In the story “Four Direction”, there are themes including appearance verses reality. Within the whole chapter, this theme has been carried out for several times from both Waverly and her mother, Lindo. For instance, when Waverly is memorizing her childhood in ten years old, after she shouted to her mother that she shouldn’t show off and telling everyone Waverly is her daughter, they avoid speaking to each other and Waverly even announced that she is not going to play chess anymore. She says, “And I made a show of it. Instead of practicing in my room every night, as I always did, I marched into the living room and sat down in front of the television set with my brothers…” (171). She try to pretend to refuse playing chess and practicing it anymore even though she actually does practices her chess skill in her own room as usual and planning to re-enter chess again after a few days. She also pretends to be not caring about the arriving tournament and refuse to attend it. However, Waverly actually does care a lot about the tournaments and hopes to involve in it again as “[She] was crying inside, because [she] learned that a boy whom [she] had easily defeated on two other occasions had won” (171).