“Trash” by Andy Mulligan Essay

Rat, is a small but clever boy who really does live up to his name. He is fast but sneaky, dirty but charming and is friendly. Rat is always getting things from the mission school as he appears to be sweet and useless. He saves the money that he is giving so, surprisingly is one of the riches people on the dump. Quotes about/by Rat: â€Å"Rat is a boy- three or four years younger than me. His real name is Jun-Jun. Nobody calls him that, though, because he lived with the rats and has come to look like one. He was the only kid in Behala that I knew of who had no family at all†¦Ã¢â‚¬  P.19 â€Å"The kid was sitting up, just in his shorts, gazing at me with frightened eyes and his big broken teeth sticking out of his mouth.† P.22 â€Å"I am the best hearer, the best jumper, the best runner-they think I brag, but they know it’s true!† P.159 â€Å"Rat saw a once we had to dive back in among them†¦ It was the smarted thing he ever did.† P.163 Trash (2010), a novel by Andy Mulligan, ends with the protagonists Raphael, Gardo and Rat starting their new life together. In the course of the novel, they faced many challenges and their friendships grows. Each character has qualities which helped build this friendship. Raphael shows the qualities of friendliness, kindness, caring and self less. Gardo shows the qualities of empathy, cleverness and leadership. Rat shows the qualities of trustfulness, sneakiness and thoughtful. The boy’s friendship holds the key to their survival, helping them to leave the dumpsite and find a better life. Raphael’s key qualities are friendliness, selfless and clever. Raphael shows the quality of friendly in the scene where he listen to Rat when nobody knows what he is doing. A quote which gives evidence of this quality is â€Å"and I’d listen to his chit chat singing† (Mulligan,2011, p.23). Another important quality that Raphael shows is selfless. He demonstrates this quality in the scene where he wants to give Rat some food for him to eat. A quote which gives evidence of this quality is â€Å"I thought, I should have brought him a bit of food† (Mulligan, 2011, pg.22). Finally, Raphael’s quality of clever is shown in the scene where he trying to figure out the code for the words. A quote which gives evidence of this quality is â€Å" go to the map ref where we lay look for the brightest my child.† (Mulligan, 2011 , pg.152). All of these qualities help Raphael to overcome his hardships and  be a good friend to Gardo and Raphael†¦.