Homer Yannos
At the beginning of the novel Homer Yannos is portrayed as a prankster and a bit wild. “Homer was wild, outrageous. He didn’t care what he did or what people thought of him.” He gets up to a lot of mischief and was known as 'the class clown' or the 'towns bad boy'. John Marsden uses descriptive language to portray Homer at the start of the novel.
As the book unravels Homer changes tremendously. When the groups is faced with the reality that a war is taking place, Homer steps up and forgets his old self. Ellie notices his transformation first because she has known homer for the longest and understands him the best. “Homer was becoming more surprising with every passing hour. It was getting hard to remember that this fast thinking guy, who’d just spent fifteen minutes getting us laughing and talking and feeling good again, wasn’t even trusted to hand out the books at school.” The author demonstrates that Homer has changed himself to adapt to the reality of war. His personality has really changed due to this factor and the circumstance that his surroundings have been altered.
Once Ellie has noticed his change she starts to think how everyone was judging Homer. “It was the same with Homer, the way for all those years he’d been hanging a big sign around his neck, and like a fool I’d kept reading it." The author has compared Homer to a sign, that everybody would just read and not look beneath the surface to find out what it really means. He is contrasting that people only thought of Homer as a 'rebel' or a 'bad influence' and not thinking that he would ever reveal his emotions or act with significant qualities.
Over the course of the novel Homer takes up a leadership role. “Maybe it happened because we were starting to recognise Homer’s Leadership. He didn’t seem to notice, just began talking naturally, as though he had it all worked out.” John Marsden shows that the group has realised his transformation and they are starting to rely on him. The group has noticed his change through his vital decision making, his intelligent and courageous qualities and the way he reveals his emotions towards the other members in the group.
