Going Nowhere Faster (novel summary)

Going Nowhere Faster : 

Going Nowhere Faster Project By: Alex Sayer

Stan Smith : 

Stan Smith “My name’s Stan, so right there I was more or less doomed from the beginning.” (Pg. 2, Stan) Stan is a 17 year old boy that works at Happy Video and just got out of high school.

Slide 3: 

“There was a bolt of heat lightning, way off over the trees, a wha-CRACK that gave me goose bumps.” (Pg. 12, Stan) After a long shift at Happy Video, Stan rides home on his bike. It is getting to be very dark out so he begins to pedal faster.

Slide 4: 

“An engine growled, LOUD, then louder, the car roaring past, too fast and too close as I skidded to the side of the road.” (Pg. 12, Stan) Then out of the shadows comes a pair of headlights racing towards Stan trying to hit him. He flips into the ditch and heads home.

Miles : 

Miles ‘“Yo, Stan-dog”’ (Pg. 26, Miles) After arriving home Stan gets a call from his best friend Miles. They are invited to a party just on the other side of town.

Slide 6: 

‘“…you wanna go to a party… Ellen’s gonna be there.”’ (Pg. 27, Miles) The girl that Stan has always admired, Ellen Rigby, will be at the party. “Ellen was Chad Chilton’s girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. Depended who you asked.” (Pg. 28, Stan) Stan feared that Chad Chilton, a high school bully, would be at the party.

Slide 7: 

“I woke up the next morning, late. My head hurt.” (Pg.48, Stan) Stan got up the next day, hung-over and only remembers the beer at the party and seeing Ellen.

Slide 8: 

“A half hour before closing… I’d rented one video. Ellen Rigby walked in. Not only in, she actually came up to the counter.” (Pgs. 60-61, Stan) Once he figures out his surroundings, Stan goes in for his shift at Happy Video to find his boss and nearing the end of his shift, Ellen walks into the store.

Slide 9: 

‘“I’m taking my sister to the lake on Sunday to feed the ducks. You wanna come?”’ (Pg. 64, Stan) Stan invites Ellen to come on a trip to the park with his sister, Olivia. He thinks it is a smooth move inviting Ellen but then his mom shows up in the family vehicle that has a holding tank on top of the roof full of deep fryer grease (bio-diesel)

Disaster Strikes : 

Disaster Strikes ‘“You know, Ellen, Stan never said anything about a girlfriend to me…Do we need to talk about protection?”’ (Pgs. 86-87,Stan’s Mom) After the park, Stan’s mom insists on driving them home. But, before they know it, she begins to talk about protection After that Ellen decides that she is not going to talk to Stan

Slide 11: 

“…we walked into a large, loud room. There were beer steins on all the windowsills and pictures of soccer players on the walls.”(Pg.117, Stan) A day later, Stan gets a call from Miles and they are going to a German restaurant full of schnitzels with Ellen and Miles’s girlfriend

Slide 12: 

“He looked up, surprised. Ellen was leaning against the wall beneath him. He’d been kissing her…And then it was a blur…I ran through the parking lot and alongside the highway, down over the gravel edge.” (Pg. 123, Stan) After dinner, Stan goes to the washroom looking for Miles and Ellen when he finds them Kissing by the payphone He is furious and runs out of the restaurant right onto the highway.

Slide 13: 

‘“OHMYGOD, hon…are you okay?”’ (Pg.129, Stranger) Luckily enough for Stan, a beautiful southern woman named Daphne stops her pickup truck and gives him a ride to his house.

Slide 14: 

“…across the forehead, written in black, was a name. My name. STAN. I dropped the doll. I almost screamed. And then I did.” (Pg.133, Stan) When Stan arrives home, he walks up to his porch and there is one of his sister’s dolls painted red from head to toe with STAN written in black across its forehead. For the next three days, Stan locks himself in his room, missing some shifts at Happy Video.

Slide 15: 

“I rode into town an hour early, feeling like I owed Keith for missing (at least) two shifts…The word ‘nats’ was spray painted all over the walls in red…Had the store been robbed? It’d definitely been trashed. It was unbelievable.” (Pg. 143, Stan) Once the paranoia had passed, Stan went in for his shift at Happy Video only to find the store trashed Along with a clever clue beneath all of the graffiti on the walls. ‘NATS’ happens to be Stan’s name backwards.

Slide 16: 

‘“Happy Video is now officially closed… Even if you weren’t fired. Which you are [Stan].”(Pg.147, Stan’s boss) Once the video store was destroyed, Stan’s boss was not about to fix it, so he fired Stan. When Stan was ready to ride home he looked at his bike with freshly slashed tires and decided to ride it home anyways

Slide 17: 

“I was about a mile from Dr. Felder’s office, pedaling on ovals, when Miles pulled up alongside me… I lifted my bike and threw it as far as I could…I closed my eyes and swung, hard as I could. My fist crashed into his nose.” (Pgs.162-163, Stan) After having his tires slashed, he rode his bike for about 100 feet and then his bike started to fall apart. Moments later Stan’s best friend, Miles, pulls up beside him in his car and tries to explain himself about the kiss at the restaurant but Stan hits him right in the nose. Soon after they sort things out and are friends again.

Slide 18: 

‘“Dad? I need your help with something. There’s something we have to do and it’s really, really important.”’ (Pg.168, Stan) After the store had been wrecked, Stan felt a little guilty since it was wrecked with his name spelt backwards all over the walls. So he got his family together and they fixed up Happy Video so that it was better looking than before the incident.

Slide 19: 

“I’d never been to Keith’s house before, which was actually an apartment in an L-shaped building over a cement courtyard with blooms of flowers and animal-shaped shrubbery. Very un-Keith.” (Pg.185, Stan) Once Stan’s family had fixed the store, he went to Keith's house, blind folded him, and brought him to the store. “I worked most of a shift, and when it was over I accepted a hug from Keith.” (Pg.190, Stan) He was so thrilled that he gave Stan his job back at Happy Video

Slide 20: 

“Outside, my bike was gone. Completely. Just not there. No notes or further damage. Gone.” (Pg.190, Stan) When Stan came out of Happy Video, he looked at the dumpster where his bike was. His bike was gone and he just thought it was a relief.

Slide 21: 

‘“My car’s acting weird. I think there’s really something wrong. I’m not sure we’re going for Slurpees, let alone Cali.”’ (Pg.191, Miles) Fort a long while Stan and Miles had a dream of going to live in California and then they thought it was about time to live their dream but their vehicle of transportation failed on them. ‘“I was saving it, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”’ (Pg.193, Stan’s Dad) When they told Stan’s dad about the car and their plans, he gave them a surprise they didn’t expect. A bio-diesel VW bus. “A round shape was hidden under three white tarps. He yanked them off, one at a time, as an orange VW bus was slowly revealed.” (Pg.193, Stan)

Slide 22: 

“..I noticed something on the roof of Smith’s Natural Foods. It sure wasn’t a weather vane…Then I saw my bike. In the middle of the yard. Half buried, with the outer half stuck out of the ground, handlebars bent like sculpture…Plus, the whole thing was painted. Bright red.” (Pgs.199-200,Stan) That night Stan and Miles went to Stan’s family’s vegetable farm because they had seen someone on the roof of the barn and then saw Stan’s bike, freshly buried. “Parash ran out from behind an old tractor wheel and grabbed Miles from behind.” (Pg.201, Stan) ‘“Wait,”’ “my mother said, and then strode into the circle of moonlight and decked Parash with a right cross so powerful three teeth went flying into the air…” (Pg.203, Stan)

Slide 23: 

‘“Now, why don’t you calm down so I can loosen this rig and get you in a nice pair of hand cuffs, huh?”’ (Pg.204, Sheriff Conner) Soon after, Parash (better known as Fred), was taken to jail after admitting to robbing Happy Video and stalking Stan.

Slide 24: 

““My parents held a going-away party for Miles and me behind Smith’s Natural, which was now closed. Permanently.” (Pg.209, Stan) Once Stan’s Mom found out about them leaving to California, she threw them a going away party that even the police officers attended.

Slide 25: 

“We made it about half a mile past the YOU ARE NOW LEAVING MILLVILLE, HAVE A GOOD TRIP! Sign, when a red light went on the dashboard.” (Pg. 217, Stan) Then they went on their way to follow their dream when only a few minutes later they have to stop at the nearest Super Burger Barn to get some Bio-Fuel. But when they ask for the manager, the last person that they would expect to be the manager of a Super Burger Barn, Chad Chilton. “I could hear voices, and then a man walked out in a polyester outfit. It was Chad Chilton…he goatee was gone and he wore a tie and his hair was cut short, but it was definitely him.” (Pg.219, Stan)

Slide 26: 

After talking to Chad, they find out that he never wanted to get Stan. There was just a misunderstanding. “He reached out to shake my hand. I took it…We got into the van and pulled onto the highway.” (Pg.222, Stan) So once they had a full tank of fry oil, they were on their way.