Roseville neighborhood
| Roseville neighborhood | |
|---|---|
 | |
| First appearance | Simple Pleasures, page 2 November 2, 2009 |
| Related characters | Mike, Lucy, Daisy, Paulo, David, Sue, Amaya, Abbey, Molly, Augustus, Jasmine |
Roseville neighborhood is the residential district of Roseville, the quiet suburban town where nearly all of the comic’s main cast lives. It is a place of detached houses, front lawns and long sidewalks, with a park and a stand of woods mixed in, and the cast’s walks to and from school run straight through it. Mike’s house sits only a few blocks from Lucy’s, which keeps the two of them crossing paths on the way to school whether either of them is in the mood for it.[1][2]
Streets and houses
The neighborhood is made of quiet two-lane roads with dashed centre lines, curbs, streetlamps and square concrete-slab sidewalks, plus a zebra crosswalk at one corner.[3][4] The houses are detached one- and two-storey homes with hipped roofs and dormer windows, small yards and fences between them, and a dense tree line rises behind the rooftops with hills on the horizon beyond.[5][6] A church steeple topped with a cross rises on the skyline, though the building itself is never visited.[5] Lucy’s house has a brick-faced entryway, flowering bushes, a big tree and a curbside mailbox on a post,[7][8] while Mike’s has front steps leading down to the grass.[2] Only two streets are ever named: Luther Road, home to houses 184 and 186,[9] and Chester Avenue.[10]
Most traffic consists of the school bus,[11] an ice cream truck,[12] and the odd passing car. Two cars have very nearly hit cast members.[13][14] In the later chapters the cast’s own first vehicles join in.[15][16] At nightfall the lit windows across the rooftops go dark one by one,[5] and the comic draws these streets in every season, from snowbound winters[9] to autumn leaves,[17] summer sun[6] and heavy rain.[18]
Nearly the whole cast lives on these streets. Lucy’s house holds Lucy, her brothers Jordan and Sam, their mother Carol and the family pets,[19] and Mike’s house, Paulo’s house, Daisy’s house and David’s house are all within walking distance of it.[2][20][21][6] Abbey and Molly’s foster home with Kevin and Janet is here as well,[22] Augustus later boards at Lucy’s,[23] and Sandy lived here as a child before her family moved away.[24] Not everyone is a native. Paulo moved to Roseville the year high school began,[25] and Abbey and Molly were driven into town by their foster parents, with Janet promising them “a very nice town” on the way.[26] Tess’s far grander house lies at the end of the Luther Road directions.[9]
Green space
The neighborhood has a fair amount of green space. There is a grassy hill open to the sky,[28] a park path with a large tree and a “DON’T WALK ON GRASS” sign,[29] and a small playground with a slide and a swing set.[2] A wooded stand of climbable trees, one of them an apple tree, grows beside the river,[30] and a clearing in those woods once hosted Lucy’s surprise birthday party.[31] In winter the park’s hill is crowned by a single large bare tree.[32]
History
The comic’s very first pages happen on these sidewalks. Simple Pleasures opens with Lucy leaving her house, Paulo wiping out on a skateboard, and Mike catching Lucy in time to invite her out for ice cream.[7] The park path is where Lucy kisses Mike for the first time in Confrontation, calling it “repayment” before running off.[29] In Enter High School, their identical morning routines collide on the sidewalk to mutual horror.[2] One snowy Christmas Eve in Feline Festivities, the pair follow printed directions down Luther Road to Tess’s party.[9] In Troubled Waters, a tree-climbing race in the woods ends with Mike swept down the river, and Lucy, who can’t swim, dives in after him.[30]
Tess kidnaps Mike and Lucy in her car trunk in Invitation, and the resulting argument spills out onto the roadside.[34] In Mischief Night, the whole gang goes trick-or-treating door to door and talks its way past a police officer enforcing the town curfew.[35] The fun stops abruptly when Mike collapses after eating candy corn laced with sleeping pills.[36]
The morning after Mike rejects Lucy’s confession in Just Beautiful, he walks through the snow to her yard, and Lily turns him away at the door.[37] In Breaking Up, after Lucy’s suicide attempt, Jordan attacks Mike on the sidewalk outside the house and blames him for what happened.[38] The chapter ends a few streets over, with Mike kneeling against a brick wall and sobbing “I’m sorry.”[39]
Lucy’s return to Roseville plays out largely on her walks home. In Unspoken Rule she catches Mike tailing her from behind a tree, tells him with a smile and a raised middle finger that she doesn’t like him anymore, and reaches her door to find Paulo waiting with a carnival invitation.[1][40] The long sidewalk reunion with Sue and Amaya in It’s All in the Mind goes worse, ending with Lucy screaming that she never wanted any of it.[41] Halloween in Witch Hunt puts everyone back on the streets in costume.[42] That chapter closes on Mike alone under a streetlight, taking Sandy’s call while trick-or-treaters wander past.[43]
Mike finds Lucy again in Eternal Flame, tracking her through heavy snow to the bare tree on the park hill, the one he used to sit under.[32] The shouting match that follows includes his “I MISS YOU!!”[44] and by the end of the night Mike has told Lucy about the cheating before the two reconcile and impulsively kiss.[45]
In Double Down, at dusk in falling snow, Paulo pushes too hard and Lucy screams the truth at him: “I disappeared for months because I tried to KILL MYSELF, you IDIOT!!”[46] The fight turns cruel on both sides before she walks off down the snowy sidewalk alone.[47] Later that same night, streets away, Paulo and Mike find each other and make peace.[48]
In Rain Check, Daisy cries alone in the pouring rain until Paulo, still on shift, catches her from behind and tells her, “It’s really not that hard falling in love with your best friend.”[18] The two of them leave the sidewalk as a couple.[49]
The book-exclusive story Good Egg puts one more Halloween on these streets. Abbey, Molly, Jasmine and her friends are out trick-or-treating when Mina eggs the front door of a house that happens to be Lucy’s. Carol opens it at exactly the wrong moment, and the whole group flees down the pavement.[50]
Trivia
- The authors’ commentary on the neighborhood’s first appearance sizes the place up in two lines: “Sure is a quiet neighbourhood. Oh those middle-class cats.”[7]
- Veronica has placed Roseville as “the equivalent of an area in Jersey”.[51]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 96: Unspoken Rule, page 23
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 21: Enter High School, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 8: Helping Hands, page 1
- ↑ Tread Carefully, page 1
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 120: Seeing Stars, page 22
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 33: Onwards to Adventure, page 1
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Chapter 1: Simple Pleasures, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 17: Unfulfilled Fantasy, page 1
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 4
- ↑ Chapter 104: Fair Game, page 25
- ↑ Chapter 10: Gone Fishing, page 5
- ↑ Ice Block, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 8: Helping Hands, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 64: Carry Me, page 6
- ↑ Chapter 112: Fuel Economy, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 128: Made Fresh, page 15
- ↑ Chapter 20: Hot Pursuit, page 2
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 29
- ↑ Chapter 70: Piece of Cake, page 4
- ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 27
- ↑ Chapter 38: Rising Temperature, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 95: Love Again, page 28
- ↑ Chapter 17: Unfulfilled Fantasy, page 8
- ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 11
- ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 17
- ↑ Lucy’s Birthday, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 9: Show and Tell, page 1
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 14: Confrontation, page 28
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 Chapter 30: Troubled Waters, page 3
- ↑ Lucy’s Birthday, page 1
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Chapter 110: Eternal Flame, page 36
- ↑ Chapter 8: Helping Hands, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 41: Invitation, page 6
- ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 10
- ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 16
- ↑ Chapter 71: Just Beautiful, page 27
- ↑ Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 13
- ↑ Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 28
- ↑ Chapter 96: Unspoken Rule, page 26
- ↑ Chapter 103: It’s All in the Mind, page 22
- ↑ Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 44
- ↑ Chapter 110: Eternal Flame, page 44
- ↑ Chapter 110: Eternal Flame, page 59
- ↑ Chapter 114: Double Down, page 47
- ↑ Chapter 114: Double Down, page 50
- ↑ Chapter 114: Double Down, page 58
- ↑ Chapter 122: Rain Check, page 37
- ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Seven, “Good Egg”, page 4
- ↑ “Ask response on Sam’s visit and Roseville’s real-world equivalent”. 2026-06-14.