To Kill a Mockingbird When you’re a kid, everything you encounter, makes you curious. Especially the stories you get told. It’s difficult to understand that someone is not always a story another person tells. Scout learns this lesson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout the novel, Scout transforms from a sassy, curious to a mature and understanding lady due to learning that people are not defined by the stories that are told about them. At the beginning of the novel, Scout seems to be a very sassy and curious kind of person. Throughout the chapters, she’s sassy to almost everyone. After Jem had made her spit out her gum she was chewing, Scout tells him “I’ve been chewing it all afternoon and I ain’t dead yet, not even sick” (26).