Echo

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015

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Part 2, Chapters 18-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary

Mike hears Eunice masterfully playing Chopin’s“Nocturne no. 20” on the piano, the same song he played. He feels her pain vicariously. He wonders, “Was all this his fault? Had he asked for too much?” (327).

Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary

Mike wonders if he has done the right thing and tells Mr. Howard about his words with Eunice. Mr. Howard replies that “Mike had given her the best medicine possible” (329). Eventually, Eunice begins to speak with the boys; she attempts to tell Mike that he can stay with her no matter what, but she is cut short by Frankie, whom she thanks for the flowers and drawings he has been leaving outside her door. Mike prepares to audition for the Harmonica Band.

Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary

With Eunice’s help, Mike adapts a version of “America the Beautiful” influenced by the blues. They play the piano together as their bond grows.

Part 2, Chapter 21 Summary

Mike makes it through the first round of the harmonica competition. A fellow competitor notes Mr. Hoxie’s preference for orphans, saying, “’Just my luck I got a ma and pa’” (345). Mike corrects him on his ignorance.

Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary

Mike plays his rendition of “America the Beautiful,” channeling the emotions he’s gone through as an orphan and as a recent, nervous adoptee. Eunice, who the boys now call “Aunt Eunie,” takes him out to dinner to celebrate his performance. He feels a sense of belonging he is sure is fleeting.

Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary

As a finalist, Mike and his family will go see Hoxie’s Harmonica Wizards preform. However, just before the performance, he finds a letter stating that the appeal to their adoption has been granted—pending a notarized signature. He wants to come up with a new plan to save both himself and his brother.

Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary

Mike and Frankie pack their bags to run away. Frankie cries, but Mike assures him they will be better off going to New York City together. Climbing out the window of the tower, Mike falls to the ground, where he hears “birdsong, a brook trickling over smooth stones, and the yodel of the wind through hollow logs” (363).

Part 2, Chapters 18-24 Analysis

These chapters contain a fair amount of dramatic irony: while it is heavily implied, and obvious to the reader, that Eunice is moved by Mike’s words to adopt both boys, Mike’s youth and insecurity blind him to this reality. The confusion and misunderstanding children feel in the world of adults is highlighted: Mike frequently doesn’t know what Mr. Howard and Eunice mean, and he doesn’t ask.

Unable to communicate with adults via words, he is nonetheless able to communicate through music, as is Eunice. Her return to the piano marks the point at which she finally begins to work through and move past her grief. Similarly, Mike’s harmonica playing is colored by his journey, and expresses both his pain and hopefulness.

Like the first part of the novel, the second section of Echo ends on a cliffhanger: Mike has fallen from a tree, and we do not know if he survives the fall. The three sounds he hears after his fall, however, indicate that he is alive. In addition, they are sounds that remind us of the forest where Eins, Zwei, and Drei were introduced, suggesting they have played a role in keeping him alive.