Stay

Content Warning: This section contains discussions of emotional trauma and mental health conditions.

Piper is the protagonist of Stay and one of the point-of-view characters. She is a 12-year-old girl who moves to a new city with her parents, Meg and Gary Trudeau, and younger brother, Dylan, when the family loses their home after running into financial trouble. Piper and her family move into an emergency shelter and eat at the community kitchen, which is how she crosses paths with Jewel and Baby.

Piper is a sensitive and perceptive young girl. A large part of her distress and frustration in the earlier part of the book comes not only from her family’s relocation but also from the tension between her parents because of their situation. Even as her parents try to reassure the children that things are fine, Piper understands how dire their situation must be if they have to move into an emergency shelter. She also hears her parents arguing, which she sees as another sign of their present difficulties.

Piper is also a social child, which adds to her worries about her new situation. She misses the group of friends she has left behind and feels upset and lonely at the lack of community around her when the Trudeaus first move into the shelter.