- Maniac loves life with the Beales. He loves the routine of living in a family, loves the church they go to, and even loves the community they live in.
- It gets him thinking about what it means to be black. He can't figure out why the people living in the East End call themselves black when the only colors he sees are "gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange" (14.11).
- Maniac plays away the summer just like the rest of the kids in the East End, eventually running into Hands Down. (Hands Down is the guy he snatched the pass from when he first came to town.)
- Hands and Maniac made a crazy-good team and the legend of Maniac grows and grows, even though he's still Jeffrey inside 728 Sycamore.