Class-edition pages 99–100. Cite each quotation with the printed page shown beside it—for example, (Alexie 99).
Your aimRowdy says Junior only likes Penelope because she's white. Is Rowdy right?
Read and make your own notes. Turn the highlights on when you are ready to compare. Other choices can work when you explain them.
This short chapter builds context for the week’s aim. Its model notes show blue connections.
Printed page 99
-----Original Message-----
From: Mary
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:41 PM
To: Junior
Subject: Hi!
Dear Junior: I love it here in Montana. It’s beautiful.1 Yesterday, I rode a horse for the first time. Indians still ride horses in Montana. I’m still looking for a job.2 I’ve sent applications
Printed page 100
to all the restaurants on the reservation. Yep, the Flathead Rez has about twenty restaurants. It’s weird. They have six or seven towns, too. Can you believe that? That’s a lot of towns for one rez! And you know what’s really weird? Some of the towns on the rez are filled with white people.3 I don’t know how that happened. But the people who live in those white towns don’t always like Indians much. One of those towns, called Polson, tried to secede (that means quit, I looked it up)4 from the rez. Really. It was like the Civil War. Even though the town is in the middle of the rez, the white folks in that town decided they didn’t want to be a part of the rez. Crazy. But most of the people here are nice. The whites and Indians. And you know the best part? There’s this really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It’s on Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bathroom! Really! I could have called you from the bathoom. But that’s not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service, to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could get fry bread.5 Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn’t think it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma’s. But let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma’s.6 And they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true! I love my life!7 I love my husband! I love Montana!
I love you! Your sis, Mary
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian · printed pages 99–100. Parenthetical citations use author and printed page: (Alexie 99).
After reading
What happened?
Mary emails Junior about her new life in Montana, her job search, and her happiness with her husband. Her message keeps their family connection alive even as she tries to build a life elsewhere.