“My mind kept flashing images of cattle. They shuffled up a ramp, unaware that their path led to a slaughterhouse.”

Scott’s analogy comparing first-year students to cattle is an example of foreshadowing, but it also demonstrates Scott’s anxiety. The naivety of Scott, Kyle, Mitch, and Patrick about high school is much like the cattle who are unaware of what they are being led to, and the allusion to a slaughterhouse foreshadows that their friendship will not survive the change. Meanwhile, Scott is already anxious about the possibility of difficult classes, unlike his friends, who see high school as an adventure.

“The scary thing was that the big kids didn’t seem angry. I’m pretty sure they trashed his stuff by reflex, like they were scratching an itch or squashing a bug.”

This simile demonstrates the bullying culture at the high school. When the older kids dump the contents of Mouth’s backpack on the sidewalk and throw his hat down the storm drain, they are indifferent in their cruelty. If they had been angry, there would have been a rationale for their actions; however, Mouth only registers as a minor irritation to them, which makes their bullying incomprehensible.

“If someone cut my head off, the last words whistling through my throat as my face plunged towards the floor would be, ‘I’m fine.’”

Through hyperbole, Scott illustrates the lengths that he will go to convince others that he is okay, even when he is not. The news that his mother is expecting a baby is shocking to him, and it leads to a sense of displacement within his own family.