Paperboy Chapter 5 Summary

  • During the second week of his route, Victor pitches at a practice baseball game and the coach has to take him out so that the team can get some fielding practice—Victor is that good.
  • Even though it's been a whole week, he still hasn't gotten his knife back from Ara T. Grr…
  • Victor goes on his rounds to collect money on Friday and sees that TV Boy is still watching television without the sound on. How odd.
  • He heads over to Mr. Spiro's house early hoping that he'll have time to talk to him. They talk about favorite baseball players, and when Victor gets stuck on a word, Mr. Spiro talks in unison with him so that it comes out smoothly.
  • They sit on the swing together and Mr. Spiro talks about how he wants to shoot straight with Victor because he's probably had a lot of people who pretend that he doesn't stutter.
  • Victor finds it totally refreshing that Mr. Spiro doesn't avoid the subject because he's uncomfortable and instead is completely honest.
  • Mr. Spiro asks about Victor's speech therapy and tells him to do his homework and practice the exercises. When Victor asks why he stutters unlike other kids, Mr. Spiro says that everyone is different—after all, not everyone can throw a ball as well as Victor, can they?
  • Then he asks Victor if he knows about Voltaire, who said that speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. In other words, it's not even like people who can speak more easily are saying more important things than Victor.
  • He also tells Victor about the Rosetta Stone and how letters are derived from hieroglyphics. This is all super fascinating to Victor.
  • Before Victor leaves, Mr. Spiro gives him the second part of the dollar bill, which has the word "servant" written on it. They also talk for a bit about Demosthenes, a historical Greek figure who supposedly put pebbles in his mouth to speak properly.
  • When Victor goes home, he's thrilled that he's had his first-ever official conversation with an adult—and it wasn't even that awkward or hard. Sweet.