Student Question
Why does Maniac want Russell and Piper to attend school, despite not going himself?
Quick answer:
Maniac wants Russell and Piper to attend school to keep them out of trouble and provide stability, despite not attending himself. He values education and understands its importance, even though his own lack of a stable home prevents him from going. Maniac uses incentives like pizza and feats of bravery to persuade the boys, recognizing school as a crucial part of their development and a way to delay their plans to run away.
Maniac Magee stopped going to school when he ran away from his aunt and uncle's house. He still loved learning even though he did not attend school. Maniac especially loved to read. Grayson tried to convince Maniac to go to school one day. The boy had trouble explaining why he did not want to go to school. Maniac felt that:
"It had to do with homes and families and schools, and how a school seems sort of like a big home, but only a day home, because then it empties out; and you can't stay there at night because it's not really a home, and you could never use it as your address, because an address is where you stay at night, where you walk right in the front door without knocking, where everybody talks to each other and uses the same toaster. So all the other kids would be...
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heading for their homes, their night homes, each of them, hundreds, flocking from school like birds from a tree, scattering across town, each breaking off to his or her own place, each knowing exactly where to land. School. Home. No, he was not going to have one without the other."
When Maniac met Piper and Russell, he tried to persuade them to go to school. He knew that it was important for them to attend school even though he had stopped going himself. Maniac wanted Piper and Russell to go to school to keep them out of trouble. They wanted to run away from home and move to Mexico. They also had a troubling home life. He bribed them into going to school. He bribed them with pizza, shortcuts to Mexico, and feats of bravery. After awhile, the brothers refused to go to school again. One day, Maniac got fed up with them and "[he] exploded." The boys were "speechless as they went off to school next morning."
Even though it was exhausting and required a lot of work, Maniac continued to insist that the boys go to school. He delayed their running away by doing this.