Occupying Chapter Summaries

A childish student named Holling Hoodhood is in 7th grade and lives in Long Island, New York. But when he gets to school on the first day he begins to think his English teacher, Mrs. Baker “hates his guts”. Calling on every student but Holling to go to church on Wednesdays is why Holling believes she hates him. Dashing home from school he explains to his family that he thinks his teacher hates him. Everyone tells him he is wrong and his dad tells him to pretend she likes him because he might get a business deal with the Baker family. Forced to stay at school, Holling is told to clean erasers and do other chores. Getting to read Shakespeare on Wednesdays instead of doing chores is much more exciting for Holling. Holling’s friends begin to make fun of him a little bit because of his love …show more content…
Keeping in touch with his sister less and less he begins to get a little bit worried as she gets more interested in the Vietnam War and being a hippie. Long Island is very rainy and one day a bus skids towards Holling and it hits him. Mrs. Baker finds him knocked out on the ground and rushes him to the hospital immediately. Neither of Hollings parents comes to get him from the hospital because they are busy. Occupying much of Mrs. Baker’s time, Holling starts talking more to Mrs. Baker and he learns that Mrs. Baker’s husband is lost in the war. Pressured by his gym teacher Holling starts to run cross country. Quietly he runs behind all of the 8th grade runners even though he knows he can run faster than most of them. Running is getting easier for him because on Wednesdays Mrs. Baker who was previously an Olympic runner in the 4 by 100 meter relay begins to coach Holling. Safely running behind other runners and making sure not to get spiked was what he did in their first race. Then near the end of the race, he pushed himself past everyone else and won the