Gary Searle

Gary Searle is a character in Todd Strasser's novel Give a Boy a Gun and was the secondary villain of the book as well.

Early Life
Gary has lived in Middletown with his mom all his life. His dad left them and never called or anything. His mom was a little overprotective of him; he didn't mind it so much, but it still annoyed him. In elementary school, he was being teased because of his weight. Growing up he basically kept to himself until 8th grade where he met his best friend, Brendan Lawlor.

Give a Boy a Gun
Gary and Brendan became best friends through shared interests. Unfortunately, they were bullied a lot during high school and no one, other than their small circle of friends, cared. Gary wanted to get back at the jocks for bullying him and the teachers for ignoring the problem. He looked up on the internet and learned how to build bombs. He, Brendan, Allison, (Gary's girlfriend) and Ryan (Gary and Brendan's best friend) went to the woods to test Gary's bomb. The bomb exploded tremendously and Gary took a lot of notes.

On the night Sam Flach beat up Brendan, Gary was planning on killing himself because he just couldn't take the daily bullying. He found out what Sam did and wanted to get back at the high school. Brendan decided the best time to attack would be the school dance since almost all the students, namely jocks, will be there. While Brendan was stealing guns from a neighbor, Gary was hard at work making bombs.

On the night of the dance, the boys armed themselves and booby-trapped the doors so that if anyone opened them, the bombs would explode. They forced everyone on the ground and tied up the jocks and the teachers. While they were doing that, they found Sam in the crowd. Angered by the constant bullying from him and wanted him to suffer for the rest of his life, he and Brendan shot Sam in both knees.

As the night went on, Allison called out to Gary. He was surprised and shocked to see her at the dance while Brendan looked amused. Gary told Brendan that they have to get her out of there immediately. Brendan started to yell at him saying they're planning to kill everyone no matter what and that he (Gary) better not back out of the plan. Minutes pass while Allison helps Sam with his legs. Unable to handle Brendan's yelling and cussing at him and the fact that he didn't want to kill Allison, (and maybe have a hint of regret of hurting everybody in the gym), he commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. Allison screams and sobs while Brendan looks on in silence.