El Deafo

Cece spends the summer hanging out with Martha, getting limeade from the pharmacy down the road. A family of beautiful people move into the neighborhood, and Cece and Martha walk over to meet them. Cece falls in love instantly with Mike Miller, the youngest boy in the family. She refuses to admit to Martha that she lives Mike; instead, she begins a secret investigation. Images show her ignoring Martha while eyeing Mike with binoculars, wearing a detective’s tweed coat and hat. While she is busy investigating, Martha talks to Mike herself. He invites the girls to jump on his trampoline. Cece is so overwhelmed when talking to Mike, she can only mumble phrases, saying: “Uh…jump…jump…” (136). On the trampoline, she dreams that El Deafo’s powerful undershirt rosette would ensnare Mike and force him to love her. Mike interrupts her daydream to inform her that Martha has gone home. 

Martha and Cece jump on the trampoline often. Cece refuses to invite Mike because he makes her nervous. Martha asks Cece one afternoon to play tag, and the girls chase each other through the neighborhood. Cece runs into a tree, and her eye starts bleeding. Her mother takes her to the doctor, and she gets an eye patch—when she shows Martha, Martha vomits and runs away. Cece’s eye heals slowly, but even after the eye patch is gone, Martha is too anxious to be around Cece. Martha’s mother explains that Martha feels guilty for hurting Cece and blames herself. As El Deafo, Cece explains to her sidekick, “It’s all better! It’s nobody’s fault!”, but the True Friend replies, “Then I’m Nobody. Goodbye, El Deafo” (149). Cece is devastated at the sudden loss of her best friend.