Skippy Dies

Howard is the second of three protagonists in Skippy Dies, and he works as a history teacher at his alma mater, Seabrook College. Howard’s character arc revolves first around his relationship with the substitute geography teacher, Aurelie McIntyre, and later around his relationship with his students at Seabrook.

Howard, who has left a career in finance to teach history at Seabrook, is surprised by his first encounter with Aurelie, particularly by her parting remark that she will not have sex with him. Aurelie comes from the finance industry herself, and her presence at the school represents an opportunity for excitement that breaks the monotony of Howard’s days. At the time, Howard is in a committed relationship with a woman named Halley. However, the spark that characterized their early relationship has since died, and the two often resort to arguments that express their frustrations with one another. Aurelie, on the other hand, seems to engage Howard’s desire to transcend his place in life, which he can’t do on his own because of his characteristic cowardice. He welcomes many flirtatious exchanges with her and finally has sex with Aurelie while they are both chaperoning the Hallowe’en Hop mixer. Soon after, Howard breaks up with Halley, and Aurelie disappears from Seabrook, having been engaged to a previously unmentioned boyfriend.

With the sudden absence of Halley and Aurelie from his life, Howard is left to confront the consequences of his actions. He apologizes to Halley and asks her to return, but she declines, pointing out his constant need to escape from the discomfort of a boring life. Her critique challenges him to engage more directly with the life he has chosen at Seabrook. When Skippy dies, Howard finds himself faced with the startling revelation that his colleague, Tom Roche, molested Skippy, which was a major factor contributing to his stress. Complicating his relationship with Tom is how, in their youth, Tom took his place in a bungee jumping challenge when Howard was too scared to follow through. The accident effectively ended Tom’s athletic career, forcing him to remain at Seabrook as a sports coach. Howard attempts to convince the school board to take action against Tom are dismissed by the acting principal, Greg Costigan. Driven by the need to help his students through their grief, he defiantly brings them out of school for a history lesson on Ireland’s involvement in World War I and the cultural response of grief that came afterward. He is suspended by Greg immediately after this lecture but returns to the school one more time after Carl sets it on fire, running in to rescue him when he hears his phone ringtone playing.

Ruprecht is the third protagonist in Skippy Dies. He is initially presented as a sidekick to Skippy when the narrative begins. However, he carries out a character arc separate from Skippy’s that allows him to gradually function more as a protagonist, especially after Skippy’s sudden death.

It is revealed later in the novel that Ruprecht’s parents are plumbers and that Ruprecht transferred to Seabrook from another boarding school after getting an erection in the school showers. Ruprecht tries to suppress his background with the pursuit of science. He tries to pass himself off as a precocious child of means, born to noble parents who were lost and presumed dead during an expedition in the Amazon. He claims to have been instructed by tutors from Oxford, though Dennis, his rival among the friend group, is suspicious of this.

Ruprecht’s passion for science is embodied by his personal hero, Stanford Professor Hideo Tamashi. The professor’s research on string theory and space inspires Ruprecht to conduct his own experiments, which range from contacting alien civilizations to opening portals between parallel universes. After the death of Skippy, his research takes a turn toward spiritualism, shifting the scope of his experiments to try to reach Skippy in the afterlife. Talking with Lori, Ruprecht becomes aware of the issues that troubled Skippy’s life. He feels betrayed that Skippy never confided his worries about his mother and being on the swim team with him, but he also feels saddened by the understanding of what his roommate was dealing with while he was alive. His grief manifests as a loss of faith in science. He deliberately starts performing poorly in school and sabotages his French horn ahead of the Christmas concert. He ultimately uses his performance in the concert as one last attempt to reach Skippy in the spirit world, but he fails to achieve the results he wanted. He goes to Lori to tell her that he is leaving for an unspecified destination. Sensing that he wants to die, too, she convinces him to stay for just a little longer, offering her friendship in return. The end of Ruprecht’s character arc is left open, but it is suggested that Lori’s plea to stay in the world is successful.