46 pages • 1 hour read
Jo Watson HacklSmack Dab in the Middle of Maybe
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 13-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Critters”
On her way back to the treehouse, Cricket dreams of having a celebration lunch of “jerky, an apple, bamboo shoots dipped in peanut butter” (71) and a nibble of a chocolate bar. However, when she arrives, she hears creatures inside the treehouse. Raccoons have gotten inside and are stealing all her food. She tries to chase them, but they disappear into the trees.
Cricket climbs into the treehouse, worried about Charlene. Luckily, Charlene is okay, but the treehouse has been ransacked. Almost all the food is gone or damaged, her blankets have been ripped to shreds, and her matches have been destroyed. Her father’s book about surviving in the woods is mostly okay, but the part about edible plants has been chewed and shredded.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Glorious Lint”
Cricket tries to remember what her father taught her about making do with what you have. He taught her to start a fire by directing sunlight through a plastic bag full of water. Cricket tries to use this technique, but without tinder, she is unable to get the fire to catch. She begins to despair, but Charlene chirps, telling her not to give up. She finds dryer lint in the pockets of her jacket and uses it as tinder. She uses the water bag to focus a beam of sunlight, and the lint catches fire. Gradually, Cricket builds a fire.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Clear as a Mud Puddle”
After eating a dinner of bamboo shoots and peanut butter, her only remaining food, Cricket feels optimistic. She overcame her first major obstacle and figured out a way to survive even after her food stores were destroyed. She takes out the rock that she found in the graveyard and examines it. The words carved into it are too faint to read. Mama used to make handmade paper, some of which Cricket has brought into the woods with her. Mama used to draw pictures on her handmade paper, but she would never let Cricket see them.
The next morning, Cricket realizes she can use the paper to take a rubbing of the words carved onto the rock. The letters come through on the rubbing, but they are backwards. She uses a pencil to trace over the words and then turns the paper over and holds it up to the sun. The words shine through: “Look like a rabbit. Go where the shimmering stops” (85).
Chapter 16 Summary: “Looking Like a Rabbit”
Cricket’s mother started calling her Cricket when she was a baby because crickets are resourceful and are supposed to bring good luck. Cricket uses all of her resourcefulness to solve the most recent clue. She spends the morning trying to figure out what the words mean but comes up with nothing. Charlene begins guiding Cricket through the woods with her chirps, and the two come across an area full of clover, dandelion greens, wild onions, and hickory nut trees that Cricket harvests. Cricket realizes that the clue means that she should think like a rabbit. She knows that rabbits make underground burrows, so she figures she will need to “find where the shimmering stops and dig there” (90).
Chapter 17 Summary: “Unraveling the Knot”
Cricket and Charlene walk through Electric City looking for something shimmering. Eventually, Cricket sees the quartz-lined sidewalks shimmering in the setting sun.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Wrong Walls”
Cricket starts digging where the quartz sidewalk ends. She uncovers an old metal lunch box. Inside it is another box; this one is wooden with a circle “carved into the top, near the edge” (93). Cricket tries to open the wooden box, but it is stuck. The carved circle looks familiar to Cricket, and she eventually realizes that it is the size of the doogaloo coin. She puts the coin into the carved circle and the box clicks open. Inside the box is a drawing of a tanager. Below the drawing is writing that says, “Some walls aren’t for everyone” (95).
Chapter 19 Summary: “Spiderwebs”
Cricket is discouraged as she tries to think about what the words mean. In the distance, she sees a storm approaching. She makes sure her fire is going strong outside and then shutters up the treehouse and hunkers down until the storm passes. Cricket wishes she had gathered more food. She misses her mother and how safe she used to feel with her. She reflects that Mama must be so obsessed with finding the Bird Room because finding it again would be a way for her to prove that she is not “crazy.”
Chapter 20 Summary: “Clue-Searching Weather”
After the storm, everything is covered in a layer of ice. Cricket wonders how she will find more food to eat. There is still a week until March 1, and she needs to survive in the woods until then. Cricket passes a river and realizes that she could fish. Using her father’s book, she builds a fish trap and baits it with peanut butter. The trap works, and Cricket uses peanut butter oil to fry the fish she catches. She thanks the fish for giving its life to support hers. After spending so much time outside, Cricket feels like her senses are becoming sharper. Though she has not yet worked out what the most recent clue means, she is proud of herself for finding so many clues and for surviving yet another challenge.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Percy”
A few days later, Cricket gets bitten by a snake. The snake is a venomous copperhead, and Cricket knows that if she does not get help, she might die from the bite. She smells smoke again in the distance and runs toward it. She and Charlene find a two-story house. A dog runs up to them, and then an old lady appears. She introduces the dog as Percy and reveals that she knows Cricket has been living in the woods for several days.
Cricket tells the woman that she needs help. The woman takes a look at Cricket’s ankle and tells her that she will live because the snake only bit her once. She takes Cricket inside her house and uses a madstone to suck the snake venom out of Cricket’s ankle before placing the stone in milk. She covers the bite in wild plantain and gives Cricket something to drink that will help her sleep. Cricket asks the woman to take care of Charlene and is happy that she is gentle with the cricket.
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Mama Bird”
As Cricket sleeps, she remembers the last Christmas she had with her mother and father. They decorated their tree with string lights and delicate ornaments. Cricket’s father had to go away for work, but he told Cricket to take care of Mama because she was “back to pacing again” (114).
Cricket and Mama found a bird’s nest in the Christmas tree. Mama told Cricket that she thought the mama bird took care of her baby until she knew that she could fly all by herself. One day, Cricket would soar just like the baby bird. Mama started pacing and talking about the Bird Room, and Cricket realized that she was behaving just like she did the last time she had to go to the hospital. Cricket told Mama to stop and asked her why she could not be normal. Mama was crushed, and Cricket tried to backtrack. Mama locked herself in her bedroom, and Cricket was devastated that she hurt her mother.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Gone”
Mama stayed in her room and would not talk to Cricket. Her father returned home, and Cricket believed that he would convince Mama to start taking her medication again. One morning, she woke up to find that Mama was gone. Cricket felt that her mother’s departure was her fault. Mama left behind her green aventurine ring, which “Daddy gave her the day [Cricket] was born” (120).
Chapters 13-23 Analysis
These chapters introduce a piece of American folk history. The old woman uses what she calls a madstone to draw the venom out of the snake bite. She then cleans the stone by putting it in milk. A madstone, also called a bezoar, is a hard lump of hair, rock, and other substances sometimes found in the stomach of a deer or other ruminant animal. In America and in some other parts of the world, madstones were once used to cure rabies, to remove venom from snake bites, and to treat various other ailments. Some people still use them, often passing them down from one generation to the next. According to folk wisdom, madstones should be cleansed in milk or even stored permanently in a jar of milk that is refreshed each day. Although madstones are fascinating historical curiosities, there is no scientific evidence that they have any medical effect. Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe makes a few minor adjustments to reality, and this is one of them.
Cricket makes significant progress in the puzzle in these chapters. Once again, she succeeds partly through Observing the Beauty of the World. When she is struggling to find food and to solve clues, she turns to Charlene. Cricket respects Charlene’s perspective and is able to listen to her directions to find food. She is also able to see the beauty in the quartz-lined sidewalks; if she had not noticed them shimmering, she would not have been able to solve the clue. Cricket’s ability to notice these details allows her to align her perspective with Bob’s. Her ability to think like Bob foreshadows the ways in which she, Bob, and Mama are alike. Cricket also sees the beauty in the world even when others might prefer not to. She finds eating the fish she caught emotionally challenging even though eating fish has never bothered her before. By considering the fish as a distinct living being, Cricket learns to sit with her discomfort and ultimately grow in her understanding of the natural world.
The flashbacks in these chapters clarify The Impact of Mental Illness on Cricket’s life so far. Although she prefers to think of her happy memories of her mother, Mama’s recent abandonment still hurts her deeply. Cricket’s main goal in finding the Bird Room is to convince her mother to stay with her, but she also wants to prove that Mama is not unwell for thinking the room is real all these years. Cricket has a limited understanding of mental illness. She does not understand that some mental illnesses can entail delusional thinking or that her mother’s mental illness does not make her a bad person. Mama is deeply hurt when Cricket asks her to be “normal”; Mama is also afraid of people thinking that she has a mental illness though she knows that her behavior is disordered. Cricket takes responsibility for her mother’s departure because she was the one who asked her to be “normal.” Cricket is a child who needs her parents’ support, and she is not responsible for her mother’s actions.
Although Mama’s departure is not Cricket’s responsibility, Cricket still feels a strong sense of Familial Love and Devotion that motivates her to get her mother back at any cost. She is willing to wait out an ice storm in a treehouse instead of returning to town, where she could be warm and safe. In her flashback, Cricket remembers talking with her mother about the bird’s nest in the Christmas tree. She feels uncomfortable when Mama talks about the baby bird that soared once it no longer needed its mother’s help. She knows that her mother is speaking metaphorically, and that she is the baby bird. She does not feel ready to live without her mother’s support, but Mama is implying that she will soon be on her own. While Cricket’s devotion is unwavering, Mama wants to convince herself that her daughter does not really need her and that leaving Cricket is acceptable. This moment foreshadows the book’s ending, where Mama demonstrates that she is not willing to put effort into a meaningful recovery so that she can support Cricket.
