Paper Towns 201-305

Q continues to search the abandoned subdivisions for Margo, and he continues to have no luck. Lacey Pemberton, one of Margo’s friends, starts to date Ben and kind of begins hanging out with Ben, Radar, and Q. They find a map in the abandoned building that Margo used to hang out in, and it has thumb-tack holes in it. They think it might be some sort of a route that Margo is on. A few days after that was Q’s birthday. His parents got him a minivan, so he wasn’t super excited about that, but he was glad that he at least had a car. When Q was browsing the Internet, looking for clues about where Margo may be, he came up with a new definition for “paper towns.” They are towns that do not actually exist, but they are put on maps as copyright traps for other mapmakers. He found a post on the website by Margo that said she was going to be in the paper town of Agloe, New York until May 29 at noon. When he finds this, it’s already May 28. Knowing they have less than 24 hours to go on a 23 hour drive, Q, Ben, Radar, and Lacey skip graduation to head to Agloe in Q’s minivan. It’s a very eventful trip, including a lot of energy drinks, very few stops, and a cow in the middle of the road that nearly totals Q’s van. The finally got to Agloe, and find Margo in an old abandoned barn. She’s not very nice when they first get there. She’s very surprised and says that she didn’t want to be found. She just wanted to run away. Q and Margo talk for a while, and she says that she can’t go back to Orlando. She’s going to New York City to live for a while, and then she could go anywhere from there. She said she went to Agloe in the first place because she felt like she was never real. She always just felt like she was conforming to other people’s ideas of her. Margo and Q have sort of a romantic connection, but both of them also realize that they aren’t really meant for each other. He’s going to go back to Orlando, and she’ll probably just keep running from place to place her entire life, but they both realize they’re okay with that because they can’t just change who they are.