→ Across
7.A meeting at which an official statement is given to journalists; from the story: “The single narration flows from the press conference. It has a number, a hashtag, a legal filing, and a body cam transcript.” The book is written in deliberate conversation with this kind of official narration.
9.The act of telling a story, especially from a particular point of view; from the story: Reynolds and Kiely alternate between Rashad and Quinn so that no single voice narrates the same night. When narration is refused to be flattened into one voice, the place (in this case, Chicago) is also refused to be flattened.
11.A person who sees an event happen; the act of seeing an event happen; from the story: Quinn is a witness to the convenience-store scene — he is at the chip aisle, he sees what Officer Galluzzo does, and he does not move. He is also a witness who has not yet decided whose story to tell.
12.A word or phrase preceded by the symbol #, used on social media to group posts on one topic; from the story: the hashtags after a police-violence event are part of the single narration cycle. The book writes in two voices, deliberately refusing the cycle.
↓ Down
1.To take turns; to occur in turns; from the story: the chapters alternate, Rashad then Quinn then Rashad then Quinn, “like two sides of a door that does not close.” When a book alternates between two narrators across the same night, the book refuses the single line that the news cycle has already drawn.
2.The feeling or belief that someone has done something wrong, without full proof; from the story: Rashad walks into Carter’s, bumps a woman’s arm, and the suspicion moves from a name to a 911 call to a hospital in minutes. The novel slows down to show how quickly suspicion can become a beating.
3.A narration in which the story is told by a character using “I”; from the story: Rashad’s chapters are narrated in first person, so his chips, his Skittles, his broken eye socket, and his father’s breakfast are in the prose. Quinn’s chapters are also in first person, so the basketball court, the cookie at the Athletic Board meeting, and the walk home are also in the prose.
4.The fact of being responsible for what one does and able to give a satisfactory reason for it; from the story: the book raises, without answering, the question of what accountability looks like for a high school sophomore. The students in the book are not lawyers; they are sixteen.
5.The official plan or set of rules for how something must be done; from the story: the press briefing says “the force used was within protocol.” The book’s purpose is not to argue with the word but to show, in two voices, what the word covers.
6.The policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change; from the story: by the end of the week, Rashad’s friends and classmates have organised a protest outside the school. The book shows activism as a school-hallway event — a march organised by teenagers, not an op-ed.
8.To reduce complexity to a single level or dimension; from the story: a single official narration “flattens a place into an incident.” To refuse to flatten is to keep more than one voice alive at the same time.
10.A person who joins with another in a cause; from the story: Quinn’s friend Guzzo, who is also a witness, decides to leave the basketball team rather than play for a coach who defends the officer. Guzzo is one of the first characters in the book to act like an ally — his decision is small and costs him.