Capricorn "Cap" Anderson has grown up all his life in Garland, a hippie commune that has seen better days. He and his grandmother Rain continue to live a life of tranquility and simplicity, keeping the 60s alive.
At least until Rain breaks her hip while picking plums.
Young Cap is taken from his quiet life in Garland, and goes off to live with a social worker and her bratty daughter.
Things don't improve for him much in Claverage (nicknamed "C Average") Middle School where his bizarre appearance and customs make him into an outcast among his peers. But despite his circumstances, Cap may turn the school on its ear.
The novel was praised and received a Young Reader's Choice Award in 2010.
No relation with the 2019 spin-off from The Goldbergs.
Tropes present in this work:
- Arrested for Heroism: Cap is arrested when he takes command of the schoolbus as the driver suffers a heart attack. He is confused because he did the right thing and at the time there wasn't much choice.
- Badass Adorable: Cap, in part for Turn the Other Cheek and being a Child Prodigy.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Cap's hippie upbringing could be seen as this. Aside from his incredible patience, he is confused by things like banking, permits, and even putting your stuff securely in a locker.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Sophie, from her obsession with boys to her resentment of Cap, fits this trope to a T.
- Break the Cutie: Zach and most of his posse tries to do this to Cap. Subverted in that Cap remains The Pollyanna.
- Broken Pedestal: Rain for Flora, who grew up with no survival skills because of Rain's teachings.
- Character Development:
- Cap gradually adapts to school and comes to enjoy his time at "C Average".
- Sophie starts the story as a bratty Daddy's Girl for her no-show father. Sophie gradually adapts to Cap and grows out of her blind admiration for her father.
- Hugh starts out as a meek loser, but grows into The Chessmaster over time.
- Rain herself had completely eschewed modern life but realizes that she wasn't giving Cap any real world experience. She eventually sells the commune and moves in with Sophie.
- Zach's friends come to respect and admire Cap through the story, and turn their backs on him.
- Child Prodigy: At 13, Cap is already a skilled driver, a math genius, and an expert of Tai-Chi.
- Commune: Cap and Rain are the only two remaining residents of Garland, a 60s hippie commune that's barely clinging to life in the present day.
- Cool Big Sis: Sophie sort of graduates to this role for Cap, especially after he secretly leaves a truly heartfelt gift to her without even really thinking about it.
- Cool Old Lady: Rain is this, at least to Cap. Flora, however, thought she was tyrant and resents her for not teaching her about modern life.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Cap to the student body after he rescues a school bus following the driver suffering a heart attack.
- Didn't Think This Through: Mr. Kasigi needing to go to a conference gives Cap a checkbook so he can manage the finances of the student fund without him. In his rush, it never occurs to him the sheltered kid who doesn't fully know what a checkbook is won't have any financial responsibility. Something Flora Donnely calls him out on.
- Duct Tape for Everything: A running gag in the book focuses on just how heavily the people of Garland relied on duct tape to fix basically everything in the community.
- Entertainingly Wrong: After getting punched in the face by accident, Cap goes back to live at Garland with Rain. However, due to a combination of driving off in an Ambulance without saying a proper goodbye, the school dance getting canceled due to "unfortunate circumstances"(AKA Cap's lack of financial responsibility bankrupting the budget) and trying and failing to get in contact with him, everyone at school jumps to the conclusion Cap must have died and the school dance was canceled out of respect for him. Hugh and Zach are the only ones who realize that in all likelihood Cap screwed up the preparations somehow and his leaving is a coincidence.
- "Eureka!" Moment: While taking her driving test, Sophie listens to the Beatles song "All You Need Is Love". Remembering that this was the engraving on her bracelet, she pieces together that Cap got her the bracelet.
- Genius Ditz: Cap sheltered upbringing means he doesn't understand how a bank works, but he can operate motor vehicles including a bus at age 13, and is pretty good at math. He also doesn't really understand most social cues and spent most of his life unaware of most technology invented after the 1960s.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Hugh turns on Cap once he gains popularity.
- Heel Realization: Sophie when she realizes Cap bought her the bracelet.
- Heroes' Frontier Step: In-Universe, Cap hijacking the bus to save the bus driver turns him from the school pariah to the school hero.
- Hippie Name: The main character is a teenage boy named Capricorn who was raised on a near-defunct commune, though he usually goes by "Cap." His grandmother, who was one of the original hippies in the 60s and never gave up her tree-hugging New Age sensibilities is named Rain, and she named her daughter (Cap's mom) Flora. It's never specified if "Rain" was her given name or if she picked it to reflect her new lifestyle.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Zach's bullying of Cap is turned back on him when everyone assumes Cap is dead after Darryl gave him a Megaton Punch. Soon he is on the receiving end of spitballs.
- Principal Kasigi's took a hands-off approach to students, that is to say he ignored the bullying of less popular students. It ends up biting him when Cap is elected student president as part of a cruel prank, and Cap being unaware of the rules of finance, bankrupts the school's activity fund because of his need to be charitable and his own gullibility and ignorance. After being forced to shut down the school dance, Kisagi realizes he should have paid more attention to his students.
- Hot Guys Are Bastards: Zach's handsomeness is frequently noted in Naomi's POV chapters.
- Innocently Insensitive: The moment Hugh starts resenting Cap is the moment when Cap comments how good it is to be liked. Unintentionally rubbing his newfound popularity in Hugh's face.
- Jerkass: Everyone except Cap and Flora, with a special mention to Zach, Sophie, and Hugh.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sophie herself starts showing this side when Cap helps her with driving. Darryl, one of the Jerk Jocks who harassed him feels this way after Cap is injured in a football stunt.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Hugh and Zach mourn Cap's death.. but they know the rumor is bullshit, and only perpetuated it to make themselves look good. It's Zigzagged in Hugh's case since he's aware of how dirty it is and is feeling guilty over it.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- Sophie doesn't come across pretty sympathetically when describing how the prank works to her mother, but has a point about how that's what the local social worker should know by now.
- Zach's a typical Jerk Jock but he's right in his guess that the school dance was canceled because Cap screwed up in some way.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: Downplayed. Cap isn't dumb but has a lack of knowledge of the real world due to his upbringing. Still, he's one of the nicest characters in the book.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Naomi's friend Lena, ultimately turns into this. She's subservient to Zach for most of the book, a cheerleader, helps try to humiliate Cap, and is described as "willing to squeeze into size-zero jeans and apply makeup with a snow blower", maintaining a network of Gossipy Hens that is compared to a CIA intelligence-gathering team and being "kind of a bulldozer when it came to getting what she wanted". However, she is liked rather than feared by most of the other students, isn't bossy towards her own circle of friends, and Took a Level in Kindness towards Cap fairly quickly after he saves the bus drivers life.
- Magnetic Hero: Cap averts this, with his odd appearance making him the butt of every joke. Once he saves the bus driver with a stunt, suddenly everybody starts making tie dye shirts and practicing Tai Chi.
- Moral Event Horizon: In-universe, the student body starts to believe that Zach setting up Cap for a Uriah Gambit and appearing to get him killed was this and start treating him as an outcast.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Zack's former sidekick Daryl gets two in quick succession in his only POV chapter first when he realizes that he and the rest of the football team tackled Cap, and then when he sees Cap leaving in an ambulance.
- Nerves of Steel: Cap's patience makes him incredibly unflappable. He can give Sophie a driving lesson without flipping out over her recklessness, as well as save the bus driver.
- Never My Fault: Zach. One character literally calls him out on being this type of person. He also blamed Hugh for the bullying he had done, because Hugh wore a pocket protector and had nerdy hobbies.
- Only Sane Man: Flora and to a certain extent, Hugh.
- Perspective Flip: The book is told from the first-person view of Cap and others.
- The Resenter: Hugh and Zach. by the final act of the story.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He's only saying it because he hates Cap and wants to make him look bad but Zach's guess that Cap got the school dance canceled due to a screw-up is right on the money.
- Rule of Three: Cap is arrested three times for driving underage. Each time marks a significant turning point in the story.
- Rule of Empathy: Averted in Hugh's story arc. Being a bully victim does not necessarily make someone empathetic to other kids getting bullied.
- Running Gag: A heart-warming one where Cap resolves to learn every student's name.
- Same Story, Different Names: This is the second Korman book (after Don't Care High) to involve a pair of students causing a clueless and socially awkward nonentity to become their class president of a Crapsack World school with an Embarrassing Nickname (Don Carney High School/Don’t Care High and Claverage Middle School/C Average Middle School), only for the school to be revitalized by the new President as he becomes a School Idol. The main difference is that the nomination is a cruel prank by the villains in this book and a well-meaning plan to drag the school out of its slump in Don't Care High. Also, Cap takes his responsibilities as president a lot more seriously than The Chosen Zero in the earlier book.
- School Idol: By the end of the book, Cap has become the most popular kid in school without making the slightest conscious effort.
- Springtime for Hitler: Zach electing Cap for student president
- The Stoic: Cap is this, much to Zach's frustration.
- Student Council President: Averted, maybe even inverted. Zach and his friends only elect Cap to office because it is the tradition to elect the biggest misfit in the school. Interestingly enough, the office does give Cap control over spending for the prom. Once Cap starts gaining popularity, he plays this straighter.
- Teens Are Monsters: Every teenager seems all too eager to go along with bullying. Even Hugh is happy to use Cap as his shield rather than try and help him. Sophie starts out treating Cap with nothing but contempt, but she does soften on him after a few chapters.
- Too Dumb to Fool: Played with. Though he's not dumb, Cap's unfamiliarity with a public school setting is a major reason a lot of the pranks against him fail at upsetting him.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Practically everyone in the school comes to appreciate and support Cap and even Zack himself cracks just a little at the end, feeling some appreciation for Hugh, and being impressed with Cap's ability to remember everyones name.
- Tsundere: Sophie becomes a non-romantic version of this for Cap as he starts growing on her. She at one point mocks his hippie lifestyle, and then kisses him on the cheek. She again calls him "freakazoid" when telling him she is going to live with her.
- Turn the Other Cheek: Zach and his friends are simply unable to get a rise out of Cap.
- Uriah Gambit: Zach pulls this on Cap, making him dress up in a rival football team's uniform right as the home team comes out to play, which earns Cap a Megaton Punch. This backfires rather horribly since as many people point out, Cap could have been KILLED and it seems that he has died.
- What the Hell, Hero?: At the end of the story, Flora calls out Rain for not teaching Cap about the real world. Rain initially brushes this off, but eventually realizes that Flora was right.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Sophie's father is rarely around for her. Sophie eventually wises up to her dad being a no show and its how she figures out that her dad didn't give her the bracelet.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Flora describes Cap as this when Kisagi calls her in a fury about Cap having spent the school dance budget on multiple charities and Sophie's bracelet. He has the idealism of the sixties without the cynicism.
- With Friends Like These...: Hugh is a testament to how being an outcast does not make you a nice guy. Despite being Cap's first friend, Hugh does nothing to warn him about Zach and his manipulation, just so he can avoid being bullied. And when Cap gains popularity, Hugh sets him up to get brutally tackled out of jealousy. He then takes advantage of the rumor of Cap being dead just so he can take advantage of Cap's reputation by claiming to have stood by him.
