The Truth about Zachary

Zachary Sellars has moved from Richland to Odyssey with his mother, Eileen. His old wheelchair needs repairs, unpacked boxes obstruct his new room, and a dropped fork reminds him how much independence he has lost. He lashes out at Odyssey and predicts that no one will want to befriend a boy in a wheelchair. Eileen admits that the change is hard for her too, but insists that he attend school, continue therapy, and make the best effort he can.

On his first day, Zachary refuses a teacher’s help and resents Lucy Cunningham-Schultz for suggesting that he introduce himself. He sarcastically announces plans to join the soccer team and break the high-jump record. When Lucy later apologizes and tries to welcome him, he tells her that the best thing about Richland is that people mind their own business.

Lucy is assigned to interview Zachary for the Odyssey Owl’s new-student column. She finds him upstairs at Whit’s End studying a broken model train. He notices that one coal car is historically wrong and reveals that trains used to be his hobby. When Lucy begins the interview, however, he assumes that she and everyone else care only about his wheelchair. He claims that a football accident in a pothole broke both legs and that he will soon use crutches, then refuses to discuss anything else.

Lucy learns that Zachary has told Connie a different story about falling over a curb. When she asks him why he lied, he challenges her in return: why does she use the two last names Cunningham-Schultz, and why will she not explain it? Lucy recognizes the unfairness of demanding his private history while guarding her own, but she still wants the truth. Zachary offers several ridiculous accounts before finally exploding. A drunk driver hit his family’s car on a rainy night, killing his father and leaving Zachary in the wheelchair.

Ashamed that she has pushed him, Lucy writes an article that omits the accident. She describes him as intelligent and talented without exposing his grief. Jack encourages her to show rather than merely say that she cares.

Meanwhile, someone repairs the model train that even Eugene has not been able to fix. Lucy realizes that Zachary did it in only a few minutes. She also sees that he earned a ninety-eight on a history test when no one else did. She visits his home and tells him that these skills reveal a life still filled with possibility. Zachary angrily answers that she cannot understand because she can stand on two healthy legs.

Lucy finally explains her own name. Her father, Hal Cunningham, died in a car accident when she was nine. After her mother remarried, Lucy kept Cunningham along with Schultz. She would give anything to have her father alive, even in a wheelchair. Her grief breaks through Zachary’s certainty that no one can understand him.

The two begin speaking honestly. Lucy remembers her father as an Odyssey Times reporter who let her pretend to meet deadlines on his typewriter. Zachary’s father managed an accounting office but dreamed of being a train conductor. Father and son used to visit the Richland depot and study the trains and schedules together.

Their conversation lasts three hours. The article Lucy has already written no longer feels like a picture of the real Zachary, but it has protected what he did not want shared. At Whit’s End, Jack offers Zachary freedom to adjust the model railway whenever he wishes. Lucy and Zachary have connected through talents, memories, and loss - not because one is a reporter and the other uses a wheelchair, but because both need a friend.