A&PBy: John Updike
...is when he says, “She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn’t look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly.”(344) This shows how she literally led the other two around. Another way that you could tell she was the leader was where the boy said, “You never know for sure how a girls’ minds work, but you got the idea she talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.”(344) This explains how the other two girls looked up to her, and tried to assume her role. One of the other girls, who the boy named Plaid, wasn’t the leader but she was next in line (status wise). The boy described her as being, “…a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs.”(344) This makes her look like the next in line because the status of the three girls seems to depend on their looks. So with that in mind, it relates to when the boy said, “The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece.”(344) Although it would seem that this would make her the leader, it doesn’t because she didn’t know how to carry herself. The last girl, named Big Tall Goony-Goony, was the one lowest in status. The reason for her being the one lowest in status is best stated when the boy says, “…the kind of girl other girls think is very striking and attractive but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much…”(344) What this is saying is that she is attractive, but that there is just something about her that weighs her down. Another way you can tell that she had the lowest status of the three is when the boy describes her as, “…one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn’t quite frizzed right, and one of these sun...