“Her smile in that moment is all the assurance that there is more good than bad in the world I need” (Solomon).
Juju’s character arc in this story is presented as a change from needing to be well-informed, to an acceptance of not knowing everything about the world. One can see this in the transition from using the Latin scientific names for the mushrooms and asking Enid about their smell and the trash underneath, to being able to just call it fungus. When she smells it, searching for some certainty of the past, as she did before by asking Enid questions about what she smelled, Juju does not smell any of the trash, only the mushroom. Instead of asking more about the hundred year old landfill on which the mushrooms are grown, and needing to know about how it can remind someone of the past, she is able to locate herself in the present, where the mushrooms are valued as food.
Despite this apparent change in Juju’s desire for certainty and answers, the way Solomon points out her need to “poke”, and, at the end, her need to see if she “can get a whiff of stink from the world before, the world of garbage” from the mushrooms, shows how much Juju has actually not changed in her skepticism, her uncertainty. This trait of hers can be seen most clearly in her expressed need to see where the ends of things are, and how life becomes easier when she does, as opposed to her wildness when she is left to think.
Solomon’s mention of Juju’s age, being 20, stresses her lack of certainty, even her lack of confidence in herself. In Juju’s culture, 20 is a full-fledged adult, but mentioning that age, and the evident youth of it, shows the mostly-adult readers of this short story how much more Juju can grow. She is still uncertain, unsure, and not confident enough of herself to be able to leave her enclave alone, needing the invitation and the assurance of another.
I am not arguing that what is clear to be her character arc does not exist, or does not have an impact on the character of Juju. Her change is evident, especially in her acceptance that her desire to have a connection and impact on the past is not possible and does not matter. Still, Juju goes with Enid because she knows that she has a long way to go. “I’m too much the sort who loves to pick a scab”.