52 pages • 1 hour read
Polly HorvathEverything on a Waffle
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A 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 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “I Lose Another Digit”
The chapter begins with Primrose describing her life with the pleasant, elderly couple—Evie and Bert—who are her foster parents. They are childless, and Primrose is their first foster child. They have a cockapoo dog named Quincehead. For the first couple of weeks she lives with them, Primrose does not explain to the couple what landed her in foster care. Eventually, she decides Evie really wants to know, plus Primrose grows extremely anxious to go home. Primrose lays out the entire story of her missing parents and the series of misfortunes that brought about Miss Honeycut’s scrutiny. She describes lying on the dock, mesmerized by the motion of the waves, until she felt as one with them. To demonstrate that she knows what Primrose means, Evie tells the story of a bee sting sending her into anaphylactic shock, which resulted in her feeling that she was one with everything in the world around her. Primrose resumes her story, telling of a wave washing over her, knocking her off the pier. Her hand caught in her net, which hung on the dock. Fishermen rescued her, though she lost the tip of her left ring finger.
Primrose explains that Miss Honeycut took that opportunity to turn her case over to Child Protective Services, which removed her from Uncle Jack’s house during their investigation. Though Miss Honeycut’s actions enrage Uncle Jack, he has little recourse. By the time of Primrose’s accident, the sale of the townhouse to Miss Honeycut is complete, so Uncle Jack cannot back out of the arrangement.
As they talk about Coal Harbor and Primrose’s missing parents, Evie says, “You miss your home, don’tcha” (114). In response, Primrose cries for the first time, prompting Evie to cry as well. Evie announces that they will go to Coal Harbour the next day, eat at the café, see Uncle Jack, and spend the night at a motel.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Fire!”
Uncle Jack feels excited to meet Evie and Bert when they gather at Miss Bowzer’s café. Miss Bowzer greets them at the table for introductions. She and Uncle Jack have a brief exchange about the nature of the café’s menu. As they speak, Miss Honeycut appears and asks Primrose to introduce her foster parents. The adults at the table give Miss Honeycut angry stares. Primrose notices that Miss Honeycut “didn’t say hello to Miss Bowzer because you don’t talk to the help. I thought this was terrible but just the way she had been raised” (119). When Evie criticizes Miss Honeycut for taking Primrose from Uncle Jack’s home, Miss Honeycut immediately shifts the blame to Child Protective Services and launches into an anecdote about her life in England. When no one laughs at her story, she goes back to her table.
Primrose takes Evie and Bert to her parents’ home, describing how it looks in the spring and fall when her mother’s flowers bloom. The next day, Uncle Jack gives them a tour of the new building project, which reminds them of Nanaimo before it expanded. Evie and Bert decide to sell their home and move into Uncle Jack’s housing development. They accomplish this over a couple of weeks when Uncle Jack finds them a rental unit to live in while builders complete their townhouse. Having moved their possessions into their new rental in Coal Harbour, they meet Uncle Jack at The Girl in the Red Swing for a celebratory meal. As they prepare to eat, someone rushes into the restaurant and yells, “Fire!”
Chapter 14 Summary: “Miss Perfidy Leaves”
As a volunteer firefighter, Uncle Jack rushes out of the restaurant. Evie and Bert debate whether to walk down the street to see what is on fire, deciding to do so since everyone else leaves the restaurant, and Miss Bowzer closes and locks the door so she can see what is burning as well. As they walk downtown, they see that the new housing development is on fire. Evie and Bert worry about Quincehead until a firefighter brings the dog to them. It grows clear that the development will be declared a total loss. The sound of screaming alerts the firefighters that someone is still inside a townhouse. Uncle Jack enters the burning building and emerges with Miss Honeycut wearing his asbestos jacket. The building collapses on Uncle Jack. Medics rush him to the Comox Hospital.
Primrose takes Evie and Bert to Uncle Jack’s home, which quickly becomes their home base. They visit Uncle Jack, who has suffered burns and broken ribs and must remain in the hospital for several days. The sheriff begins an investigation into the cause of the fire. Gossips say that Uncle Jack is responsible for the fire. Rather than expressing gratitude to Uncle Jack for saving her life, Miss Honeycut sues him for the loss of her personal property.
Eventually, when he gets out of the hospital, Uncle Jack finds a mobile home for Evie and Bert. Their description of the unit makes it sound more like an RV since they describe it as movable real estate with which they can travel.
Primrose visits Miss Perfidy—who is even more disheveled than the last time they were together—to see if she remembers what she might have done with Primrose’s sweaters. As they talk, Miss Perfidy asks Primrose why she does not admit that her parents are dead, to which Primrose asks again if Miss Perfidy ever simply knew something to be true even without evidence. Miss Perfidy says she has not. As they speak, Miss Perfidy appears to have some sort of spell. Primrose asks if she should call 911. Miss Perfidy says she is fine and escorts Primrose to the door. Miss Perfidy announces that—though she does not know how she knows it—she knows that her sister, Mrs. Witherspoon, was the person who took Primrose’s sweaters.
In one of their visits to visit Uncle Jack, Primrose sees Mrs. Witherspoon in the lobby of the hospital. She tells Primrose that Miss Perfidy is gravely ill in the ICU. Mrs. Witherspoon admits to Primrose that she took the sweaters in the upstairs closet and gave them to Goodwill without realizing they belonged to Primrose. She asks Primrose if she would like to go to the ICU to speak to Miss Perfidy. Just as Primrose begins speaking to Miss Perfidy, alarms go off, signally to Primrose that Miss Perfidy once again abruptly left the conversation before Primrose had a chance to finish speaking.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Everybody Goes Home”
Because Mrs. Witherspoon is so upset, Evie, Bert, and Primrose drive her to her home. They prepare a meal for her since she has not eaten all day. They remain until other friends come to express sympathy.
Uncle Jack gets out of the hospital the week before Christmas, still recovering from his injuries. He and Primrose take Mallomar on a long walk along the beach. Uncle Jack explains that the electrician who worked on the housing development admitted to using substandard material without telling Uncle Jack, meaning Uncle Jack will not face any charges. As they walk along the beach, they see Evie and Bert, who have just inspected an RV they hope to purchase. Also close by, they see Miss Bowzer and Miss Honeycut, who bump heads at a corner. Sheriff Peters helps them pick up the items they were carrying. Mallomar tears madly along the beach, surprising everyone until they realize he sees a pleasure craft sailing in the choppy surf toward the main pier. On its deck, Primrose sees her parents. Uncle Jack passes out, causing Primrose to realize that he had assumed her parents were dead. She writes:
I had thought Uncle Jack believed as I did that my parents were still alive because he never ever contradicted me but now I knew that all along he had been certain they were dead and, as happy as I was to see my parents again, the most prominent emotion I had at that moment was just overwhelming gratitude because he had stood beside me all those months keeping the faith even when he didn’t believe it himself (144).
Primrose’s emaciated parents go to Comox Hospital. She learns that her mother found her father’s floundering boat, and they escaped their two sinking boats in a dinghy that cast them upon a rocky island. Unsure of where they were, they took turns for months watching for someone to come near and rescue them. Finally, people searching for grizzly bears on the islands saw them.
Primrose encounters Miss Honeycut one last time. The counselor tells her that her father at last died, and she will move back to England to claim her inheritance. She says she will not be returning to Coal Harbour.
Primrose’s parents take her and Uncle Jack to The Girl on the Red Swing café to celebrate their safe return. Miss Bowzer shows Uncle Jack the new entrée that he requested, which is now on the menu. As he eats it, he discovers a waffle underneath.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
The final element of a novel, as discussed above, is the resolution of the initial underlying conflict. Indeed, there are multiple conflicts in the narrative, several that do not involve Primrose, that find resolution in the third section. One might note that the movement toward resolution begins in Chapter 12 when Evie simply says that Primrose must miss her home. This moment is the first occasion in the novel when, rather than questioning Primrose’s beliefs or trying to tell her how she should feel, someone simply recognizes the sad, difficult challenges she faces. Primrose responds by breaking down in tears for the first time, signally the beginning of healing and answers.
Miss Honeycutt, for whom school counseling is merely a career placeholder, announces she will permanently return to England since her father has died and left her his estate. Though Primrose does not say what became of Uncle Jack, she makes clear that his plan to gentrify Cold Harbour ends with the burning of the townhomes. However, in Horvath’s sequel to this novel, One Year in Cold Harbor, Primrose describes the problematic relationship between Uncle Jack and Miss Bowzer. With the help of Uncle Jack, Evie and Bert find a permanent new home in the form of an RV. Though she never recovers them, Primrose learns that Mrs. Witherspoon donated her sweaters to Goodwill. The ultimate resolution is the return of Primrose’s parents to their home, demonstrating that, despite the challenges and suffering she experiences, Primrose is correct all along.
Primrose is remarkable in that she persevered in her knowledge that her parents are alive, never wavering in the face of all the resistance she encounters. A question arises. Does Primrose retain her awareness that her parents were alive because she is in denial and would have believed that they survived whether they had or not, or is her steadfast faith a result of The Power of Intuition, inexplicable and immutable, that they are alive? Horvath has prepared the answer to that question throughout the narrative in the form of a series of discussions Primrose has with various important characters. With each authority figure who challenges her belief that her parents still live, Primrose asks some form of a simple question: “Didn’t you ever just know something, deep in your heart, for no reason?” (77). The only significant person she does not ask this question of is Uncle Jack, probably because she believes, until her parents actually come home, that her uncle also believes her parents were alive.
Primrose is a relatively helpless individual throughout: 11 years old and considered by most to be out of touch with her real-life situation. While others make judgments about what they will do for and to Primrose, her only tool for countering their disbelief and arbitrary actions is the question. As Horvath shows, each person to whom Primrose asks the question has a positive response—even Miss Perfidy, who denies it twice before admitting that, somehow, she does know that her sister has taken Primrose’s sweaters. In each case, the person to whom she asks the question—the sheriff, Miss Honeycut, Miss Perfidy, Miss Bowzer—recounts an experience in which they had a deep knowledge of something that turned out to be important and true.
Having the knowledge that her parents survived the typhoon makes it possible for Primrose to withstand the skepticism and mistreatment she receives before their ship comes in. That deep knowing engenders an uplifting hope in Primrose; not a hope that her parents survive—which she knows in her heart—but a hope that they will soon return, rescued, to Cold Harbour and that their lives will resume as before. The knowledge that her parents are alive also engenders moments of profound joy, which Primrose relishes. Evie describes the underlying joy that she knows and senses in Primrose also as an inner gyroscope that anchors a person, like a boat that does not become lost despite a raging sea. Horvath comments as well on the nature of this knowledge that appears from sources unseen in the most-needed moments. Miss Bowzer’s aunt expressed this knowing most clearly by saying that human beings simultaneously dwell in worlds seen and unseen.
Another noted characteristic of Horvath’s writings that is prevalent throughout the novel is the author’s use of different types of humor. Primrose’s gift for making humorous observations rings accurate for the voice of a precocious 11-year-old. She is not a complainer. However, her descriptions of certain situations reveal a depth of insight and feeling belying her humble responses to the often overbearing adults around her.
An example of Primrose’s comments that approaches cynicism comes in her recipe for Miss Perfidy’s tea cookies, noting that the chef should age the cookies in mothballs for 10 days, rendering them not tasty but authentic. Irony tinges her humor when she describes situations that are not quite the way others characterize them. For instance, she offers that, despite Miss Honeycut’s questionable desire to ship her into foster care, Primrose has decided to trust her since she is of English noble blood and the royals are known for always acting in the best interest of others. Another subtle ironic observation regarding Miss Honeycutt comes when the counselor shows up at the hospital with a box of get-well cards from Primrose’s classmates, who have been taunting her for weeks. Primrose also authors spontaneous, clever comments, such as when she wakes up in the hospital. She is unsure of where she is but decides it must be hell because heaven could never be so obnoxiously noisy, then jerks her hand away from a nurse, saying there is no telling what someone wants to do to your wrist in hell. In Primrose, the author creates a character who, given her age, is at once believable but also incredibly insightful.
