Plot Summary, Setting, & Character Description/Development

Plot
The story Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher is told through the eyes of an African American teenage boy name The Tao Jones, T.J. for short. His English teacher, Mr. Simet, approaches T.J. to ask him about helping to create a swim team for Cutter High. Mr. Simet does not want to be a wrestling coach this year, so finally he gets T.J. to agree. T.J. is walking down the hall and sees Mike Barbour picking on Chris Coughlin for wearing his dead step-brother's lettermen jacket. Quickly, T.J. tells Mike Barbour to just back off. Helping Chris out is something that T.J. is used, too. Later on, T.J. sees Chris swimming at the Y and decides to ask him to join the swim team, and Chris happily accepts. To recruit people to join the swim team, T.J. prints up a bunch of flyers and puts them in peoples windshield wipers at the beach. That day he gets two phone calls, and eventually both of those people agree to join the swim team. After T.J. decides to start working out at the All Night Fitness center, he sees a guy sleeping in the sauna by the name of Oliver. He doesn't have money to live in a house because he's working two jobs to try and pay his son's college tuition. Once the swim team starts practicing, Oliver becomes the team's assistant manager, bus driver and coach until Mr. Simet can start coming to practices, and is quickly nicknamed Icko by the team. Soon, the swim team has there first swim meet and already have their lettermen jacket requirements, to always beat their time previous to the last meet. On the bus rides to and from the meets, the team really starts opening up to each other. We find out why Andy Mott has a fake leg, Chris talks about his step-brother and Icko always tries to make sure that Dan Hole normalizes his vocabulary. Mr. Simet and Icko always try to stay quiet so they can comfortably let the team talk.
Georgia is a psychiatrist/therapist and has been T.J.'s since he was two years old (when he started living with his adoptive parents). He always goes to her to talk about girl problems or anything else that's on his mind and usually ends up helping her out when she is with another patient. One day he goes to visit Georgia and we meet Heidi. Georgia asks T.J. to role play with Heidi and to play the role of the "bad dad." Heidi is a little five year old black girl who we quickly find out is abused by her stepdad, Rich Marshall, an enemy of T.J. Upon finding out that Heidi is abused, a conflict emerges between T.J. and his family and Rich Marshall. Eventually, Heidi, Alicia and the twins (Heidi's mom and step-brothers) move in with T.J. and his family because they have a restraining order against Rich. Rich knows exactly what's going on and quickly starts stalking the house.
Meanwhile, the team is meeting their lettermen jacket requirements meet after meet. By the end of the year, everybody is able to earn their lettermen jackets, except for T.J. who blew the last meet because he wanted to shove it in Mike Barbour's face that it isn't that important to him and that Cutter High is way too competitive. The team all realizes how much they are going to miss each other when they aren't swimming together next year, so they decide to participate in the Hoopfest together along with T.J.'s dad and Mr. Simet. Their team dominates all the games they are in, along with the team of Rich Marshall and Mike Barbour. The last game is between these two rivals. Everyone in town has come out to see the game, even Heidi, Georgia, Alicia and the twins. T.J's team wins and everyone is very excited, everyone except for Rich. Rich, out of his anger and rage, decides to get a gun. He aims for little five-year old Heidi, but instead hits T.J.'s dad, killing him. This is an emotional blow for T.J. and his mom and Heidi who had grown close to him. The end of the book involves Rich Marshall going to jail and T.J. meeting the step-brother he never knew. Kyle Couples and T.J. meet each other and instantly get along, deciding to get to know each other better over the summer.

Setting
Whale Talk takes place in a town in Washington, U.S. The setting moves briefly out of the town when the swim team has their meets. The main setting would be T.J's house, the bus for the swim meets and Cutter High.

Character Description/Developement
T.J Jones- T.J. is the main character in Whale Talk and is the narrator of this story. His name is The Tao (pronounced Dow) Jones, but goes by T.J. We see everything throug his eyes. He is always watching out for the little guy and is extremely good at physical sports, all the teams wanting him to join, but he refuses. He does not like taking orders from other people, so he realizes he would not do well on a team. T.J. was adopoted when he was very young, about two years old. He is usually caring and helpful, except when it's dealing with people who are disrespectful or cruel.

Rich Marshall- Rich Marshall is a cruel character who was once an elite athlete at Cutter, so he was popular and well known by teachers. After graduating, he takes some of the athletes under his wing, like Mike Barbour. Rich drinks and has a big problem with his anger and rage. He is Heidi's stepfather and a father to Alicia and his twin sons. He usually takes his anger out on Heidi, telling her that if she wasn't black then she would be beautiful and loved. He abusive and horribly mean.

Heidi Marshall- Heidi is Rich's stepdaughter. She is a small, sweet five year old girl who's mind and spirit has been corrupted through the abuse of her stepfather. She is always scared and always wants to be as perfect as she can be so that her stepdad will love her. Everything Rich tells her, she believes, causing her to inflict self harm on herself by trying to change her skin color, but instead just rubbing her skin raw. She is sweet and innocent, but there is no way for her to escape this harm until the end of the book.

Icko- Icko is the swim teams bus driver, assistant manager and temporary coach. He is trying to earn money to pay for his son's college tuition, so he doesn't really have a place to live at the moment. He is helpful and doesn't like when Dan uses larges words.

Chris Coughlin- Chris Coughlin is a large and important character. His story is emotional and very touching. He is mentally disabled after his mom's boyfriend wrapped his face in saranwrap to get him to stop crying. His stepbrother, who is now dead, was a legendary athlete at Cutter High. Mike Barbour and his friends give Chris a lot of crap when he wears his dead step-brother's lettermen jacket. He is caring and sweet and just wants to be accepted.

Mike Barbour- Mike doesn't have very good values and can be abusive. He is mean and is very good friends with Rich Marshall. He picks on Chris Coughlin and hits his now ex-girlfriend Kristen.

Andy Mott- Andy Mott is a funny, but complicated character. He doesn't care what anybody thinks about him because he's probably been through the most out of any character in the book. He has a prothstetic leg and was raped by his mother's boyfriend, but still manages to make people crack a smile, even when it seems like he doesn't want to. He doesn't care about rules and gets a lot of detentions, but he doesn't care. He doesn't like when people pick on others and he can be very aggressive if he needs to be. He is a very outgoing and interesting charcter.

Jackie Craig- Jackie is a character that is on the swim team, but he doesn't ever talk. He barely mutters a word all season long until after the last meet when he vocalizes to the team that he is going to miss them a lot. He seems like a nice character.

Dan Hole- Dan is a very smart guy, who cares mostly about school. His vocabulary is extremely immense and he can barely go a sentence without sounding like a walking thesaurus. The swim team, Icko in particular, come up with a way to get him to stop talking like a genius. Every time he says a word that Icko doesn't understand/know, he has to do ten pushups. He is an a fun character and adds a lot to this book.

Tay-Roy- Tay-Roy is a muscular and good looking member of the swim team. He is a ladies man. He is very sweet and caring and is a good boyfriend to Kristen after she breaks up with Mike Barbour.

Simon- Simon is on the swim team and his is extremely overweight, making it very hard for him to be a good swimmer. Above all of that, Simon is a very caring and sympathetic character.

Mr. Simet- Mr. Simet is T.J.'s English teacher and is the swim team's coach. He used to be a swimmer, so he makes a very good swim coach. He is very understanding when dealing with his team.

Carly- Carly doesn't have a huge role, but she is T.J.'s girlfriend and the first real girlfriend he's every had. She is witty, caring and independent.

T.J.'s Dad- T.J.'s dad loves motorbikes and whales and looks scary and intimidating, but in reality he is sweet, loving, intelligent and kind. He used to work for a delivery company and after making a delivery one day, he forgot to check under his truck before he left. He ended up killing a small boy and would never forget that day. It haunts him for the rest of his life, but really helped him realize to not take anything for granted and to always help out when he can. He is very compassionate.

T.J's Mom- T.J.'s mom is a lawyer for child abuse. She is always there to help T.J. out when he has a problem and she is very understanding.

Kyle Couples- Kyle Couples seems just like his dad, T.J.'s dad. T.J. and him meet at the beginning of summer. They realize they are step-brothers and by the sound of it, it seems like they are going to try to get to know each other better.

Willis- Willis was a great athlete and is the biological father to Heidi Marshall. He was in an accident and became paralyzed. Soon, he realized he couldn't raise a daughter and his condition and he had his brother and friends help him run away.

Glenda- Glenda is T.J.'s biological mom. She did drugs a lot and was a very negative parent in T.J.'s life. She quickly realized that she couldn't take care of a child and gave him up for adoption to T.J.'s adoptive parents.