Luckily, Chloe realizes this by accidentally knocking a carrot into him instead of stabbing him in the neck with the peeler.

It’s about this point that I would be looking for a phone to tell my dad that no, on second thought, the mental institution sounds fine, and also please call the police because this place can’t be safe for the rest of the kids either.

Chloe, to her credit, finally picks up that something’s a little unsafe here.

I was suddenly aware that he was standing between me and the exit. His smile was friendly, and he was definitely cute, but cute didn’t count with a guy who had you cornered in a group home.

This…seems to be in the same line as the rest of Chloe’s prejudice against insanity. See, he’s only there to steal some crackers because his brother wants a snack. Oh Chloe, why so prejudiced :( Don’t you know sixteen year old boys cornering you when there’s no one else around is totally okay?

His giant brother is also there. Chloe rudely yelps just because a six foot tall wall of muscle has snuck up on her. Just look at this prejudice. Apparently, they’re foster brothers. Cute normal-sized boy, Simon, is outgoing and friendly. Giant linebacker boy, Derek, is quiet and and menacing.

It’s at this point Tori shows up. She glares at Chloe.

“Tori?” Simon said.
Her expression flipped from simmering to simpering. “Yes?”
He jabbed a finger toward the dining room door. “Shhh!”
As she babbled apologies, I made my escape.

…and now I feel bad for Tori. It doesn’t sound like she’s actually boy crazy, she just has a crush on Simon, who seems to think she’s a bit annoying and nothing more.

Next, Chloe gets to try out that free time she mentioned and checks out what they have for entertainment.

If I was hoping for a big-screen TV with surround sound and a top-of-the-line computer, I was out of luck. There was a twenty-inch TV, a cheap DVD/VCR combo, an old Xbox, and an even older computer.

Oh no, only twenty inches, and the xbox is old. Also, this is very clearly the rich kid’s place, so…why not just whine to her dad and have them bring in her TV from home? It’s not like anyone’s using it now. And if she plays videogames, why not bring her console?

One flip through the movie collection and I knew I wouldn’t be spending much time here . . . unless I was suddenly nostalgic for the Olsen twins. The only movie rated above PG was Jurassic Park, and it was labeled “Please ask before viewing,” like I had to show my school ID card to prove I was over thirteen.

Or maybe it’s because other people in the place might not be able to handle the movie and they want to make sure you’re not watching it with them around.

This doesn’t at all fit with the existence of an xbox, of course, considering how many violent games the console had. I suppose in theory they could be carefully picking each game to only get the few appropriate titles, but that seems like a lot of work to go through.

Then again, there is no mention of any games at all.

Chloe here sounds like your typical whiny teen – she’s a film student, not being able to watch any interesting movies for her whole stay here should probably be a bigger deal.

The computer, in contrast, is actually old, running Windows 98. Bear in mind that XP is from 2001. I realize that between the delay between writing and publishing and the delay between actual trends and someone who doesn’t care much noticing them, you’re going to have trouble with putting in references that are way too far out of date even for readers in the year of publication. However, as both of those things are known problems, and the obvious way to deal with them is to err on the side of too recent. Chloe bitching about XP or even Vista would have worked in the year it was published and then continued to work for subsequent years. Windows 98, in contrast, means almost a decade’s worth of kids whining about how shitty the computer is without anyone doing anything.

Of course, I don’t know why Chloe really is complaining, since she’s obviously not a computer person.

I searched for a browser. I hoped for Firefox, but wasn’t getting anything better than plain old IE.

Or more accurately, the author apparently doesn’t understand that the way you make the magic fiery fox browser all the kids are using these days appear on your computer is by downloading it. Internet Explorer has two purposes: to download a better browser and to google “why isn’t firefox/chrome working on my computer”. Chloe, instead, just uses the hellbrowser to…

I flipped through my favorite sites, killing time until I worked up the nerve to check my in-box. A few minutes checking the weekend box office figures cleared my mind, then I typed in the URL to access my MSN account.

…check box office figures what the fuck.

You know, I could actually see someone who’s really into movies caring about this, but not as some magic totem. I’m sure there’s plenty of actual information in there, but the book doesn’t give any explanation for what she’s looking at or why. Not only that, a lot of evaluating requires you to either see them yourself or at least have some film critic you trust break down what was good and bad so you can compare that to how well they’re doing with how good of a movie they were. And we know Chloe didn’t see any movies this weekend.

If Chloe really is into popular movies like this, you’d also expect it to come up when she’s thinking about being able to leave. If she always sees two movies on the weekend, for example, she’d want to know if she could keep doing that.

But really, it’s more likely that this was just the only thing the author could think of that had to do with movies and the internet, and since Chloe likes movie and kids use the internet, Chloe looks up box office figures.

Then she tries to get into her email, and finds it blocked. Shit.

Chloe, naturally, does not think this is sinister at all, just frustrating. The nice mommy nurse comes over to explain:

we had a problem last year with a young man accessing sites he shouldn’t have and when the board of directors found out . . .” She shook her head. “We’re punishing everyone because of one bad apple, I’m sorry to say.

The correct answer here is “Oh, don’t you know how to add urls into the whitelist? I can show you!” Chloe, and apparently everyone else, is too stupid for this. Anyway, the way they do email is you write an email with their shared account and then EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL nurse types a password to give it permission to send.

But she’s also too stupid to realize that being cut off from contact with her family is a really bad sign. There are, of course, legitimate reasons why someone might make this decision, but any time you find out they’re doing it by some unmentioned loop hole, panic. That means people don’t even know you can’t contact them normally.

Then it’s lunchtime. Chloe keeps waiting for someone to do something crazy. Simon chats with Chloe and snubs Tori when she tries to join in.

if Tori had been a cartoon character, smoke would have billowed from her ears. I’d met girls like that. Territorial, whether it was about a hairbrush, a best friend, or a boy they had their eye on.

So, speaking of crazy.

No one has said what’s wrong with the other kids yet. Now, if this was a situation where kids were getting put in for a couple standard, nonviolent disorders (ie, bulimia, depression) I could maybe see the reasoning, although that seems to be just encouraging everyone to view it as a source of shame. But Chloe had a psychotic episode. Tori may not be a typical jealous girl, she may be in there because she tried to stab another girl to death for stealing her boyfriend. When people have major mental illnesses, I really think a warning that so-and-so can be triggered by x event into stabbing your eyes out is a good idea. A lot of the problems with mental illness isn’t so much that they’re necessarily more dangerous than other people, but that you can’t see it coming because their reactions are disproportionate and they aren’t giving out proper cues.

Tori, luckily for Chloe, does not leap across the table and start clawing at her face. She just resorts to the standby of mean girls, gossip.

“Art school,” she breathed. “Isn’t that just fascinating. Tell me, Chloe. What do you study there? Ghost photography? Ghost writing?”
I choked on a chunk of meat.
“Oh.” Tori turned doe eyes on Simon. “Didn’t Chloe tell you why she’s here? She sees dead people.”

What the hell. Has everyone read the script?

Look, if I see a tiger on my bed that isn’t there, I’m hallucinating a tiger. I’m not hallucinating a ghost tiger. It’s not a ghost because it’s something without tangible presence, because that’s because it’s a fucking hallucination. If I hear voices that aren’t there, I’m hallucinating voices, I’m not hallucinating the CIA talking to me through my teeth. The only possible reason to start referring to my hallucinatory voices as CIA voices is to try to push me deeper into psychosis.

Chloe has never used the term ghost to refer to the burned janitor. Indeed, as far as we know, her only recorded statements on the matter are saying she doesn’t want him to get her and why can’t they see the guy, both of which just means she’s hallucinating a person and that in fact a crucial part of her hallucination was not knowing there was any reason other people couldn’t see him. She’s not hallucinating ghosts unless she’s seeing guys in white sheets.

Peter lifted his head from his game. “Really? Cool.”

Peter is the only good character. He’s also just there to flesh out the cast numbers, it seems.

Anyway, Derek suddenly stares at her so maybe he’s also a necromancer or something? Or maybe Simon’s the necromancer and Derek is actually perfectly normal.

And Simon calls Tori a bitch, and she gets upset because her attempt to make Simon like her has backfired.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Tori said, words tumbling out. “Like Peter said, it’s kinda cool. If she does see ghosts, maybe she could help Liz with her, you know, poltergeist.”
“Tori!” Liz shrieked, dropping her fork.
“Here we go,” Derek grumbled.
Liz’s eyes filled as she screeched back her chair. Tori retreated into stumbling apologies again.

Huh, I really am feeling bad for Tori.

I’m curious if Tori’s actually in here for a legitimate reason or if it’s one of those things where her parent is just fed up with her being a teenage girl. She seems like one of those hated mean popular girls, except she’s just really not following through properly.

For example, she almost does something that’s a hallmark of the toxic behavior I see in queen bee girls, which is to apologize for being mean to one person by being mean to another person in their favor. Their interactions are all about tearing down whoever they aren’t speaking to, so friendship is turning to a new person and telling them what a loser the other one is. But here, Tori seems to have just blurted something out without thinking Liz was going to be upset by it.

She’s coming off as socially awkward but trying to seem confident. And since we know everyone’s on meds…social interaction is pretty damn hard, honestly, and we can only manage it because our brains are designed to do it. Almost much every drug that affects brain chemistry is going to mess that up. It doesn’t help that the group home itself is an incredibly artificial environment, which is going to make learning this stuff unusually hard. And while so far the rest of the kids seem normal, in general, spending extended periods around people acting odd will take its toll on your behavior. If Tori got dumped in here for not being good enough at socializing, she’s more likely to get worse than to show enough improvement to leave, and if she’s getting medicated at the same time, she’d almost certainly deteriorate.

(I’ll understand if Chloe doesn’t see it this way, since it’s hard to be charitable when you’re the one getting this aggression aimed at you.)

Anyway, poltergeist. That doesn’t seem to fit with my attempts to work out what ghosts can and can’t do, but then, I’m growing less and less sure this book follows any kind of rules at all.

I wonder why in particular Liz is embarrassed? I’m guessing that poltergeist is what she said it was originally and the adults said she was dumb and delusional for thinking that, but that sort of scientific outlook doesn’t match well with whatever dumbfucks are saying Chloe sees ghosts.

They knew. Everyone knew.
I was a freak. A crazy girl who saw ghosts. I belonged here.

Chloe, I think you’re missing the bigger picture here.

a) Did you actually tell anyone you say ghosts, because you haven’t mentioned that. If the adults are coming to the independent conclusion that hallucinations are ghosts, you have somehow traveled back into the seventeen hundreds and you need to focus on getting the hell out before they burn you at the stake.

b) Assuming the book is just terribly written and we somehow skipped over learning that you thought they were ghosts and you talking to someone about this, you then need to figure out how Tori knew about this, because that should be confidential information. If it’s being passed around generally, then this entire group home thing is a trap, they were already convinced you’re nuts. Again, you want to get the hell out, because if they believed you needed treatment they shouldn’t have needed to trick you and your dad.

Chloe tries to go lie down in bed with her ipod. (Come to think of it, why doesn’t she have a cellphone? I don’t recall any reference to those being taken, and their stated reason for the blocked email is just to keep the kids off porn websites.) But EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL nurse intervenes, telling her that beds are for sleeping, not moping!

“I know you’re probably tired and feeling overwhelmed, but you need activity and interaction, not isolation.

What the fuck.

No, if the mentally ill person whose disorder commonly comes with a side of sensory integration problems is feeling overwhelmed, you BACK THE FUCK OFF and let her sit quietly.

There are people who should not be left to sit and stew. There are other people who need time by themselves to decompress. And there are some people who are easily overwhelmed by new places and dealing with people, and they absolutely do not need interaction to fix that they’re overstimulated by too much interaction. To point out the obvious, people differ. To point out the particularly applicable obvious, this place clearly takes a wide range of mental illnesses, and those differ in how the person with them should be treated. Forcing interaction on someone who’s at their limit is a great way to provoke a violent outburst.

Now, if the place had previously given any shits about monitoring, they might tell Chloe that they’re sorry but she’s not allowed to be alone, but if she wants to sit quietly in a room where EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL nurse can keep an eye on her that’s fine. But the only reason to insist on constant interaction is if this is some underfunded nightmare of the facility where they care more about what’s easy than what’s good for the patients.

Anyway, the nurse’s suggestion is she go help Rae with the laundry. In the basement. We can probably assume that Chloe saying she’s kind of terrified of those would be met with ACTIVITY AND INTERACTION :) :) :) but who knows, because it doesn’t even occur to Chloe to admit she has a problem there.

That said, she reports the designers have done a good job: I saw gleaming stairs, the passage brightly lit, the walls painted pale green with a flowery border. For the first time that day, I was glad of the too-bright cheeriness

Chloe suddenly smells smoke and assumes Rae is smoking but actually she only has a lit match, despite the fact that match smoke smells completely different than cigarette smoke.

Anyway, Rae quickly explains that she doesn’t actually start fires (They wouldn’t let me stay here if I did. Shows what you know, Chloe’s at high risk of straight up murdering you!) she just likes it.

Okay. Let me talk about fire. Fire is awesome! Smoke smells nice and can make lovely patterns and fire is absolutely gorgeous, in addition to being warm which I always appreciate. Lighting campfires has been the only reason I willingly go camping for the past several years.

If I was ever in a group home for a two week evaluation because people were worried I might be a little pyromaniacy, I would spend that time refusing to even look near the lamps. Sometimes, that’s what sanity is, the ability to modify your behavior into social norms.

And indeed, pyromania is classed as an impulse control disorder. It’s commonly used as a stress outlet.

Chloe asks if Rae wants anything, since Rae didn’t eat lunch.

“Thanks. But I’ll grab an apple before class. I use any excuse to avoid eating with Queen Victoria. You saw what she’s like. With me, it’s food. If I take a big helping or seconds or dessert, she gets her jabs in.”
I must have looked confused, because she waved a hand down her body.
“Yes, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I don’t need her as my personal dietitian.”

I am pretty sure we’ve never actually had what Rae looks like mentioned here. So not only does the book have a weird obsession with weight, but we don’t know if she’s fat, not properly skinny, or anorexic. All we know is that it’s a sore point with her and Tori takes advantage of it.

The fact she references eating an apple points toward an eating disorder. If the problem is Tori makes fun of her for eating a large amount, then she’d be eating a small portion and then snacking because she’s still hungry. Instead, she’s eating an apple instead of lunch. Apples aren’t filling. And you definitely can’t live off them. I mean this literally, you will starve to death if you try this.

And this is also important when it comes to Tori, because we can’t tell if Rae is being a reliable narrator here (well, okay, we can because this book is not subtle, but). If Rae is extremely sensitive about her weight, then Tori may not be being, as Rae goes on to claim, like these monsters I saw in an old sci-fi film, vampires from space, only they didn’t drink blood, they sucked out all your energy. On the other hand, Tori could be an absolute monster and we just haven’t seen her true claws yet.

Rae’s description, incidentally, sounds like borderline personality disorder. That would technically fit with moody, in the same way it’s technically true the antarctic is cool. Borderline personality disorder is pretty destructive to those around them, so I’m not sure why other people would want their kids near her, and as self-harm and suicide attempts are common, she needs to be in a real institution with proper supervision and attention, not whatever the fuck this place is. Also, I’m dubious someone with borderline personality disorder would be consistent enough to have a set best friend and a set enemy, because the disorder is characterized by extreme changes in opinion. Tori may have a wide range of behavior depending on if she likes someone or not, but she isn’t flipflopping on individuals.

Earlier I’d thought I didn’t belong here because I didn’t feel crazy. I bet none of them did either. Maybe mental illness was like stuttering. I’d spent my life trying to convince people that just because I stammered didn’t mean there was anything else wrong with me. I just had a problem that I was working hard to overcome

So that’s our aesop then.

That’s not really the best aesop. I mean, it’s better than that crazy people are crazy and messed up and should be shunned, but I do think there’s a meaningful distinction between stuttering, where you’re still fundamentally you, and something that’s causing twisting your personality and ability to think around. A person who stutters is still working off the same basic information everyone else is, and their reactions are going to be the same as other people except for their ability to speak. They should be allowed to make the same decisions anyone else their age and maturity level can, and they can function in society. Someone who’s suffering from borderline personality disorder is a constant maelstrom of interpersonal drama who needs to be supervised at all times for their own good. Severe enough mental illness and you cease being you.

Like seeing people who weren’t there.
Like being attracted to fire.
It didn’t mean you were schizo or anything.

I know this is probably solely there for dramatic irony purposes, but I feel it should be pointed out that obsessive with fire girl is nowhere near as messed up as someone hallucinating. Pyromania is not malicious and someone just playing with matches presumably knows enough about fire safety to avoid setting large or spreading fires. Failing that, the building certainly has fire alarms and I really doubt it’s designed in such a way evacuation is hard, so in order for her to hurt anyone she’d have to be doing so deliberately. In contrast, it is entirely possible that the voices in Chloe’s head may explain to her that God wants her dump oil over her roommate and strike a match. I’ll take the pyromaniac.

Anyway, apparently Chloe has also never done laundry. Okay, whatever.

..and now Rae is going on a similar I’m-not-crazy spiel, saying it doesn’t make sense to put her in there just because she likes fire. No, but it does make sense if she can’t even go a couple days without playing with matches. Sorry, Rae, you’re mentally ill.

“Do you like manga?” she asked after a minute. “Anime?”
“Anime’s cool. I’m not really into it, but I like Japanese movies, animated or not.”

…a film student would probably know “Japanese movies” covers kind of a lot, instead of the two genres, anime and not anime.

“Well, I’m into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she’s completely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue from them.” She caught my gaze. “So would you say she belongs here?”

Well, yes. If people thought she was being too obsessive, and they put her in here, and even then she couldn’t stop obsessing over it for two weeks to convince them she wasn’t, then she’s mentally ill. Also, her chosen obsession never accidentally causes forest fires, which is why society is understandably less bothered by it and she can go to therapy but otherwise stay at home while you, in theory, should be under proper supervision.

Chloe, of course, finds that quite convincing. In Chloe’s defense, people do tend to agree with people we’re being friendly with, and of course she has a vested interest in believing this as well – if the other kids here are okay, then maybe she is too.

Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it’s movies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born.”

That doesn’t change that the way she agrees is shitty writing. Chloe is talking in generics, not details. If she’s really so obsessed, what movie, what director, and what year?

Right then, mommy nurse comes down to say it’s time for Rae’s class to start and Chloe helps hide the matches from the nurse which I’m sure won’t lead to Rae later starting an actual fire or any other negative consequences at all. Obsessing about fire is just like stuttering! Completely harmless.