Claudia’s misalignment with reality, enabled by the bubble of her friendship with Monday, scaffolds the novel’s nonlinear structure. In the beginning, the bubble seems to be a normal bubble of close friendship between two young girls. Claudia works to keep this bubble intact, even in the face of bullying: “I refused to turn around, no matter how much their words burned holes through my bubble” (73).

The bubble also helped Claudia to deny her dyslexia, since Monday helped her with her schoolwork. When the school counselor finally spoke to Claudia’s parents about the diagnosis, Claudia’s bubble was popped completely: “Once spoken, it shot out like a hot needle and popped the bubble I lived in” (122). Claudia finds her new reality with dyslexia a scary place: She fears being bullied about going to The Learning Center. When she reads Monday’s journal later and discovers Monday’s frustration with having to carry Claudia because of her learning disability, she throws the journal under her bed. The truth about Monday’s feelings challenges the bubble of her perceptions about their friendship, and Claudia refuses to pierce yet another bubble.

When Monday is murdered, Claudia’s mind works to maintain the bubble to the point that Claudia sometimes forgets where she is in her own timeline.