How does the author use context clues in the novel, You Go First?

The novel also leaves a lot of things open to interpretation by the reader. The biggest example of this is the firecracker incident in Ben’s story. The author does not show what happened directly. Instead, she shows the fallout of the incident through Ben’s point-of-view. This leaves the reader to guess exactly what happened through context clues. One example lies in Ben’s feelings on what happened as he thinks “... he didn’t want pity now. He wanted to crawl into the soft comfort of his bed, throw the covers over his head, and disappear” (245). There is also the description that “his pants and jacket were shoved in the plastic chair in the attendance office, where he slumped in the oversized gym shorts Mrs. Carlile pulled from some god-awful lost-items drawer” (244). This implies that something bad happened to his clothes, something that can also be inferred when the principal says, “One of the teachers noticed something was wrong with Ben… she got him out of there. I don’t think anyone noticed anything out of place” (252-253). Ben immediately thinks, “People noticed… all it would have taken was one person to see” (253). Again, the author never directly states what happened to Ben beyond the firecrackers going off. Instead, she provides all the information the reader needs to infer exactly what happened.