The Stalker / Penpal

The Stalker / Penpal

Quick Facts

• Role: Central antagonist; a largely unseen force whose actions drive the plot
• First appearance: “Balloons,” via the kindergarten balloon project that begins the fixation
• Also known as: the Penpal
• Key relationships: the Narrator, Josh, Veronica, the Narrator’s mother
• Recurring motifs: photographs, footsteps, boxes, maps, screens; a burned, claw-like hand

Who They Are

The Stalker (the Penpal) is the story’s phantom menace—a nameless adult whose chance encounter with the Narrator’s balloon project mutates into a decade of secret watching, manipulation, and escalating violence. He exists on the edges of memory and light, surfacing in fragments: a hulking silhouette in a doorway, a whisper in the woods, a burned hand under a porch lamp. Through him, the book turns a child’s world inside out, tracing how “harmless” attention curdles into predation and how a single, accidental encounter can seed a life-consuming obsession. His presence binds the novel’s exploration of Stalking and Obsession and the Loss of Innocence: a love letter written in photographs, lies, and bodies.

Personality & Traits

The Stalker’s character is built entirely through behavior, and every choice reveals a meticulous, delusional mind that confuses possession for intimacy. He does not argue for his humanity; he assembles it—out of stolen moments, forged letters, dead animals, and a home beneath another child’s house.

• Obsessive: Years of surveillance produce boxes of photos in which the Narrator is the subject, even when the image seems innocuous. In “Friends,” he dyes Josh’s hair to match the Narrator’s and pins the Narrator’s photo to Josh’s shirt, a ritualized attempt to fix his fantasy in place.
• Patient and methodical: He stalks from kindergarten through adolescence, sending dozens of Polaroids to the school in “Balloons,” crafting a convincing “runaway” letter, and constructing a livable space under the house in “Boxes”—all without being seen for years.
• Manipulative: His deceptions target systems of trust—teachers, police, friends. He forges the runaway note in the Narrator’s handwriting and later impersonates Veronica by texting from her phone, turning grief into a grotesque imitation of romance.
• Violent and ruthless: His psychological terror culminates in physical harm. He abducts the Narrator in “Footsteps,” kills Veronica in a hit-and-run in “Screens,” and is responsible for Josh’s kidnapping and death. The pile of animal corpses under the house foreshadows escalating cruelty.
• Delusional, perverting love: He reinterprets stalking as devotion. The serene, blissful smile on his face in death reads as self-satisfaction, as if his final tableau—buried with Josh remade as the Narrator—completed a “relationship” he believed was real.
• Presence and appearance: Sightings are partial and nightmarish. In “Footsteps,” he’s “enormous,” stepping from the family home. Under the porch light, his hand appears as a “cruel and cracked claw,” badly burned. In death, he looks “large,” with an unsettlingly peaceful expression.

Character Journey

The Stalker does not change; our understanding of him does. He first appears as an abstract correspondent in “Balloons,” flooding a school with innocuous-seeming photos that secretly center the Narrator. The threat turns tactile in “Footsteps,” when he invades the home, abducts the boy, and forges a letter to redirect suspicion. “Boxes” peels back the floorboards to reveal his lair and the scope of his long-term planning. “Maps” shifts the terror outdoors, his whispered “hello” collapsing play into pursuit. His escalation to murder in “Screens” reframes prior intrusions as rehearsal for irreversible harm. Finally, “Friends” solves the puzzle with a corpse: his body curled around Josh’s in a hand-built coffin, the image of a fantasy consummated. The arc moves from invisible to undeniable, from creepy to catastrophic, until the only development left is the reader’s recognition that this was never infatuation—it was conquest.

Key Relationships

• The Narrator: The fixation and the project. The Stalker’s “courtship” is archival—photographs, recordings, curated proximity. He isolates the boy by eliminating rivals and caretakers’ trust, culminating in abduction attempts and a posthumous tableau that tries to freeze the Narrator into an object he can finally keep.

• Josh: A rival turned surrogate. When friendship with Josh complicates access, the Stalker replaces the person with a proxy: he kidnaps and kills Josh, dyes his hair to mimic the Narrator, and buries himself with the body. The substitution exposes his logic—if he can’t possess the original, he will make one.

• Veronica: An obstacle to be erased and impersonated. He kills her with a car—clean, deniable violence—and then animates her phone to simulate intimacy with the Narrator. By forging a relationship through “her” texts, he weaponizes grief and confuses the boy’s sense of what love looks like.

• The Narrator’s mother: The gatekeeper he must circumvent. Her vigilance drives him underground—literally—into the crawlspace, where he waits, watches, and amasses trophies. Her presence turns him into a shadow; her brief absence invites his boldest intrusions.

Defining Moments

The Stalker’s story is a series of encroachments, each one testing a boundary and then erasing it.

• The Balloon Project (“Balloons”): He finds the balloon, then floods the school with Polaroids that secretly center the child. Why it matters: It seeds a ritual—sending “letters” no one understands—that teaches him he can be intimate in public without being seen.
• The Kidnapping (“Footsteps”): He removes the Narrator from bed, abandons him in the woods, and leaves a forged runaway note. Why it matters: This is the first full transgression of the home, proving he can inhabit the family’s trust and rewrite its story.
• The Whispered “hello” (“Maps”): From the dark treeline during the raft adventure, a single word reveals his proximity. Why it matters: It collapses safety into spectacle—games, maps, and exploration convert into a chase the boys didn’t know they were running.
• The Lair (“Boxes”): Under the house, the Narrator discovers a lived-in space and a midden of animal carcasses. Why it matters: The hidden home exposes duration and rehearsal; the dead animals foreshadow human harm and ritual preparation.
• Veronica’s Murder (“Screens”): The Stalker runs her down, then puppets her phone to “date” the Narrator by text. Why it matters: He shifts from interference to annihilation, and from stalking to postmortem role-play, crystallizing his need to author reality.
• The Coffin (“Friends”): Authorities uncover his body entwined with Josh’s, hair dyed, photo pinned, smile serene. Why it matters: The final image is his thesis—love as possession, possession as death, death as permanent closeness.

Symbols & Motifs

• The unseen threat: An almost faceless presence literalizes childhood fears—the monster under the bed is real, and he knows your name.
• Corrupted innocence: A school project becomes a pipeline for predation, turning creativity and curiosity into avenues of harm.
• Perverted love: Letters become photographs; a home becomes a crawlspace; a relationship becomes a tableau of corpses. Every gesture mimics affection while enforcing control.

Essential Quotes

It was a cruel and cracked claw, badly burned, with the consistency of a plastic bag that had melted and cooled.

This glimpse of his hand converts rumor into body. The description’s tactile grotesquerie—melted plastic, cooled and warped—makes him feel manufactured, not merely injured, aligning his touch with artificiality and contamination rather than care.

The note said that I was unhappy and that I never wanted to see her or any of my friends again. It was a “running away” letter. While the policeman exchanged a few words with my mom, I stared at the letter. I didn’t remember writing any letter... This isn’t how you spell my name … I didn’t write this letter.

The forged letter reveals his preferred weapon: authority’s assumptions. By misusing the Narrator’s handwriting, he inserts his story into official channels, turning the boy’s voice against him and demonstrating how easily institutions can be steered by a plausible lie.

hello

One word, all lowercase, all proximity. The whisper from the dark in “Maps” reduces language to presence itself: he is near enough to speak but chooses intimacy over information, a greeting that doubles as a claim—he has crossed from watcher to participant.

This wasn't the expected smile of a maniac from a film or horror story; it wasn’t the smile of a demon, or the smile of a fiend. This was the smile of contentment or satisfaction. It was a smile of bliss. It was a smile of love.

The final smile reframes everything. His peace in death confirms that the violence was not a failure of impulse but the fulfillment of desire; he believes he has achieved love. The horror lands not in rage but in serenity—obsession completed, forever.