Summary

In Chapter 11, "Going Home," Manny wakes the morning after the Test of Courage with bruises, but he feels a sense of accomplishment. He thinks back on the test as something dangerous that he survived. Manny is supposed to meet the other members of the Calloway Projects Gang at Long's Drugstore. However, he has made a recent decision to help more around the house. For this reason and also because he doesn't want to attract more attention from his mother, he starts on his chores.

He rushes through cleaning his room and raking the yard. He thinks back to the previous evening with Rita, when she'd “stabbed the inside of my ear with the moist tip of her tongue.” He's particularly excited about the fact that she hinted of “more surprises.” Manny thinks about his grandmother's warning that it was not good to breathe...