What are the differences between Steph's and Brent's lives in Whirligig?

Written by American author Paul Fleischmann and published in 1998, Whirligig is a young adult novel about seventeen-year-old Brent Bishop. Following his accidental killing of eighteen-year-old Lea Zamora, Brent travels across America installing whirligigs in Maine, Florida, Washington, and California, in her memory.

Brent’s parents are not particularly loving, and the family moves around a lot for his father’s work. As a result of this, Brent is unable to maintain real friendships. He is bad-tempered, self-centered, and insecure, and he lies about his past in a desperate attempt to fit in with his peers. When he is humiliated at a party, Brent decides to kill himself; instead, he accidentally strikes and kills eighteen-year-old Lea Zamora with his car. Brent’s journey of atonement across America changes him for the better, and he begins to see a future for himself.

Steph is in the eighth grade and comes from a stable home. Her loving parents are scientists, and Steph is passionate about science as well. Unlike Brent, Steph has a best friend, Alexandra. Alexandra thinks Steph is “funny, loyal, and brilliant” and wants to find her a boyfriend. This search is the reason Alexandra takes Steph to visit the fourth whirligig. Alexandra believes the whirligig is magic.

What is Brent's relationship with Steph in Whirligig?

Whirligig chronicles Brent's journey from an angry young man that wanted to take his life but instead by accident took another's life, to an insightful young man that wants to live life. Rather than go to jail for accidental vehicular homicide, the victim's mother requests that he travel the United States placing old fashioned whirligigs that he makes in the four corners of the United States. They must resemble Lea, the girl he killed, so that her spirit lives on, providing joy to people across the country. 

Of course on his journey he encounters various characters in the book with whom he interacts. However, some of the characters, such as Steph, only have a relationship with him through the whirligig. Steph is one of the people who comes into contact with the whirligig after it is made. She is a serious girl with a dreamer of a friend who tells her a story about a boyfriend she will one day have while sitting listening to the whirligig. Years later, Steph does have that boyfriend and returns to the whirligig often to visit, care for and repair it. Her relationship with Brent is that by placing the Whirligig, Brent impacted Steph's life with some needed imagination and "dreamer" quality. She, in turn, takes care of the whirligig.