Maxwell is devastated when Freak dies.
When Maxwell sneaks back to the hospital the morning after he talks to Freak for the last time, he does not know that his little friend has died. When he finally realizes the truth, he "just go(es) nuts". Without really knowing what he is doing, he shoves away the nurses who are trying to restrain him and goes running down the hall, "ready to just blast anybody who dares touch (him)". Maxwell races to the Medical Research building and, finding that the doors are locked, punches through the glass with his fist. His headlong rush is halted at a second set of locked doors that does not have any glass, and as he is trying incoherently to break through them anyway, Maxwell is arrested by the hospital police. After talking for a short time with Freak's physician Dr. Spivak, Maxwell is released into the custody of his grandparents (Chapter 24).
Overcome with grief, Maxwell hides in his room "for days and days", missing Freak's funeral and the departure of his friend's distraught mother, the Fair Gwen. When he finally comes out, Maxwell feels "like (he is) a balloon and somebody (has) let the air out of (him)". His grandparents try to console him, but in the end, they allow him to grieve and, in his words, feel sorry for himself. When school begins, Maxwell dutifully attends, but "hate(s) every minute of it". It is a brief, chance meeting with Loretts Lee which finally gets Maxwell to think, and pulls him out of his funk.
Maxwell decides to write the story of Freak's life and the time they shared, because just before he died, Freak had asked him to do so. It takes him "months and months", but when he is finally done, it is fittingly spring again, and Maxwell finds he "is feeling okay about remembering" (Chapter 25).
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