Ella Minnow Pea

The chapter opens with a letter from the title character, Ella, to her cousin Tassie. Ella explains to Tassie, who has been away in the States, that while she was away, some events happened on their home island, Nollop. The island is named after Nevin Nollop, who came up with a concise pangram, or sentence containing all the letters of the alphabet: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The island’s inhabitants honored Nollop with a statue with a plaque that bears the famous sentence.

While Tassie was away, the statue began to crumble! Ella details the events in the letter, beginning with the “Z” falling off the statue. A girl from town brings the fallen letter to the island Council, and, despite Ella and others’ rational explanations (it fell because of age), the Council comes to another conclusion: “the fall of the tile bearing the letter ‘Z’ constitutes the terrestrial manifestation of an empyrean Nollopian desire, that desire most surely being that the letter ‘Z’ should be utterly excised—fully extirpated—absolutively heavenho’ed from our communal vocabulary” (6).

Ella welcomes the challenge of not using the letter “Z” and feels it will not be missed.