Character Analysis
She Could Be An 80s TV Star
Kate Wetherall is aptly named. She's hale and hearty (those are old-people words for burly and vigorous, which are old-people words for strapping and vital, which are—let's just say old people have excellent vocabularies and get on with it). The thing is: Kate's fit.
At twelve she can climb ropes, jump silently and gracefully in and out of ceiling panels, scale elevator shafts, traverse rooms on her hands, and perform circus tricks, including being shot out of a cannon. She is "unusually tall and broad-shouldered," and, with the aid of her bucket, is essentially a pre-teen, female version of Angus MacGyver. What? You've never seen MacGyver?
Study break time. Take a minute to watch the opening credits from this late-1980s TV megahit and tell us he doesn't remind you of a certain twelve year old girl in action. And keep in mind that he always carried a messenger bag full of useful things.
Okay, study break's over. Back to Kate.
Weather This
She's super-agile, lightning-fast, and mad-resourceful—and Kate, unlike the boys, doesn't have a confidence problem. She may have grown up without parents, but the eight years she spent living, traveling, and performing with the circus clearly gave her enough self-esteem and can-do attitude to last a lifetime. Still, Kate does encounter a personal demon while working with the MBS crew.
The thing about Kate is that she's always been able to handle anything life has thrown at her on her own. As her last name suggests, she weathers it all with aplomb (another good old person word that we should probably try to make a young person word since it basically means coolness, and cool's way overused). But Kate's ability to do it all herself comes into question when, for once, she can't. And it's tough for her to realize.
When she attempts to infiltrate the Whisperer's computer room only to find that it's impenetrable, she finds it "hard to resist a sigh. She'd had grand visions of sabotaging the Whisperer, destroying its computers all by herself" and proving "once and for all that she could do everything alone—that she needed no one's help" (31.16). But she isn't able to do it all by herself, and she's understandably disappointed.
You Can't Keep a Good Wetherall Down
Later in the cafeteria, when the whole MBS team is dealing with self-doubt and a sense of impending doom, we find that "Kate was still wishing she'd been able to sabotage those computers, to have solved the dilemma all on her own. (And having failed to do that, she was trying to pretend to herself that she hadn't)" (32.77). So yeah—she's troubled.
But nothing keeps the Great Kate Weather Machine down for long. And thanks to this setback, and her realization that she can't go solo on this one, Kate has the sense to not once, but twice, use her great strength and persistence to keep Constance in the fold.
All For One, And One For All
When Kate is first awakened by the car horn using Morse code to tell her and Constance to get to the flag tower stat, she's tempted to leave the sleeping Constance behind. But then she remembers, "the plan had called for all four of them. That was what Mr. Benedict said mattered most, and it was what they'd agreed upon only yesterday" (35.13). And so Kate, understanding now better than ever the importance of teamwork, wakes her stubborn roommate and carries her.
Then, a second time, when Kate is perched atop the flagpole and realizes that she won't have time to pull Constance out of harm's way, she makes another choice that prioritizes team participation over individual ability. She thinks to herself, "It has to be all four of us" (35.74), just before she jumps backward lifting Constance to the top of the tower while she, Kate, goes down to confront the angry Executives. As she's jumping, she thinks, "I hope the little grouch is worth it" (35.76), and thankfully, Constance proves in the end that she is.
A Team Player In the End
If Kate had continued to believe that she was the team's best chance, that she could do it all on her own, the MBSers most likely would have failed in the end. But Kate Wetherall, whose overall demeanor remains chipper, optimistic, determined, confident, and cheerful throughout the book, has changed in one important way by the end. She's gone from needing to take care of everything by herself to being a valuable team player. She even agrees to let Reynie throw a few snowballs during their snowball fight, despite the fact that her aim is far superior. Now that's a team player.