50 pages • 1 hour read
Lindsay CurrieScritch Scratch
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 31-Epilogue Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary
After school, Claire, Sam, Casley, and Emily go to the intersection of Michigan and Wacker, where the SS Eastland sank in 1915. The boat sank in only 20 feet of water, and it was still tied to the dock at the time. Afterward, bodies were taken to a nearby building for people to identify. Claire takes a moment to contemplate the disaster and suddenly feels the presence of the ghost boy. She sees his reflection in the river and looks up to see the SS Eastland sinking in the river right in front of her. She can see people drowning while others dive into the water to try to save them. She is paralyzed by fear as she watches the disaster unfold in front of her. She remembers that nobody was prosecuted for the Eastland disaster, so the ghost boy’s death, like hundreds of others, went unavenged. Claire faints.
Chapter 32 Summary
Claire wakes to find her friends crouching over her. She assures Casley and Emily that she has fainted before and will be okay. She tells them about her vision. She is now certain that she could identify the ghost boy if she saw a photograph of him. The friends consider their next steps. Claire remembers the piece of paper that she found on the bus and realizes that it is a label used to differentiate an unidentified body in a morgue. She searches “boy 396” on her phone and finds an article from 1915 in the Chicago Tribune, asking readers to help identify the body of a little boy. Claire learns that boy 396 was the last victim of the Eastland disaster to be identified, a week after the disaster. He was seven-year-old Willie Novotny; his parents and sister were also killed on the SS Eastland. Claire is certain that Willie is the ghost who has been haunting her. Emily realizes that his question, “Where are they?”, refers to his family. Her ghostly sense of something missing comes from Willie’s sense of loss.
Chapter 33 Summary
Claire now knows who the ghost is but not what he wants. She can still feel his presence and knows that her work is not over yet. She suggests that she and Sam go to the Chicago History Museum, which has an exhibit about the Eastland disaster, to try and learn more about Willie. Sam agrees, deciding that they cannot get into more trouble than they are already in.
Chapter 34 Summary
At the Chicago History Museum, Claire and Sam find the Eastland exhibit. They are surprised to find it empty of visitors in an otherwise busy museum. A museum employee explains that the Eastland is one of Chicago’s “least-talked-about disasters” (200), even though it had more passenger fatalities than the Titanic. Claire makes herself look at the photos of dead bodies from the disaster because understanding the real experiences of history is important. She is surprised that the city seems to have forgotten the victims of the Eastland. She asks the employee if the museum has any information about Willie Novotny, but there is nothing. The employee suggests that the archives might have more information. Claire is troubled that there is no public information about Willie and realizes that he wants her to tell his story.
Chapter 35 Summary
At home, Claire and Sam debrief. Claire believes that Willie has been haunting her because they both understand feeling like “everyone is moving on without them” (206). Willie was forgotten and alone at the morgue, and now he is being forgotten by history. Until recently, Claire felt that Casley was leaving her behind and moving on with Emily. She remembers her mom’s words or wisdom: “Look for the story history doesn’t tell, because that might be the one that matters” (206). Willie must believe that everyone has forgotten about him.
Chapter 36 Summary
Claire knows exactly how to help Willie. She tells her dad that his next book has to be about boy 396. She tells him Willie’s story and asks him to share it with the world so that he is not forgotten. Her dad asks how she knows so much about the Eastland disaster, and Claire shares that she has been researching it. Her dad reveals that he has also been researching the Eastland and shows her a photograph of Willie on his laptop. He promises that his new book will contain several chapters about Willie and asks if Claire will be his research assistant. He knew that something scared Claire during the ghost tour but he wanted her to talk to him about it when she was ready. Claire and Sam are no longer grounded. Claire’s dad apologizes for making her think that she could not trust him with her fears and assures her that she and Sam are much more important to him than his ghost tour. Claire agrees to be her dad’s research assistant and resolves not to keep any more secrets.
Chapter 37 Summary
An excerpt from the Chicago Tribune reveals that Willie’s body was finally identified by two of his friends. Claire and Sam visit the Bohemian National Cemetery to find Willie’s grave. It has been exactly a week since Claire first saw Willie’s ghost on the tour bus—the same amount of time Willie’s body was in the morgue. They find the area of the graveyard where the Eastland victims are buried and look for Willie’s grave. Claire is no longer afraid of ghosts as she knows that Willie just needed help. She finds a grave that reads “Rodina Novotny.” The name Rodina does not sound familiar; when they look it up, they learn that it is the Czech word for “family.” Claire touches the grave and feels Willie briefly hold her hand. She can feel that he is happy.
Epilogue Summary
Claire, Casley, Emily, Sam, and Warner all explore the Graceland Cemetery. Sam is doing well in math again, and Willie no longer haunts Claire. Claire has been helping her dad research the Eastland and now volunteers at the Chicago History Museum, teaching people about the disaster. Claire leads her friends to Dexter Graves’s monument. She and Warner talk and flirt, and Claire is glad that he gets along with Casley and Sam. When they reach the Eternal Silence monument, Claire explains its history. According to legend, those who look into the statue’s eyes will see a vision of their own death. Although the young people are scared, they all decide not to let fear control their lives. They all hold hands and look into the statue’s eyes together. Claire likes the feeling she gets when she holds Warner’s hand. Rather than a vision of her death, she sees a vision of the amazing summer she is about to have with her friends.
Chapter 31-Epilogue Analysis
These final chapters are a series of conclusions that resolve the novel’s various emotional conflicts and plot mysteries. The overall message and design of the book are also revealed: The mystery of Willie’s haunting is shown to be the parallel of Claire’s unhappiness, resolved by compassion and recognition across time.
In this section, Claire’s efforts at Uncovering the Real Story have finally paid off. She has seen the Eastland disaster happen with her own eyes, and she has found Willie Novotny’s identity. Scritch Scratch says that two of Willie’s friends identified him, which is true. That identification was confirmed when his grandmother brought his knickerbockers to verify that the body was his. Willie came from a family of Czech immigrants. Many of the victims of the SS Eastland disaster were Czech or came from other working-class immigrant backgrounds. Some people have suggested that the Eastland has largely been forgotten because none of the people killed that day were wealthy or famous.
The museum employee says that more passengers died on the Eastland than on the Titanic, and while this is technically true, it is somewhat misleading. As previously noted, between 840 and 844 passengers died on the Eastland (Scritch Scratch puts the number at 841), along with four crew members. In addition to the 832 passengers who died on the Titanic, 685 crew members also perished. The Eastland disaster represented a massive loss of life, but its death toll was just over half that of the Titanic. Lindsay Currie’s framing of the Eastland disaster in this way may be a way to emphasize her local Chicago history, or a way to intrigue her young readers to engage in historical research of their own.
These chapters show how the two main conflict points of the novel have been related throughout. Claire realizes that Willie started haunting her because he was Feeling Left Behind. He was the last Eastland victim to be identified, and he felt cut off from his family because his parents and sister also drowned in the disaster. To add to his pain, he is now feeling forgotten as history moves on and fewer and fewer people talk about the Eastland disaster at all. Willie’s ghost is drawn to Claire because he recognizes that she, too, knows what it feels like to get left behind. Granted, Claire’s temporary conflict with Casley is orders of magnitude less devastating than Willie’s violent death at the age of seven, but there is nevertheless a sense of kinship between the characters. Claire stops feeling left behind when she befriends Emily and makes up with Casley, and she is able to help Willie feel like he belongs, too.
Claire decides that to help Willie, she does not just have to tell his story. She also has to recognize that his death was “unavenged” because nobody was prosecuted for the Eastland disaster. While it might be frustrating for Claire and Willie to feel that justice was not done, the real history is more complicated. Six people, including the Eastland’s captain and the company’s president, were tried for manslaughter. In the end, the jury recognized that the circumstances that led to the disaster were complicated, and they were the result of dozens or even hundreds of people exercising their best judgment based on the information available to them. Nobody acted maliciously, and although the Eastland had had balance issues in the past, it had always been deemed seaworthy based on the safety standards of the time.
After worrying that Willie’s ghost was trying to kill her, Claire works hard at Overcoming Fear. She comes to realize that Willie’s ghost is not scary or dangerous; he is a frightened child who is trying to ask her for help. Once she stops feeling afraid of ghosts, Claire also overcomes her fear that her father will use her experiences to bolster his career. He affirms that she can trust him and that he will not pry into experiences that she would rather keep to herself. His ghost obsession turns out to be a valuable way to tell Willie’s story. The ending of the story shows that Claire’s emotional development means that she can use her new strength to help others. This confidence enables her to look forward to the future with positivity instead of dread.
