Million Dollar Throw

Nate and Abby are eating, and it’s clear that Nate is upset about the possibility of Abby going away to a different school. She tries to make him feel better by saying that “[t]he Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, was the most famous school of its kind in the world” (110). She says Helen Keller attended the school, and Nate asks, “Who’s Helen Keller?” (110). It’s clear that Nate doesn’t share Abby’s enthusiasm over the school, but it’s because he doesn’t want Abby to leave him. She says that she’ll only be gone for a semester. Even though she’s not blind yet, her parents want her to learn about being blind before it happens. He’s even more upset because she tells him that she’s leaving tomorrow just to try it for a week and see how it goes.

When he wakes up the next morning, there is a wrapped gift on his front porch from Abby. The attached note reads: “Something to remember me by. And something to remember you by. Love, Abby Wonder” (116). The name she signed is a “new nickname for herself, in honor of Stevie Wonder” (116). He takes the package upstairs and finds that Abby “had drawn him a perfect replica of the target he’d be throwing at in Gillette Stadium.