90 pages • 3 hours read
Priscilla CummingsRed Kayak
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 13–15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Mrs. DiAngelo asks Brady to clean out an old boathouse on their property—the same boathouse, Brady says, where he and his friends used to hang out. Confirming that she's pregnant, she says she'll be out of town for a few days to try to patch things up with her husband. Brady agrees to look after the house while she's away.
Cleaning the boathouse is a challenge, not only because of the mess but also because of Brady's memories of the place: "Not just the pirate games we used to play, but the morning J.T. cut his knee on a piece of broken glass and had to get stitches. And the time Digger ran away from home and made a bed for himself on a bunch of empty grain sacks in one corner" (95). He decides to tackle the outside first, and while raking around the building, finds his father's missing drill.It's spattered with bits of red paint that look like they might have come from the kayak.
Brady, in shock, wonders whether someone drilled holes in the kayak. Suddenly, he remembers a conversation he had with J.T. and Digger shortly after Digger's grandfather sold the property to the DiAngelos. The three threw a couple of rocks at the DiAngelos' sailboat, and then Brady suggested drilling holes in their canoe and plugging them with glue as a prank: "After he’s out on the water about thirty minutes, the glue gives way, the water comes in—and he goes swimming!” (98). Brady realizes Digger might have sunk the kayak on purpose.
Chapter 14 Summary
Brady takes the drill and goes to ask J.T. about it. When he arrives at J.T.'s house, though, Kate's greeting throws him even more off balance: she says that her father is in the hospital with failing kidneys. Brady finds J.T. out at the chicken houses, collecting chicks that have died. J.T. is worried about his father and says that he's hoping to donate one of his kidneys to him.
Brady confronts J.T., asking whether Digger drilled holes in the kayak, and J.T. admits that he did—with J.T.'s help. J.T. insists that they "didn't mean for Mrs. DiAngelo and Ben to get hurt" (104). Before Brady has a chance to truly respond, Kate appears and invites him to dinner. J.T. seconds the invitation, but Brady storms off to confront Digger.
Chapter 15 Summary
Digger is playing basketball when Brady arrives, and Brady hesitates as Digger sends his younger brother Hank away, thinking about "all those years [they'd] known each other—all the laughs [they'd] had, the plans [they] shared, the trouble [they] got into" (107). Ultimately, though, he realizes that they could "never go back to the way it was" and tells Digger he found a drill with red paint on it over at the DiAngelos' house (107).Digger denies knowing anything about it, though he does ask where the drill is now.Conflicted about what to do next, Bradystalls for time by hiding the drill in his basement.
Once home, Brady realizes that in the confusion of finding the drill, he'd forgotten to close things up at the DiAngelos', so he returns to the boathouse. When he gets there, he finds Digger going through all the trash Brady had bagged earlier. Digger has no choice but to admit that he drilled holes in the kayak, threatening that Brady will be in "a lot of trouble" if he says anything (110). Brady ignores this and presses Digger to explain why he did it.
Digger tells Brady to think back to the time Mr. DiAngelo had caught them on his property. Digger had a cigarette and was pressuring J.T. and Brady to smoke with him when Mr. DiAngelo found them and told them to leave. The incident left Digger was "itchy for revenge," and once Brady had left, he'd convinced J.T. to help him find and sabotage the kayak (113).
Brady can't believe Digger could have been so angry about being kicked off the DiAngelos' property, but Digger says it "goes deeper than that," and that Mr. DiAngelo "didn't need to talk to [them] the way he did" (113). Digger pleads with Brady not to tell the police, saying that it won't bring Ben back, but that it could result in murder charges against all three of them—Brady, included.
Chapters 13–15 Analysis
In these chapters, several of the novel's themesbegin to converge. The boathouse where Brady discovers the drill is full of strong memories; it's where he used to play with J.T. and Digger, so being there carries Brady back to the earlier, simpler days of their friendship. For us as readers, Brady's experiences in the boathouse are also a reminder of the changing class dynamics in Bailey's Wharf. The boathouse and the surrounding property, which used to belong to Digger's family, are now in the hands of the DiAngelos. Since resentment of the wealthy newcomers played such a large role in Digger's decision to drill holes in the kayak, it's noteworthy that Brady finds the drill where he does—in an area with longstanding emotional significance for the boys who grew up there.
Perhaps most importantly, this section further complicates the earlier questions Cummings raised about Brady's own role in the accident and its aftermath. By tossing out the idea of drilling holes in the DiAngelos' canoe, Brady bears some indirect responsibility for J.T. and Digger's later actions. Just how much responsibility is unclear: Digger holds the threat of legal repercussions over Brady's head in order to ensure his silence, but the novel eventually revealsBrady bears no criminal responsibility. Morally, however, things are less straightforward. As Brady himself reminds Digger, someone died as a result of the boys' actions. On the other hand, Brady's actions were unwitting, and he feelshe owes something to Digger and J.T. after all their years of friendship.
As the coming chapters unfold, these qualms are not easy for Brady to dismiss. Cummings ensures that they are understandable to her readers as well, working hard to humanize J.T. and Digger in the aftermath of Brady's discovery. This is the first time we've seen J.T. and Digger in their home environments, and it's clear that both boys have led hard lives. J.T.'s father has apparently been seriously ill for some time, and the work he himself does on the farm—culling dead chicks—is grim and depressing. Digger, for his part, comes from an abusive family situation, which makes the protectiveness he shows toward his younger brother in Chapter 15 unexpected and impressive. And while Brady expresses outward shock at Digger's actions, his memory of being kicked off the DiAngelos' property suggests that he does share some of Digger's anger: Brady recalls how Mr. DiAngelo "didn’t even wait to make sure we were gone" after telling the boys off, painting a picture of someone who's used to having their orders obeyed immediately and without question (113). Although The Red Kayak does not condone J.T. and Digger's actions, it does portray the boys themselves in a sympathetic light.
