The Ickabog

Fiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-16

Chapters 17-32

Chapters 33-49

Chapters 50-64

Character Analysis

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Chapters 17-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 17-23 Summary

This summary section includes Chapter 17: “Goodfellow Makes a Stand,” Chapter 18: “End of an Advisor,” Chapter 19: “Lady Eslanda,” Chapter 20: “Medals for Beamish and Buttons,” Chapter 21: “Professor Fraudysham,” Chapter 22: “The House with No Flags,” and Chapter 23: “The Trial.”

Before Spittleworth allows the soldiers to return home, he debriefs them on his version of what happened on the moors, including a tale about a young soldier named Nobby Buttons, who was killed by the Ickabog along with Major Beamish. Goodfellow objects to Spittleworth’s story: “According to you, Nobby Buttons was sent with a message to Beamish’s wife, telling her he’d been killed. But I don’t remember a Nobby Buttons. I’ve never met anyone called Nobby Buttons” (76). Spittleworth browbeats and bribes the rest of the soldiers to go along with his story, but he sends Goodfellow and two supporters to prison, intending to execute them later.

After the soldiers are dismissed, the king’s chief advisor arrives, demanding an explanation from Spittleworth and Flapoon. When he threatens to expose their lies, Roach kills the advisor. The three men agree to fabricate a tale that the advisor left unexpectedly and appointed Spittleworth as his successor. Later that same night, Spittleworth goes to the dungeon, intending to shoot the three prisoners, but he is intercepted on the stairs by Lady Eslanda. She hints that she’s gotten the actual facts of what happened from her eavesdropping maid and threatens to tell the king if any harm should come to the three soldiers. Spittleworth backs down and leaves.

The next morning, Spittleworth presents the king with a handsome medal for his bravery in fighting off the Ickabog:

Fred’s honesty had piped up, in a small, clear voice: It didn’t happen like that. You know it didn’t. You saw the Ickabog in the fog, you dropped your sword, and you ran away. You never stabbed it. You were never near enough! (88).

However, the king’s vanity and cowardice get the better of him, so he accepts the medal. A funeral ceremony is then held, and medals are given to the families of Buttons and Beamish. Someone has been paid to act as the fictitious Buttons’s grieving mother. The display fools the entire populace, and Bert vows someday to kill the beast that murdered his father.

The day following the funeral, Spittleworth introduces the king to Professor Fraudysham, who is supposed to be an expert on the Ickabog:

The truth was that beneath the wigs and the glasses, Professor Fraudysham and Widow Buttons were the same person: Lord Spittleworth’s butler, who was called Otto Scrumble […]. Like his master, Scrumble would do anything for gold (91).

Fraudysham paints such a frightening picture of the Ickabog that the king agrees to establish an Ickabog Defense Brigade. The expenses for the new militia will be paid through an additional tax of two ducats a month on each household.

As time goes by, everyone is feverishly supportive of the new brigade, even though most of the tax money for their maintenance is going into Spittleworth’s pocket. All the cottages in town display patriotic signs in their yards, except for the Dovetails. The king’s advisors don’t object to the ridiculous expense because they fear being accused of treason.

Over time, Spittleworth tries to develop a plan to get rid of the three troublesome prisoners. He eventually realizes that he doesn’t have to kill them if he can destroy their reputations. A public trial is set, and Spittleworth threatens members of the soldiers’ families if they don’t confess to desertion during the Ickabog fight. When Spittleworth tells Goodfellow that Lady Eslanda came to his defense, the soldier realizes that she is in love with him. Although he hates lying during his trial, he does so to protect the lady whom Spittleworth will kill if he doesn’t confess to treason. After the court proceeding, the three soldiers are sentenced to life in prison. Goodfellow and Lady Eslanda exchange a mutual glance of understanding. They both know the truth about Spittleworth and each other’s feelings.

Chapters 24-32 Summary

This summary section includes Chapter 24: “The Bandalore,” Chapter 25: “Lord Spittleworth’s Problem,” Chapter 26: “A Job for Mr. Dovetail,” Chapter 27: “Kidnapped,” Chapter 28: “Ma Grunter,” Chapter 29: “Mrs. Beamish Worries,” Chapter 30: “The Foot,” Chapter 31: “Disappearance of a Butcher,” and Chapter 32: “A Flaw in the Plan.”

Daisy’s eighth birthday is only a few days before Bert’s. The two have been estranged ever since their fistfight. Daisy invites Bert and his father over for tea to repair the breach. The two friends seem to get along well, and Bert even buys Daisy a yoyo, called a bandalore, as a present. During the festivities, Mr. Dovetail makes an unfortunate comment to Mrs. Beamish: “Who’s to say poor Beamish didn’t fall off his horse and break his neck, and Lord Spittleworth saw an opportunity to pretend the Ickabog killed him, and charge us all a lot of gold?” (107). The widow is outraged at the suggestion, and the Beamishes leave in a huff.

Mr. Dovetail isn’t the only person to question the existence of the Ickabog. In nearby Baronstown, a butcher named Tubby Tenderloin calls a town meeting of 200 people who all believe the same thing. When one of Spittleworth’s spies reports this problem, his lordship knows he must devise a quick solution. When he learns that Dovetail is a carpenter, he gets an idea. One day, after Daisy leaves for school, her father is abducted. Spittleworth imprisons Dovetail and forces the carpenter to carve a giant foot with a long handle that a man on horseback could stamp into the earth. Dovetail knows why Spittleworth wants this item, but he agrees to make it if the lord reunites him with his daughter.

That same afternoon, when Daisy returns from school, she is kidnapped too. Spittleworth has ordered one of his henchmen to kill her, but the man resists the idea. Instead, he takes Daisy to the home of Ma Grunter. She houses orphans for a fee, and nobody has ever gotten away from her. When the sack over Daisy’s head is removed, she realizes her dilemma: “Daisy found herself in a narrow, rather dirty hallway, face-to-face with a very ugly old woman who was dressed all in black, a large brown wart with hairs growing out of it on the tip of her nose” (121). Grunter insists that Daisy declare that her new name is Jane and that her father is really dead. Although Daisy resists and hides in the attic, she is eventually forced to do as she’s told. Secretly, she believes her father is still alive.

Back in Chouxville, Mrs. Beamish hears a rumor that the Dovetails have left town and moved away. She and Bert go to the cottage to investigate. While it has been emptied of all furniture, Mrs. Beamish sees children playing nearby, arousing her suspicions. One is wearing a dress that belonged to Daisy, and the child admits that her brother was given a bandalore the day before.

It takes a month for Dovetail to craft the wooden foot. When he finishes, Spittleworth is pleased but refuses to release the carpenter until he sees if his plan will work. That night, he orders Roach to lead a group of horsemen to Baronstown. They abduct Mr. Tenderloin and his wife, killing a chicken in the yard and stamping the wooden foot all around to look like the Ickabog has attacked. They then take the Tenderloins away, intending to kill them elsewhere, and blame it on the monster. The following morning, when neighbors discover the attack on the Tenderloin property, rumors spread far and wide that the Ickabog was responsible. Then, one of the neighbors notices the curious fact that the print left behind is only of the left foot. Either the creature was hopping, or else the footprint is a fake.

Chapters 17-32 Analysis

This segment focuses heavily on the web of lies Spittleworth is forced to spin, each more elaborate than the last. Initially, he and Flapoon are simply trying to cover up the accidental shooting of Major Beamish. They capitalize on the rampant fear of the Ickabog to deflect blame from themselves and onto the monster. This relatively straightforward lie is immediately twisted into another when Mrs. Beamish questions why nobody came to inform her that her husband was dead. Spittleworth must then invent the ridiculous tale of Nobby Buttons, a soldier who never existed. To lend credibility to his story, Spittleworth then holds a ceremony to award Nobby a medal for bravery and enlists the aid of his butler in disguise as the boy’s grieving mother.

Not only is Spittleworth fabricating lies every time somebody questions the facts, but he is also forced to involve a veritable army of henchfolk to back up his increasingly outrageous fibs. He has already been forced to bribe Roach to keep quiet about the death on the marshes, and his butler is required to play a second role as Professor Fraudysham to terrify the king into approving an Ickabog defense brigade.

Where bribery fails, Spittleworth resorts to terror tactics to keep the truth from emerging. After Goodfellow and his comrades won’t corroborate Spittleworth’s lies, their families and loved ones are threatened. When the citizens of Baronstown protest the tax increase, their leader is murdered. Spittleworth even forces Daisy’s father to carve a false footprint of the Ickabog. Daisy herself is abducted with the plan to kill her later. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, the ripples from Spittleworth’s initial lie must expand outward in an ever-widening circle.