58 pages • 1 hour read
Kheryn CallenderHurricane Child
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Caroline recalls the story of her birth, which was her mother’s favorite story to tell: Her mother wasn’t expecting Caroline to come a month early, and her father was down the road helping some older women stormproof their house before the hurricane. Her mother filled the bathtub and stayed there while the storm descended on Water Island. It wasn’t just a hurricane—it was a waterspout. Caroline’s father was stuck hiding with an old woman until the twister died down, and he ran through the storm back home to find Caroline in the tub with her mom.
Her mother never explained what “Hurricane Child” means, but Caroline has heard it’s a curse to be born during a hurricane as she was; there are some older women who live down the road, and a spirit—a ghost of these women’s dead friend—whispers about this supposed curse. This curse doesn’t scare Caroline since she only cares about finding her mother again. Caroline thinks about the times she and her mother would sing as loudly as they could, but how, when she was alone, her mother sang quieter songs. Caroline believes she’ll never again be loved the way her mother loved her.
Deciding her mother must be in the last place from which she sent a postcard, Caroline looks through an empty bedroom in the house where there are storage bins and unused cards her mother purchased. She can’t find the postcards, and her father walks in wondering what she’s doing. She tells him she’s looking for the postcards but lies and says she needs them for a school geography project. He tells her he threw them out a while ago, but he can still help her with the project as he’s been to many countries, which she didn’t know about him.
At school, everyone is excited, and Caroline immediately knows something is going on. She is relieved that for once, the attention is not on her. Everyone whispers about a new girl arriving, saying she looks “wild” and is from Barbados. Missus Wilhelmina enters the room and introduces Kalinda Francis. Kalinda is confident with thick locks on her head. She reminds Caroline of the African queens in the paintings her mom hung in the living room. Missus Wilhelmina tells Kalinda to sit in the front beside Marie Antoinette. Anise audibly whispers about how she heard Rastas don’t wash their hair, and she says a man from Tutu had deadly spiders living in his hair. Miss Wilhelmina ignores Anise, and everyone waits to see how Kalinda will react. Kalinda looks at Anise and tells her she knows who she’s talking about and that the man is her uncle. Everyone gasps, and Kalinda smiles and faces the front again. Realizing Kalinda is joking, the class erupts into laughter. Missus Wilhelmina stomps and hushes them.
Caroline decides Kalinda would be the best friend to have because she stood up to Anise. If she can befriend Kalinda, then maybe she’ll be able to befriend the entire class. Anise writes a note to Kalinda inviting her to sit at her lunch table, and Kalinda smiles and agrees. Caroline sees the spirit of a white woman in a nightgown watching Kalinda in the courtyard. Everyone is surrounding Kalinda, listening to her. Caroline wants to join them but fears what Anise might do. She gets the courage to see what’s happening and enters the circle. Kalinda has her long locks down covering her back; everyone is in awe.
Anise notices Caroline and says something has begun to stink, and Caroline isn’t sure if it’s true (Missus Wilhelmina previously said she needed to wear more deodorant). Kalinda looks at Caroline as everyone theatrically pinches their noses. Caroline walks away pretending she doesn’t care.
Later, visitors arrive on Water Island and stay in a house on the other side of the brown hill where fireworks scorched the ground from Carnival almost seven years back. Caroline was five years old when that happened, and she remembers her mother wanted her inside, but her father held her hand and they watched the fireworks together. Helicopters put the fire out from above, but a house on top of the hill burned down, and the owner died. Caroline believes she stopped being a child that day; according to her mother, “Children are children because they know nothing about death” (45).
Caroline describes Water Island and how everyone forgets it exists because it was never sainted like the other islands. Slaves escaped Saint Thomas Island by going to Water Island because nobody on boats looks in that direction. This idea of invisibility on the island was seen as magical by the slaves according to Caroline.
The recent visitors now stay in the house, which has been available for rent since before Caroline was born because “Water Island is always forgotten” (45). Caroline sees a woman and her daughter—a girl much younger than she is—on the ferry docks. The girl’s nose resembles Caroline’s father’s. Caroline walks near the rental, and the little girl watches her. She tells Caroline that her name is Bernadette and that they have the same father, which is why she’s on Water Island. Caroline runs home and asks her father who the girl is, but he sighs. She asks him if he knows where her mother is. He looks at her incredulously, and she asks again, and then a third time, using a word she knows she’s not allowed to use. He slaps her cheek, and she decides she wants nothing more to do with him.
Chapter 4 Summary
Caroline takes a vow of silence for several days, only nodding politely to Mister Lochana but ignoring her father and remaining silent in class. She believes she can feel an extra sense developing whereby she knows others’ feelings without them having to speak. She likes her silence and thinks about how she could run away to become a monk and never talk again.
Miss Joe asks her to come to her office, and Caroline knows she’ll have to speak again. Caroline is offended when Miss Joe calls her a lonely little girl. Miss Joe says she knows Caroline’s mother, Doreen Murphy, though she knows her as Doreen Hendricks, and asks Caroline if she wants to know more. Caroline agrees. Miss Joe calls Caroline’s father to tell him that Caroline will be having dinner at her house. She drives Caroline in her red pickup truck with fruit in the back. She sings along with the radio, and Caroline knows intuitively that Miss Joe does this so that Caroline won’t feel pressured to talk. Miss Joe hands her a sliver of sugarcane.
Miss Joe points to a woman she says is 90 years old. The woman is standing in the shade at the market, and Caroline wonders if she’s the woman in black for a moment because her skin is so dark. It isn’t her. Miss Joe parks her truck, and a girl smaller than Caroline runs towards them before bursting into moths that fly into Caroline’s hair and makes her jump. Miss Joe doesn’t notice. They walk down a side street to Miss Joe’s place: a one-story house made of rotting wood, despite most of the homes on the islands being made of concrete because of the storms.
Caroline thinks over all that she knows about Miss Joe: She’s unmarried with no children, fiercely independent. “She doesn’t have a man to call” or “a husband asking for this or that” (55), so she fixes her truck herself and cooks for herself only. Caroline decides she wants to be just like Miss Joe and stands up straighter. Her living room is filled with piles of books and Miss Joe gives Caroline a plate of beef stew and plantain to eat in there. Miss Joe asks Caroline questions to get to know her and then hands her books written by Black women writers who she says saved her life. Caroline isn’t sure what that means, but she believes Miss Joe when she says it.
Miss Joe asks Caroline what she wants to know about her mother. She wants to ask where she is, why she left, and if she still loves her—but instead asks how Miss Joe and Doreen know each other. Laughing with joy, Miss Joe says they were the closest friends and even said they would marry each other. Since then, Caroline’s mom met Caroline’s dad, and time got in between them. However, they would still speak on the phone on each other’s birthdays and on Christmas every year for hours, and it’d be like nothing had changed.
Miss Joe notices Caroline is angry and immediately tells her it was never her father’s fault and that sometimes friendships just don’t last. She tells her that her mother wouldn’t have left without a reason and that she has to learn to live without her. Caroline decides her dad must have teamed up with Miss Joe to sit her down and lie to her and that maybe he figured out her plan to steal his boat.
Miss Joe keeps talking, but Caroline is done speaking to her. Realizing this, Miss Joe gives her 10 dollars for the ferry and drives her to the waterfront. Her dad is in the living room waiting for her. Caroline decides she will pretend she has moved on until her father lets his guard down again. She goes into his bedroom after he goes to work in the morning, and she hasn’t been in there for over a year. It’s the same as she remembers it, with her mother’s belongings; jewelry, perfume, dresses, all scattered around the room. Caroline is concerned that her mother is dead since she didn’t take these things with her, and then she speculates that her dad and Miss Joe were the ones sending the postcards.
Caroline searches for clues in the bedroom, tearing apart the closet until she hears heavy footsteps. Caroline’s father forgot to leave her money for the ferry. He asks her twice what she’s doing, the first time calmly, the second time using a curse word. This is the first time he’s ever cursed at her. She tells him she was looking for money to take Mister Lochana’s speedboat. She isn’t sure whether he believes her, but he says he has the money and to come out of the room. She follows him from the bedroom, and he closes the door.
Chapters 3-4 Analysis
Caroline’s birth during a hurricane in a bathtub alone with her mother is a remarkable story. That it is her mother’s favorite story to tell shows how much she loves Caroline. The storm introduces the idea that being born during a hurricane is a curse, and it establishes the theme that ghosts can affect the living. The idea of the hurricane curse originates in a ghost who whispers to the old women who live down the road from Caroline. Despite a ghost saying she is cursed, Caroline isn’t scared, and her mother’s love for how she came into the world further motivates her to find out what happened to her.
The postcards become a motif: Caroline searches for them, and her father tells her he threw them out a long time ago. Here, the postcards symbolize her mother’s presence in her and her father’s lives. They also provide Caroline with background information about her father that she didn’t know (that he used to travel). She then realizes that even though she has known him her entire life, he had a life before her. This is a moment of growth for Caroline, as she begins to imagine what life is like for others while comprehending that every person has their own perspective.
This shift in perspective carries into the next day when Kalinda arrives. For Caroline, it is like a dream to be seen by someone who doesn’t know who she has been, who she is or will be, and “it’s a chance to really become” herself (40). Kalinda provides a blank slate for Caroline, an escape from the continual worrying about her mother. Up until this point, Caroline has become obsessed with finding her mother—but now, for the first time, her thoughts take a positive shift as she focuses on Kalinda. Caroline welcomes this change, despite the challenges she knows it will pose as Anise befriends Kalinda first.
The idea of Water Island’s invisibility emerges in Caroline’s birth story, and it continues when Missus Wilhelmina forgets to mention the island because it isn’t sainted like the other islands. Sight versus invisibility is becoming a theme for Caroline: No one notices her at first in the courtyard when everyone is watching Kalinda let her locks down; the only students who seem to look at her are Marie Antoinette and Kalinda; when the visitors arrive on Water Island, Caroline sees that the little girl has her father’s nose, and she says, “I see the things nobody else can see, but I’m not sure anyone else can see the visitors too” (44). Caroline describes how the only people who can see the hills of Water Island are the ones who have been there before.
Caroline knows before Bernadette tells her; they are sisters. Caroline asks her father who Bernadette is, but when he doesn’t answer she says he has realized she isn’t a little girl anymore. She is self-aware enough to know not to curse at him, but she does it anyway. This is ironic because while she claims she isn’t a child anymore, she still can’t confront her father and speak from the heart. She doesn’t directly ask him if Bernadette is her sister, she only asks who she is, as if she is afraid to hear him say it, and she chooses conflict because she is still allowing her frustration and fear to control her.
Just as Caroline knows Bernadette is her sister before Bernadette says anything, the theme of visibility takes on symbolic quality: Sensory vision becomes an analogy for knowledge. Caroline’s vow of silence allows her to become grounded in the moment, and she says she perceives others’ thoughts or feelings (50). For example, she believes she can sense that Anise is irritated by Marie Antoinette’s yellow hair and that Missus Wilhelmina stares out the window as an escape. Caroline’s ability to put herself in her bully’s shoes, even for a fleeting moment, is a sign of maturity—but it also continues the theme of her special vision, as she can see what no one else can. Caroline is becoming attuned to others’ inner worlds and motives. When Miss Joe sings in the car and gives Caroline sugarcane, she knows it’s because Miss Joe doesn’t want her to feel pressured to talk. This perceptiveness is a shift in Caroline, and it is a skill she will need to complete her character arc.
Caroline sees the ghost of the little girl running towards her that bursts into moths, and they get caught in her hair and make her jump. Moths symbolize transformation, moving towards the light, and, in many cultures, they symbolize death or spirits. This parallels Caroline’s search for answers and what may come to “light” as she continues her own transformation. Miss Joe’s independence as a single Black woman influences Caroline. She decides she wants to be like Miss Joe and stands up straighter, and she reflects on how the books Miss Joe gives her, authored by strong Black women, saved Miss Joe’s life. Even though Caroline hasn’t fully realized what she meant by saving her life, the idea is important: Miss Joe is giving Caroline a tool to overcome her loneliness and find meaning in her life despite the challenges she will face as a young Black girl.
When Miss Joe asks Caroline what she wants to know about her mother, Caroline holds back, similarly to when she didn’t directly ask her father if Bernadette was her sister. Caroline still fears knowing the truth, and she wants to discover it at her own pace. This need for control in an uncontrollable situation is common, and Caroline’s ability to sometimes censor herself shows the depth of her character. However, she still has a lot of growing to do, as she questions whether it was her father’s fault that her mother left, or whether her father and Miss Joe are colluding to stop Caroline’s search for her mother. Caroline claims she can see what no one else can, and while this is true in terms of ghosts, she still can’t fully recognize others’ realities or intentions. Her father and Miss Joe are attempting to support her, but, unable to see this, Caroline is motivated to rely on herself in her search and take bigger risks, like searching through her father’s bedroom.
The motif of ghosts newly emerges as Caroline examines her mother’s forgotten belongings: “I can see her dresses are still hanging in the closet, like little ghosts of her missing her body” (61). The idea of her mother’s body leads Caroline to assume her mother must be dead and that Miss Joe and her father are covering it up. This becomes a constant internal battle for Caroline: She wonders whether her mother is dead and gone forever. She certainly hopes not, but then again, if she is alive, Caroline cannot understand why she would abandon her daughter. The reader goes on this journey of uncertainty alongside Caroline as she analyzes her own thoughts and emotions.
