46 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren TarshisI Survived The Shark Attacks Of 1916
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2010A 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 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Chet greets Dewey, Sid, and Monty after church on Sunday and notices that they seem relieved that he has forgiven them, which he has now that he has set his own prank into motion. Sid invites Chet to go swimming with them after church and Chet agrees. Uncle Jerry is proud of Chet for not holding grudges, and Chet can barely stop himself from telling Uncle Jerry about the prank. Chet sees a girl from school, Minnie Marston, on whom he has a crush. She smiles at him, but he cannot focus, waving briefly at her before hurrying home to gather his things.
Inside his supply bag, Chet has a ketchup bottle, work boots, and a white cap that he wears at work. He hurries to the creek, arriving before anyone else and staging the scene for his prank. Wanting the boys to think that the Creek Devil has captured him, he dumps ketchup on the dock, creating a trail of fake blood. He leaves one of the boots and his cap behind. Chet takes off the rest of his clothes and jumps into the water, covering himself in the thick mud coating the banks of the creek.
Once covered, he lies in wait as he hears the boys approaching, letting out a piercing scream and splashing in the water once they are in earshot. The boys arrive at the dock and take stock of the staged scene in front of them, wondering aloud if that is blood on the dock. They call out to Chet, noticing his cap, and Chet cannot believe that they are falling for his plan. He begins hissing, remembering that Mr. Colton said that the Creek Devil hisses before an attack, and lets out a loud moan. He rises out of the water to greet the boys, who stare at him in horror and start to run. Chet reveals that it is him and expects his friends to laugh along with him, but their faces remain white and horrified. Furious, Sid calls Chet an “idiot” and tells him, “[w]e really thought something bad happened to you” (45). The three boys storm off, leaving Chet behind, once again alone.
Chapter 8 Summary
Chet scrubs off the mud and returns to Uncle Jerry’s cottage, dejected. He sits outside on the porch, wondering why his parents left him behind. He sits stewing for so long that he does not see Uncle Jerry arrive home. Uncle Jerry sits next to him, pulling out his pipe and sitting in silence until he tells Chet that he heard about the “excitement” at the creek after the boys ran up Main Street screaming about the Creek Devil. Chet does not look at Uncle Jerry, assuming that he has already sent a telegram to his parents in preparation to send him away to California.
When Chet looks at Uncle Jerry, he sees that his face is bright red, and Uncle Jerry bursts into laughter. Uncle Jerry tells Chet that while his prank might have gone too far, it was “darned good” (48). Part of Chet wants to laugh with his uncle, but he feels too despondent at having ruined his chance at friendship. He begins to cry and tells Uncle Jerry that he is going to leave for California because he does not belong here. Uncle Jerry tells Chet that he does belong here, revealing that he was the one who “begged your mama to let you stay with me” (49). To Chet’s surprise, Uncle Jerry tells him that he had asked his mother for years to let Chet stay with him because he intuited that Chet might be tired of moving so often. Uncle Jerry tells Chet that he was lonely without him for all those years, and Chet cannot believe that his well-liked, popular uncle ever felt lonely like him.
Uncle Jerry recounts the story of what happened to him after his career-ending injury. He moved to New York, wanting to “get lost” and escape the way people in Elm Hills looked at him with pity or disappointment. After some time away, Jerry decided to return home, understanding that he would not solve his problems by avoiding them or running from them. Chet knows that his uncle is right but does not know how he can stay here if the boys hate him so much. Uncle Jerry tells Chet that he will find a way to make it up to his friends.
Chapter 9 Summary
Chet waits for the boys to visit the diner, but they do not come. By mid-week, Chet works up the courage to seek them out at the creek, knowing that they will be there because of the oppressive heat. Chet arrives, and no one is there, but he remembers that they will not arrive until after their shift at the tile factory ends.
While he waits, he sees that remnants of ketchup remain on the dock, and he begins cleaning up any evidence of his failed prank. He becomes hot while cleaning and decides to take a swim, enjoying how quiet and peaceful the creek is while he floats. As he begins swimming back to the dock, something hits him hard beneath the water and knocks the air out of his lungs. He stares at the water in confusion as it becomes cloudy and red around him and is shocked to find that a shark has scratched his chest, leaving it bloody.
As Chet tries to make sense of his confusion, terror grips him as he feels something watching him. He looks up and sees a gray fin bobbing in the water near him, making its way toward him. At first, he assumes that this must be another prank—another tile the boys pilfered from the tile factory. However, as the huge dark shape draws nearer, he sees two black “killer eyes” staring at him. Chet’s instincts kick in and he races out of the water, his only thought being to “[g]et out of the water!” (57). He dives onto dry land, turning back only for a moment to see an enormous shark thrashing its head and baring its rows of sharp teeth at him as if it wants to crawl out of the water to get him. Instead, the shark flicks its tail and disappears back into the water.
Chapter 10 Summary
Chet rests on his knees and throws up, his hands shaking so much that he struggles to button his shirt. On uneasy legs, he runs up the hill toward Main Street, barely missing a swerving motorcar and buggy. He makes his way into Mr. Colton’s hardware store, and Mr. Colton is alarmed to see the blood on Chet’s shirt. Customers surround him as Chet manages to exclaim that a shark attacked him at the creek. The crowd bursts into laughter, and Mr. Colton gives Chet a pitying glance, telling him that the heat must be getting to his head. He steers Chet away from the crowd and gives him a glass of water, which Chet pushes away, exclaiming that they need to warn people to stay away from the creek. Mr. Colton tries to convince Chet that he must have only seen a piece of floating garbage and that these pranks are wearing on Chet.
Chet realizes that the idea of there being a shark in the creek does sound unbelievable, except that he saw it with his own eyes and only narrowly escaped the fate of those swimmers in the newspaper articles. Mr. Colton leaves Chet for a moment to call Dr. Jay to give Chet a ride home, but Chet realizes that there is one person in town who will believe him. He rushes out of the store, off to find Captain Wilson.
Chapters 7-10 Analysis
These chapters feature Chet’s retaliation prank against Sid, Monty, and Dewey, as an attempt to win their friendship and the sense of belonging that Chet craves. Pranks are an important motif in the text, illustrating the pitfalls of navigating adolescence. Having never had the opportunity to stay in one place for long, Chet’s has little experience with making and sustaining friendships. He relies on the cues of others to show him what friendship looks like. Chet’s instincts tell him that vulnerability is what creates strong bonds between others, such as when he confesses to Sid, Dewey, and Monty that he “[hates] moving around so much” (23), but he worries that the boys will receive his vulnerability poorly. Instead, Chet takes to heart Uncle Jerry’s advice that the boys expect him to prank them in return to show friendship. This backfires. These pranks further isolate Chet and break down the tenuous bonds of friendship between Chet and the boys, leaving Chet unsure of where to go next.
These chapters explore the lowest points in Chet’s attempts at fitting in and gaining a sense of belonging. After the failed prank, Chet tells his Uncle Jerry that “I don’t belong here” (49). He expresses a desire to run away to California to be with his parents because he views his time in Elm Hills a hopeless failure. California develops as a symbol of Chet’s anxiety about belonging in this section of chapters. Chet does not really want to go to California, having expressed the desire to find a sense of home in Elm Hills previously. This further emphasizes the depths of his shame and anxiety. Whereas in Elm Hills he can forge connections with others, in California he would be starting over yet again, effectively giving up and running away from his problems.
Uncle Jerry not only reaffirms that he wants Chet to stay but emphasizes The Role of Friendship in Overcoming Adversity. Uncle Jerry shares his own story of wanting to leave Elm Hills after injuring his leg in a championship baseball game, ending his career. Uncle Jerry left Elm Hills, wanting to avoid “the way people looked at me here, like they pitied me” (51). Uncle Jerry allows others’ perceptions of him to dictate his actions until he overcomes this fear, realizing that people need community when going through difficult times. This emphasizes the role that friendship plays in overcoming adversity, something that Chet will have to learn to repair his relationship with his friends and finally achieve his sense of belonging.
Dramatic rising action occurs when Chet encounters the shark for the first time. After sustaining a minor scrape to the chest, Chet avoids further injury by running out of the water. His first instinct is to run into town and warn the others, but when he explains what he saw in the creek, the townspeople meet him with skepticism. This emphasizes The Difficulty of Changing Public Perception, as the residents of Elm Hills are still unwilling to believe that a shark could be in their midst, despite a growing number of shark attacks that draw nearer to their own waters.
Chet is at a crossroads in this section of chapters, as he worries about how the public’s perception of his story could further isolate him: “Chet knew that he must sound crazy, that he could spend all day swearing that he’d seen a shark. Nobody would believe him” (62). Despite this anxiety, Chet knows that he must do what is right, exercising bravery instead of running away. This is a pivotal choice and highlights his coming-of-age.
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