Symbols & Motifs
Pig
Pig, Tip’s cat, accompanies Tip and J.Lo on their cross-country road trip. As a recurring non-human character, she is a motif that helps inform the theme of The Impact of Colonization from a Child’s Perspective. She also contributes to the novel’s humorous tone, foreshadows the Gorg’s weakness, and enables Tip and J.Lo to save the world at the novel’s climax.
As Tip discusses how the Boov colonized their world, she mentions the “Great Housecat Betrayal” (62), where cats defected from their human homes in flocks to the Boov. For a child like Tip, living alone with Pig as the last remnant of her mother, the betrayal of these human companions is a notable component of how the Boov took over human lands, houses, and belongings. Only later when trapped in the car with J.Lo and Pig does she find out cats love Boov because they smell slightly fishy. Moments like these—including the cat being named “Pig”—provide levity and contribute to the novel’s humorous and sometimes absurd tone.
When Tip starts to encounter the Gorg, Adam Rex foreshadows that cats might be the Gorg’s weakness. Gorg-made machines hunt cats and take them away upon the pain of death. Two times when the Gorg are closely questioning Tip and once when Lucy is, they have mild allergy attacks. This makes Tip think they are allergic. As the only cat left, Pig must be cloned a thousand times to compel the Gorg to leave. She is thus vital in the novel’s climactic action.
Slushious
“Slushious” is what Tip calls her car after J.Lo helps modify it. Slushious is a symbol that represents the friendship and cooperation between Tip and J.Lo. It helps inform the theme of The Nature of Cross-Cultural Understanding.
When leaving Pennsylvania, Tip drives into a crater made when the Boov destroyed the highway, causing Lucy’s car to be undrivable. J.Lo agrees to fix it, giving it “three extra antennas,” “tubes and hoses” everywhere, and “fins,” made of salvaged metal, one of which sported “a picture of a frozen drink and the word ‘Slushious’” (25). This gives the car its name. Tip wanted him to fix the flat tires, but J.Lo didn’t realize cars drove on wheels, so he fixed it to “hover much better” (26). He also attaches a “Snark’s Manifold” and other Boov technology from his scooter. As a mash-up of human-made car parts and Boov technology, Slushious is a literal representation of the cooperation of Boov and human techniques and knowledge, including the eventual friendship of J.Lo and Tip throughout the novel.
People stare at the hovering Slushious strangely everywhere they go, just as they see a friendship between human and Boov as strange. As she begins to think of J.Lo as her friend and fights to keep them together in challenging circumstances, Tip grows attached to Slushious. She fights to keep possession of the car even when people like Vicki try to separate them from it, emphasizing its symbolic significance.
Happy Mouse Kingdom and Its Inverted Buildings
The Happy Mouse Kingdom is a motif that supports the theme of The Impact of Colonization from a Child’s Perspective. The Kingdom, which is in Orlando, is a fictional correlative of Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. There are many “fake kingdoms and worlds” inside, making the Kingdom “[j]ust like the real [America], only smaller” (103). In this way, it is a microcosm of the real world, another version of the world reflected by park-goers.
When Tip enters the park, she sees the Snow Queen’s Castle “vanished by the Boov’s guns” (108). She thinks of an old photo of Lucy by the castle as a child and “hope[s] she’d never have to see it like this” (109). Since the park is a microcosm of the real world, the destruction of the castle represents the destruction of the world as Tip previously knew it.
Tip discovers that in the tunnels under the park, large attractions like the Haunted House and Snow Queen’s Castle have replica “upside-down buildings underground” (127), which are full-scale. Christian explains: “During the day they clean the one underground, repaint whatever needs repainting, fix stuff, that sort of thing. Then, in the middle of the night, fliip!” (128). Below ground, she sees the upside-down Castle, which the Boov have not touched, leaving it in perfect, whole condition. Though the Boov may have destroyed and colonized much of the world as it appears on the surface, represented by the above-ground castle, there are still people fighting to preserve the human world and society beneath the destruction, represented by the below-ground castle.
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