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Whom does Leslie find crying in the bathroom? Why was that person crying?

To her great surprise, Leslie finds Janice Avery, the well-known bully, crying in the bathroom. Janice's father beats her, and when Janice finally confided this sad truth in her friends Wilma and Bobby Sue, they revealed her secret to everyone--and now, even the teachers know about Janice's sad situation. This betrayal of trust and the subsequent possible destruction of Janice's tough reputation are what make her cry in the bathroom.


All this happens in Chapter 7, an important turning point in Jess and Leslie's maturity. They'd previously been obsessed with getting revenge on Janice for bothering Jess's little sister. But their childish vengeful attitudes give way to a better understanding of Janice as a person, as someone who is suffering and whose infliction of suffering on others is now easier to understand and excuse.


Reading this story today, we might be confused about why it was a bad thing for the truth to come out about Janice's father abusing her. These days, we understand abuse better, and we encourage each other to speak out and to identify abuse when we suspect it so that adults can intervene and make it stop. (And, so that the abused person can seek treatment to recover, either physically or psychologically, or both.) But during the time when this story takes place, traditions and expectations were different. Here's how Jess explains it:



That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them. By tomorrow every kid and teacher in Lark Creek Elementary would be talking in half snickers about Janice Avery's daddy. It didn't matter if their own fathers were in the state hospital or the federal prison, they hadn't betrayed theirs, and Janice had.



Like Jess explains, then, Janice didn't want her abuse to be revealed. She would have preferred to keep it a secret and maintain her family honor.

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