Linked

Link has been suspended indefinitely, has been charged with vandalism, and is reviled around the world, thanks to Adam’s videos. He does not know why he painted the first swastika. His father had just had Link taken off the soccer team, and he wanted to do something “that would freak people out” and that could not be laughed off the way the fertilizer prank could (169). He had not been thinking; he had just felt angry. He had not understood what the symbol represented; he thought swastikas were “anti-everything” (170).

Though he misses being popular, he does not blame the world for hating him. When he learned about his grandmother’s family, he could not face himself. Dana’s suggestion of a bar mitzvah, though intended jokingly, represented “a lifeline” for Link, “a way to make up for” what he had done (171). The person whose enmity he most regrets is Dana’s. He has not been able to speak to her. Pamela phones him, believing she and Link were “on the same team” (172). She claims Link is the “perfect messenger” because of his Jewish background, and Link realizes that he cannot change her: “I did something stupid […] You did something hateful” (173).