Belle Prater's Boy Chapter 10 Summary

  • All the adults in the family decide that Gypsy and Woodrow are spending too much time at the movies and watching TV, so they're not allowed to watch things anymore while the weather is nice and there's daylight.
  • So Gypsy and Woodrow start praying for a lot of rain. One Sunday, it starts raining and they're both super excited to go see Rear Window.
  • They're eating lunch and getting ready to go out when Porter walks in and asks Love if she wants to go see Rear Window. She says she doesn't, but that the kids are dying to go and he should take them.
  • This puts a damper on things for Gypsy because she doesn't like hanging out with Porter more than she has to.
  • The adults leave the room and Woodrow asks her why she doesn't like Porter—he thinks he's a pretty cool guy. Of course this ticks Gypsy off.
  • When they get to the theater, Gypsy sits in the middle and is annoyed when Porter and Woodrow lean over her to talk. Then the movie starts and no one is talking.
  • Gypsy starts feeling sick and feverish, but she tries to watch what's happening in the movie. But when the woman on screen climbs up the fire escape to look into the murderer's window, Gypsy starts to freak out.
  • Her mind fogs over and she screams at the woman not to look in there and not to look in the window. Woodrow puts his hand on her arm and realizes that she's burning up, but Gypsy doesn't notice; she just keeps screaming.
  • Porter grabs her in his arms and carries her out while yelling for someone to call Doc Dot and tell him to meet them at Gypsy's house straightaway. Then Gypsy just falls into darkness…
  • When she wakes up, it's dark and she's back in her own bed. Her mother is placing a cool, wet cloth on her face and tells her that she has a bad case of the measles. Everything hurts.
  • Her mother tells her that Doc had to give Porter a sedative because he was so scared. And she also tells Gypsy that since the term is over in a week, Gypsy won't be going back to school until September. She has to rest in bed for at least ten more days.
  • That night Gypsy has strange hallucinations and suffers from that old nightmare again and again. Each time she wakes up, though, her mother is right there to take care of her. She even takes time off from her teaching job.
  • Doc Dot comes to check on her and she can hear him talking in the hallway about Gypsy's nightmares. They mention how she screams not to look in the window, and something about her father.
  • Woodrow comes in to visit and tells her that she's cute as a speckled pup, and Gypsy says that she'd rather not see what she looks like with all those dots.
  • After that, the worst part of having the measles is over.