In Chap­ter XXXI, the nar­ra­tor search­es fran­ti­cal­ly for a sil­ver hap­py birth­day pen amidst chaos, only to find it’s miss­ing. Will Junior is in the back bed­room, argu­ing with Car­lene, who yells at him for mess­ing with her blan­kets. The nar­ra­tor observes two police offi­cers approach the trail­er through the rain, prompt­ing imme­di­ate fear and urgency. They lock the front door and bar­ri­cade it with a chair, hop­ing for an escape route.

Rush­ing through the trail­er, the nar­ra­tor encoun­ters Fish, who is strug­gling emo­tion­al­ly in the bath­room, and Bob­bi, who is rum­mag­ing through the wash­er and dry­er. Fish even­tu­al­ly joins the nar­ra­tor and Bob­bi in Carlene’s bed­room. As ten­sions rise, Car­lene becomes unman­age­able, scream­ing for help. To quell her shouts, Bob­bi uses Bub­ble Tape gum to silence Car­lene, who retal­i­ates with flail­ing limbs and kicks. The nar­ra­tor quick­ly draws a face on Carlene’s foot with the pen once it is retrieved from Will, seek­ing answers about their miss­ing broth­er, Sam­son.

Car­lene’s defi­ance con­tin­ues as she attempts to shout for help. Nev­er­the­less, the nar­ra­tor per­sists, ques­tion­ing Car­lene about Samson’s where­abouts. A new­found voice, pre­sum­ably belong­ing to Sam­son, echoes through the nar­ra­tor’s mind, say­ing he is “in the wall.” As the urgency peaks with police bang­ing on the door, the nar­ra­tor dis­cov­ers uneven pan­els in the wall and man­ages to slide one open after some effort.

Inside, they find Sam­son nes­tled among clut­ter, bliss­ful­ly draw­ing on him­self with a pen. His doo­dles fill the narrator’s thoughts with noise and col­ors, a chaot­ic but joy­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion of his inner world. They embrace, relieved to have found him, but their moment is short-lived as Car­lene emerges threat­en­ing­ly with a broom.

The chap­ter cap­tures the urgent, chaot­ic atmos­phere as the fam­i­ly nav­i­gates the threat of the police and the unpre­dictable nature of Car­lene, all while try­ing to unite and pro­tect Sam­son.