Cassandra G. Lewis, the protagonist of The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed, is a foul-mouthed and bad-tempered teenage girl in the process of flunking out of high school. She smokes heavily. The boys that she knows have nicknamed her Tank and Mack Truck, describing both her physicality and exceptionally forceful personality. Cassandra dislikes school and hopes that one day a teacher will give her some pretense of an excuse to start a physical altercation.