- Published: October 3, 2022
- Updated: October 3, 2022
- University / College: The University of Edinburgh
- Language: English
- Downloads: 22
In the fictional town Tangerine in Tangerine County, Florida, lightning strikes almost every afternoon during the summer. Lighting striking a field of lignite is the cause of muck fires. For the residents, it’s nothing different than usual. 12-year-old Paul Fisher, who plays soccer despite a mysterious eye injury believed to have been caused by viewing an eclipse for too long has recently moved to Florida after his father takes a job in civil engineering. However, unlike his brother Erik, a high-school football star, Paul is unable to fit in with the new environment. Although he befriends Joey Costello, brother of Erik’s fellow team-mate Mike Costello, he struggles to fit in his new school, Lake Windsor Middle. Even his interest in soccer is deflated, after he is disallowed his right to play due to an insurance policy relating to his eyesight.
However, when Mike is killed due to a lighting strike during football practice, Paul learns through Joey to take control into his own hands, and after Lake Windsor Middle is partially destroyed because of a giant sinkhole, he jumps on the opportunity to move to Tangerine Middle in order to play soccer. Within days of his arrival, he meets Theresa Cruz, who guides him early on, and the soccer team itself-an assortment of people quite unlike any team he had played for. Victor Guzman and Tino Cruz are both intimidating tough guys, who are regularly suspended from school, but they let Paul settle in within their group, and Tino even allows Paul to join his group for a social science project. One of the main characters introduced at that time is Luis Cruz, brother of Tino and Theresa Cruz. Luis is friendly to Paul whenever he heads over to the Cruzs’ citrus plantation, and along with that, the Tangerine Middle School team manage to win the title in a game against Lake Windsor Middle, his former school. But some strange things are going on in Paul’s neighborhood.
First, termites are taking over several houses on Paul’s friend Joey’s street, which totaled twenty-five houses, causing them to be tented so they can be sprayed with insecticide. Soon afterward, the tented houses are robbed. A vandalism act is soon committed in Paul’s own backyard after a humiliating win over Tangerine High School in high school football for Lake Windsor High School.
Things continue to spiral downwards as Luis confronts Erik at the Lake Windsor football field after Erik assaults Tino as he works with Paul during the aforementioned social science project. Erik’s friend, Arthur Bauer strikes Luis with a blackjack, and Luis dies mysteriously soon after, believed to be being struck by a frozen branch while in the nursery. Knowing that Luis had confronted Erik and had been struck, Theresa warns Paul to stay away.
Yet Tino and Victor shows up at the memorial to Mike Costello and strikes Erik and Arthur. In the ensuing brawl, Paul jumps on the back of Lake Windsor’s football coach in order to allow Victor to escape. In the conclusion, Erik and Arthur Bauer are arrested for the robberies in the tented houses and for the murder of Luis Cruz, whose hit with a blackjack by Arthur had caused an aneurysm to burst. Erik’s sadism is fully delineated by the discovery that Paul’s eye injury was not caused by an eclipse, but by Erik. Paul is expelled from all public schools in Tangerine for his assault on the coach, but he is enrolled in what he calls a “ nerd private Catholic school”, St.
Anthony’s, leading to a new chapter of his life. The final lines of the book shows Paul smelling the “ scent of a golden dawn”, the fruit that Luis had spent his life developing.