105 pages • 3 hours read
Dry
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BetaPart 2, Snapshot-Chapter 11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Three Days to Animal”
Part 2, Snapshot 1 of 3 Summary: “Activist”
Camille Cohen, a social activist, figured out that California was running low on water before the Tap-Out happened. She led a protest then, but after the Tap-Out, she decided to take further action. Now she follows a municipal water truck.
Part 2, Snapshot 2 of 3 Summary: “OCWD Transport”
David drives a municipal water truck with an armed guard. He delivers water to hospitals and government facilities, but he has pilfered one container of water for his own family. He’s on his way to deliver to a refugee-like settlement at a power plant, but suddenly he sees a young girl standing on the road in front of him, forcing him to stop.
Part 2, Snapshot 3 of 3 Summary: “Plant Manager”
Pete, the manager of the power plant, loves his job. After the Tap-Out, he let his employees bring their families to the plant for refuge even though his bosses wouldn’t approve. Since the power plant is a critical facility, it received regular water deliveries. On this day, however, an angry mob waits outside the gate. When the delivery truck arrives, the mob tears the driver and guard from the truck before breaking into the plant.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “Kelton”
Kelton’s mom is nervous about how Richard handled the meeting with Mr. Burnside, so she makes dinner early. The family discusses how they haven’t heard from Brady, Kelton’s older brother, but they think they should head for their family bug-out (shelter) soon. Kelton’s parents begin to argue—his mom thinks they should share more, but his dad thinks that would be dangerous. To avoid this tension, Kelton checks on Alyssa and Garrett, whose parents haven’t yet returned. Inside, Garrett turns off the news, which he doesn’t like, but then the lights flicker again. This time, they turn off for good. Kelton returns home to leave a note for his parents and grab his gun, and he then comes back to defend Alyssa and Garrett. However, Kelton’s also nervous because his house, which is off the grid, is still lit. Neighbors are starting to congregate near it.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “Alyssa”
Day Four: Tuesday, June 7th
The next morning Alyssa wakes up to find that her parents still aren’t home. She sees Kelton asleep and then finds his gun and picks it up nervously. When Kelton wakes up, she angrily demands that he take the gun away, but he insists that they might need it for protection. The three kids head out to Laguna Beach to look for Alyssa and Garrett’s parents. Alyssa thinks that Kelton, who’s geared up, looks silly, but then she thinks, “I’ve come to trust that there’s a reason for everything he does. We might actually need the rope, and whatever other stuff he has hidden away in those pockets” (96). Now she’s beginning to appreciate his preparedness. On their bike ride to the beach, they stop at a gas station. When they realize that the man working there doesn’t seem to belong, they run off before he can hurt them. Now Alyssa appreciates Kelton’s gun.
Part 2, Snapshot Summary: “Interstate, Northbound 6:30 a.m.”
An older woman named Charity drives on the now-gridlocked interstate. The cars around her have stopped for so long that she gets out to walk around. She then falls asleep in the car, only to wake up to hear screams and see people running. Ahead of her is a fire. Determined to help rather than run, Charity walks toward the fire.
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “Alyssa”
On their way to the beach, Alyssa notes that some places still have electricity. When they arrive at the beach, they find that it’s deserted and the desalination machines aren’t working. They then notice hundreds of cell phones in the sand, unattended and ringing. Alyssa answers one and hears a panicked child on the other end. When the three kids get closer to the machines, they see that the machines are destroyed and there are signs of a riot. An armed police officer arrives and tells them to leave. On the way out, Kelton notices a dead body, and Alyssa sees a group of teenage boys harassing an older man. She tries to intervene, but when she jumps into the fight, one of the boys grabs her. He threatens her sexually, but Kelton pulls his gun and demands that he let Alyssa go.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Kelton”
Kelton points his gun at the boy holding Alyssa. He doesn’t want to shoot the boy, and he shakes in panic. Garrett wants Kelton to shoot the boy, but Kelton can’t. The boy lunges at Kelton, but suddenly a mysterious girl shows up and grabs the gun. She holds the gun to the boy’s head, demanding that Alyssa hand over the older man’s BMW keys. She then kicks the boy to the ground.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “Alyssa”
Part 2, Snapshot-Chapter 11 Analysis
As the Tap-Out continues, the three snapshots at the beginning of this section depict a breakdown of social norms and fighting over available resources. The first two snapshots show the leadup to the events of the third, which highlight the degradation of social norms. The plant manager who allowed his employees to take refuge in the electrical plant defied norms prohibiting employees from living on plant grounds, where they’d have access to critical water deliveries. More seriously, however, the angry mob outside that breaks into the water delivery truck and the power plant acts far more violently and collectively than normal. When they break in, the plant manager thinks, “Like electricity itself, this mob is a force as dangerous as that Japanese tsunami” (81). By comparing the mob to forces of nature, the manager shows how far removed from typical society things have become as people are forced to fight over a resource as scarce and as necessary as water.
In this section, Alyssa and Garrett begin to face the possibility that their parents won’t return. This begins Dry’s take on the common Young Adult literature theme of facing disasters without the aid of one’s parents. Kelton offers to stay with Alyssa and Garrett in their house, telling her, “I know you can take care of yourself. I know you don’t need me here. But even so, it’ll make the night a little bit easier” (91). Although at this point Kelton still has his parents, he increasingly allies himself with Alyssa and Garrett, taking on the role of their protector. Eventually he’ll continue with them and without his own parents. When Alyssa, Garrett, and Kelton go to the beach to look for Mr. and Mrs. Morrow, they find a pile of abandoned cellphones on the beach. Alyssa answers one, hearing a lost child on the other end asking for his mother. This shows that these three aren’t the only kids who must navigate this new, Tap-Out world without their parents’ help.
Alyssa must begin to confront the realities of the Tap-Out world in this section. She begins to appreciate Kelton for his preparedness, thinking, “I’ve come to trust that there’s a reason for everything he does” (96). Although his family’s over-preparedness might have seemed silly during normal life, she can appreciate its helpfulness now. Alyssa does struggle with this adjustment, however, as shown when she recklessly jumps into a fight to defend an old man from a group of teenage boys. Despite what has happened so far, Alyssa still feels her old obligation to help others, particularly the needy. This is a struggle that she will continue to fight for much of the novel. Despite his age, however, Garrett adjusts quickly to the Tap-Out’s ruthlessness. When Kelton defends Alyssa by holding a gun to one of the teenage boys’ heads, Garrett tells Kelton to kill the boy, shouting, “Do it, Kelton! Do it!” (118). Although Garrett’s so young that he likely doesn’t fully understand what he asks, this still marks a major change: The boy who so easily and thoughtlessly guzzled a precious bottle of Gatorade a few days earlier now begs for one teenage boy to murder another.
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