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Girl on Fire
This is the earliest memory that Jeannette Walls remembers having. She is cooking some hot dogs when suddenly she notices that she is on fire. She is rushed to the hospital and is treated for her burns there. After some time of being in the hospital, Rex Walls comes in and does the "skedaddle", and they all leave the hospital. -
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Important Events
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Las Vegas
The family moved to Las Vegas, and lived there for about a month. Rex Walls would win a lot of money playing blackjack and poker, so the family ate pretty well during this time. They eventually decided to do the skedaddle after that month had passed by. -
San Francisco
The family ended up moving to San Francisco for a time after they left Las Vegas.Then the hotel they were staying in caught on fire, so they went and lived on the beach for a while. Eventually they were told they couldn't sleep on the beach, and they decided to leave once again. -
Midland
The family moved to Midland after San Francisco. Rex teaches Jeannette not to be afraid of monsters here. Rex also gave all three of his kids a star for Christmas. Jean picked the planet Venus, while the other two picked stars in Orion's constellation. -
Battle Mountain Cont.
She made pretty decent money during that job, and the family ate okay. The family was forced to move after the kids got in trouble for having a shooting match with Billy. -
Battle Mountain
Next, the family moved to Battle Mountain and lived in a train depot that had been converted into a house. Rex managed to keep his job for a pretty long time, and the family ate well while he had the job. The family eventually ran out of food. Rex and Mary Jane got into a huge fight that resulted in Mary Jane trying to jump out of the window. Mary Jane got a job as a teacher to help support the family, even though she didn't like it very much. -
Phoenix
The family moved to phoenix next. Mary Jane's mother had passed away, so they had a house left for them by her. Mary Jane began working on her art a lot more here, and Rex promised Jean that he would stop drinking for her tenth birthday. He managed to do this for a while, but eventually, after a failed trip to the Grand Canyon, he went back to the booze. -
Welch Cont
Brian and Jean got into a fight with one of the kids, Ernie Goad, and managed to beat him by constructing a catapult using a matress and rocks as ammo. It worked very well. The Walls family ended up staying in Welch for a very long time, barely scraping by. Eventually Lori decided that she wanted to move away from the family, and she and Jean made a plan to both go to NYC as soon as they could. -
Welch
The family then moved to Rex's childhood home of Welch, West Virginia. At first the family stayed with Rex's mom and dad, Erma and Ted. Uncle Stanley also resided there. They were forced to leave that house after the kids got into a fight with Erma about her touching Brian. They decided to find their own home in Welch after this, and moved to 93 Little Hobart Street, which was a house in very bad condition. -
New York City Cont.
Rex Walls passes away around this time as well. This upsets Jeannette greatly, and she ends up leaving her first husband because of it. Jean remarries, and the family minus Maureen all meet up together for a Thanksgiving dinner. The book ends at this point. -
New York City
Jean leaves Welch and meets up with Lori in NYC. Jean begins college, and eventually Brian and Maureen join them there. The parents ended up following the kids to NYC, but decided to live on the streets. Lori becomes a comic book artist, Brian becomes a cop, Jeannette becomes a writer for a newspaper, and Maureen finishes up high school. A little while later Maureen ends up stabbing Mary Jane when she is told she needs to move out. She goes to California after a year in a hospital.
