When Mrs. Mason first tells Carlie she can help Harvey, Carlie disagrees because the three children are “pinballs” thrust together by circumstance “and settled in the same groove” (29). For Carlie, the image of a pinball symbolizes her experience as a child in the foster system: She is not an autonomous person but an object who is moved around and acted upon without her consent.

Carlie tells Mrs. Mason that pinballs “hit this bumper, they go over there. They hit that light, they go over there” (31). This is how Carlie sees herself, Harvey, and Thomas J. They “hit” up against certain circumstances and as a result are moved against their will. They cannot “get settled” without someone putting another dime into the machine and moving them again (30). She tells Mrs. Mason that pinballs “are just things” (30). She believes the world sees her and the boys as objects rather than people.

By the end of the novel, Carlie changes her mind. She even tells Thomas J to never “let anybody call you a pinball” (136). She doesn’t want Thomas J to grow up with the same disempowered mindset she had.