Anne+D.

= "That Was Then, This Is Now" = = By: S.E. Hinton =

1. Who are Bryon and Mark?
Bryon plays a sixteen year old boy who is going through a very serious change in his life. He has brown curly hair, brown eyes, and describes himself as a Saint Bernard puppy because good looks. Bryon is very well built for his age and is bigger than Mark. He also describes himself as a ladies' man because of his smooth talking attitude. Mark also plays a sixteen year old boy, but is nothing like Bryon. He has blonde hair, golden eyes, and no one can say no to him. Mark has an ability to get away with anything like stealing money, cars, and getting out of other trouble.Even thought he does not have a stronger build than Bryon, they are both evenly matched in a fight.

2. Who are the two young people Bryon meets in the hospital?
The two young people that Bryon meets at the hospital are Cathy Carlson and Mike Chambers. Cathy is Bryons age with beautiful long black hair and grey eyes. She is a very free loving person but at the same time critiquing everyone for any bad thing they do. Mike is a boy who has been beaten up and sent to the hospital for serious injuries and has a very interesting story to tell about why he is there.

3. What kind of relationship does bryon have with Charlie?
The kind of relationship Bryon shares with Charlie is a very strong and loving relationship as friends. Although they do have this great relationship, Bryon would never mess with Charlie because of his deadly street reputation.

4. What happens at the dance?
What happens at the dance is Charlie ironically lends Bryon his car for the dance with his date Cathy. While at the dance, Angela, Bryon's cheating ex-girlfriend, hires a thug to beat up Curtis. Mark bravely interferes to try to stop the fight, but the crazed thug bashes Mark over the head with a glass bottle. But just as the thug is ready to make his move on Curtis, the police finally break up the fight. Mark gets stitches in his head from the fight and feels dreary the rest of the week.

5. What does Bryon begin to discover in his private conversations with Mark?
What Bryon begins to discover in his private conversations with Mark is that him and Mark are growing apart. Bryon feels that when he looks at Mark he feels like he is looking at him from the Gulf of Mexico through a telescope. While Bryon is changing and maturing about the real importances in his life, Mark is still up to his devilish schemes.

6. What happened to Charlie? How do Bryon and Mark feel about it?
Bryon and Mark play one of their usual fixed pool game with a group of Texans. Charlie tries to warn them, but Bryon and Mark don't care. The game turns bad after the Texans realize they have been cheated twenty-five dollars and want revenge. While Bryon and Mark are crossing an alley with their money, they get pulled into the alley way by the Texans at gun point. Charlie comes to save them, but things go down hill as Charlie gets shot by the Texans and Mark picks up the gun and fires at the Texans while Mark is sitting their watching it all go down. They do not realize Charlie is dead until the firing is done. Bryon feels like it was him and Marks fault and that they should have listened to Charlie or else he would not have been dead. Mark feels sad for Charlie, but he is once again caught up in himself and thinks that life is still the same and that nothing has changed.

7. What do Mark and Cathy think of each other?
Mark and Cathy share a very bad and envious relationship. Mark doesn't like all the time she spends with Bryon because he feels that they are growing a closer relationship than his friendship with Bryon. Mark also doesn't like how Cathy is critiquing everyone for anything they do that she doesn't like. Cathy doesn't like Mark, but does not envy him like Mark does with Cathy. Cathy feels that Mark is a bad influence on not only Bryon, but others like M&M too. Also, they each want to spend more time with Bryon than the other does.

8. What does Mark do to Angel? Why?
Mark gets Cathy so drunk that she passes out cold in Bryon and Mark's car. While she is passed out, Mark cuts off all of her hair to get back at her from hiring that thug that bashed Mark over the head with a glass bottle. To make his revenge even more terrible, he drops Angel off on her lawn still drunk and unconsious.

9. In chapter seven, what does Bryon begin to discover about his good friend Mark?
What Bryon begins to discover about his good friend Mark is that Mark feels that nothing bad has ever happened to him and that nothing has left a permanent mark or scar on him from his past. He also discovers that the only reason that people seem to like Mark so much is that Mark is a very dangerous person.

10. What happens to Bryon at Terry Jones' house? How does his attitude change?
What happens to Bryon at Terrry Jones' house is he get pumled by the Curtis brothers for what they had done to Angela. His attittude changed by thinking that life isn't just about getting back at someone with a circle of fights and vengeance.

In chapter 9, what happens to M&M is he takes a dangerous and fatal drug and it effects him tremendously mentally. This moves Bryon because he always though M&M was a good kid and so trusting and honest. Also, he never felt so bad for someone else because he though of M&M as his brother.
 * 11. **** In chapter 9, what happens to M&M? Why does this move Bryon? **

What Bryon discovers about Mark in chapter 10 is Mark is selling a very dangerous and fatal drug. This is potentially the drug that M&M took that made him turn crazy. After this shocking discovery, Bryon, out of pure anger, turns Mark into the police.
 * 12. ** **What shocking discovery does Bryon make in Mark's bedroom (Ch. 10)? What does he do?**

Bryon's relationship changes towards his friends and with his attitude because of what happened after he realized he had turned his best friend into the police. Because of this, he feels completely numb and emotionless and doesn't care about others anymore. He goes through the days thinking "what if" to see if he could change anything in his past. He now feels like his life is just a mixture of things based on a mixture of people.
 * 13. How does Bryon's relationship with his friends and his attitude towards life completely change? **

How Bryon feels at the end of the book is that he had all the answers as a kid and wishes to be one again when everything was easy for him.
 * 14. How does Bryon feel at the end of the book? **

What I think about this book is that it is a very true and honest book that teaches you about how everyone changes in life and how sometimes it isn't always a good change. It also teaches how different it was to grow up as a kid not so far back in time. I like how the book doesn't hold anything back about how difficult it was to grow up on the rough side of town with struggles of poverty, gang fights, and adapting to the world. The life message it teaches is how growing up isn't always a good thing.
 * 15. What do you think about this book and what life message does it teach? **