Paper Towns

About me:

My name is Quentin Jacobsen and I am finally a senior at Winter Park High School. My best friends are Ben and Radar and even though we may not be as popular as my neighbor Margo Roth Spiegelman, that I have always had a crush on, we are still content with our placement in society. I usually keep to myself about things and just go along with whatever Ben and Radar want to do. Margo has always been someone special to me even though I might not mean a lot to her. 

Paper Towns

Even though it has been years since the once popular and beautiful Margo Roth Spiegelman left  just weeks before graduation to go to the small skittish town of Agloe, New York, I still wonder about her. There was so much I wish I could have said to Margo and thinking back on it I probably should have said way more than what I did say. I knew though that once she set her mind on staying that it would be awfully hard to change it. Starting from the beginning though… Margo and I have been neighbors since we were little kids and I’ve always had a little crush on her and have cared for her, but for her I was just a neighbor. Or at least that’s what I thought for the longest time… Anyways, one night Margo just came into my room from the window and that’s when everything changed. Margo had found out about some things to do with her popular and rich boyfriend Jase. So with the help of me and my mom’s minivan we spent the night putting fish in the people’s car that Margo reaped revenge on. Accompanied with the fish was a blue M that was spray painted on their car’s of home’s.  There was so much excitement and thrill that I honestly did not want that night to ever end. By far the scariest part of the night was when Margo had the idea of breaking into Sea World… it started off bad when she got bit by a garden snake crossing over the “moat” they had. Then when the security guard came my heart nearly dropped, but somehow Margo sweet-talked the guard into letting us stay.

 

I take that back the best part was when “Stars Fell on Alabama” came on some radio by us in Sea World and we danced, for some reason I just felt so soothed and peaceful dancing with Margo. It’s like I forgot about everything going on all the problems and what not were gone. After that though that is when everything truly changed… the next morning Margo wasn’t at school, but I didn’t think that much about it. Then a detective came and told me that Margo was missing. Well that wasn’t what I was expecting to hear or what I wanted to hear. After spending literally a whole night with her I guess you would say that I was falling for her. Then she just got up and left them and everybody and everything. She has done these little run away things though before and has left little clues, but they were never specific. So hearing that I went to look for those little clues… long story short I found the clues and figured out where she was, or where I assumed she was. 

The day of graduation Radar, Ben, Lacey (Ben’s new girlfriend and Margo’s best friend), and I went on a road trip from Orlando to New York in hopes to find Margo. Our parents weren’t too happy with us missing our high school graduation, but they got over that soon. Anyways, radar being the smartest out of us calculated exactly how long it would take us to get there and how many stops we could take and how long those stops could be. Nevertheless it was a stressful drive, but we made it to Algoe, New York 30 minutes earlier than expected. It was all worth it though all the emotions, stress, and heartache. When I saw her car parked outside that abandoned building I knew everything was okay. Even though she didn’t come back with us, I know that I couldn’t change her mind. Leaving her after finding out that I was always her “hero” in her stories made it almost impossible to leave her. I knew that it was for the best though. We still write to each other, but I haven’t seen her since that evening in Algoe, New York… I still think about Margo and what she is doing even today.