Luis has been developing a new kind of tangerine called the Golden Dawn. Tino and Theresa have an older brother, Luis, whom they adore. As Paul gets close with Tino and Theresa Cruz, he comes to help out in their tangerine groves. All the kids help out on their families orchards. The kids of Tangerine come from poor working families-tangerine-growing families. Everyone in Tangerine is rough and honest, and Paul loves it. But little by little, Paul comes to prove himself on the field. The War Eagles, it turns out, have some of the best players in the county. But it has a soccer team-a good soccer team. It’s nothing like their sterile housing development. They’re nervous, because the school is in a rougher, poorer town of Tangerine. Paul demands that his parents let him go to Tangerine Middle School. He’s thrilled: this means he can play with another team-without an IEP. No one dies, but the school grounds are condemned. One day after a torrential storm, a sinkhole opens up at Paul’s school and swallows one of the portables. There are constant muck fires smoldering under the ground there’s constant rain and flash floods and the county, it turns out, has the most lightning strikes in the entire country. Paul sees Erik and Arthur laughing about the tragedy. Another football player, Mike Costello, gets struck by lightning during practice. The first sign of Erik’s sinister ways comes when there’s a terrible accident. Paul can tell that Erik is going to get Arthur to do bad things for him. Erik, Paul knows, has a way of manipulating people. His parents, though, are more concerned with Erik’s life.Įrik makes friends with Arthur Bauer as soon as Paul sees them together, he knows that Arthur is going to play a bad role in Erik’s life. Paul makes friends with Joey Costello, but he’s still incredibly depressed by not being able to play soccer. Because of this, Paul ends up with an IEP (an individualized education program) and he’s not allowed to play on the soccer team. But when Paul signs up for Lake Windsor Middle School, his mother tells the principal that Paul needs help because he is legally blind. Because of his bad eyes, he has special goggles that he wears when he plays. Paul loves to play soccer he’s the goalie. They also don’t seem to pay any attention to Paul. Paul’s parents are obsessed with Erik’s football career-so much so that they don’t seem to notice the sinister things about Erik that Paul notices. Erik will be the kicker for Lake Windsor High football team. Fisher will be the new director of civil engineering for Tangerine County. Fisher joins the Lake Windsor Housing Association and becomes the head of the architectural committee. Many of the groves, it turns out, are being slashed and burned to make way for new housing developments like the one that the Fisher family moves into: Lake Windsor Downs, a sterile, wealthy development where all the houses the look the same.

When they arrive, Paul sees piles of tangerine trees smoldering in great heaps. Paul and his family are moving from Houston to Tangerine County, Florida-a region known for its tangerine groves. He writes about the strange vision in his journal this mysterious journal entry is how the diary-novel of Tangerine begins. As Paul packs up his house in Houston, he has a terrifying vision of Erik leaning out the window of a car, wearing a ski-mask, swinging a baseball bat at Paul’s head. Paul Fisher, an eighth grader with bad eyes, is afraid of his older brother, Erik.

Tangerine by edward bloor page count