Trapped

“I’ll just tell you, though. The nor’easter moved up the coast and stalled, but instead of weakening, it got stronger. From what I heard, it just kind of got wedged there, in between a huge cold front coming down and a massive warm front moving up, scooping up moisture over the Atlantic and dropping it as snow back on land. They still show the picture on TV sometimes: a giant white pinwheel spanning three states.”

This passage introduces the nor’easter and gives a bird’s eye view of its threat to the area it covered. More specific to the seven kids, the description of the storm here shows exactly what they were up against. These lines also reveal that Weems survived the storm. The fact that the storm still sometimes appears on television implies Chapter 1 takes place long enough afterward that the storm is no longer big news. By the time of this chapter, Weems should know what became of his family and teachers, information he withholds during the story while he reveals other details the group learned after their rescue (such as the cell towers being down). This passage sets Weems up as an unreliable narrator.

“It was a Tuesday, and before the sky started falling the main thing on my radar was the start of hoops season. The first game was supposed to be that night, home against Canterbridge. So when Pete said ‘Think they’ll let us out early?’ what I heard was ‘Think they’ll cancel the game?’ So we had different feelings on the subject right from the get-go.” 

At the beginning of the story, Weems defines himself as a basketball player and admits basketball is the most important thing in his high-school life. These lines show Weems’s mindset pre-storm and set him up to grow over the story. Even as large amounts of snow fall, Weems’s only concern is his game’s cancellation.