One day Sally was there talking to Tito and his friends, and they took away her keys. 'The Monkey Garden' is a place where Esperanza and her children would play, games such as hide and go seek out in the woods where no one would find them. One day her dad sees her talking to a boy and beats her with a belt as though he forgot she was his daughter.

She decides to stay with Esperanza's family, but her father comes over crying, so Sally goes back home. 'What Sally Said' returns to the pretty young girl at school who shows up bruised all the time because her dad beats her. She quit school because she didn't have nice clothes, and she regrets it. She is disappointed that she has never gone to the ballet or done better things with her life. 'A Smart Cookie' is about Esperanza's mother who can speak two languages, sing opera, and fix televisions. She knows she can't use her sexuality to attract a man, so instead she tries to act like a man.

Even though Esperanza knows she is the ugly daughter, in 'Beautiful & Cruel' she thinks about how she will someday escape her parents' house. She would let homeless men sleep in her attic, and she would be happy. In 'Bums in the Attic' Esperanza wishes she could live in a house on a hill, so she could be closer to the stars. It's hard to say if it's worse when her husband is there and beats her or worse when he's away. Minerva struggles to feed her children and writes poems in her free time. 'Minerva Writes Poems' is about another neighbor who has two children, and her husband keeps leaving and coming back. People spread rumors about her, which are untrue, so she stands alone by the fence pretending she was invisible, dreaming about a life where she felt loved.

Then 'Sally' is about a neighbor girl who also feels trapped inside her house by her father who worries because she is too beautiful. She asks the children to buy her sweet drinks at the store as a treat, so she drops down a dollar, and they send up a bottle of juice on a paper bag pulley. Rafaela wishes she could dance in the bar where she hears the music wafting up to her window. The chapter 'Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays' describes a young neighbor whose husband locks her in their apartment when he goes out to play dominoes on Tuesday nights.

The house on mango street pages