Part 8 Summary

Shortly after the narrator is brought home by her parents, her father is asked to cover for a suddenly ill colleague at a university in the east. He takes the whole family with him, and they spend a happy few weeks together, even though the narrator has a torturous run-in with poison ivy and the summer heat on a shopping expedition in New York City proves overwhelming. Shortly after their return home, the narrator makes friends with Fawn, a popular and non drug-using girl from school. She spends increasing amounts of time with Fawn and her friends, to the point where she (the narrator) almost forgets her father's birthday. At the last minute, she buys him a sweater and writes him a poem and records in her diary that he's almost in tears when he receives both gifts. The next day is the...