52 pages • 1 hour read
Eva IbbotsonJourney to the River Sea
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 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
The Manaus police chief, Colonel De Silva, receives a telegraph from London requesting that he assist Trapwood and Low to locate Taverner’s missing son for an “Important Person in Britain” (56). However, De Silva wants to protect the boy, Finn, whom he knows is hiding in the huts behind the Carters’ house with local friends of his late father. To protect Finn, De Silva lies to Trapwood and Low about a false rumor of the boy’s location and sends them upriver in the opposite direction of their quarry.
At the Amazonas Theater, Mrs. Carter and the twins lie to another audience member, Sergei Keminsky, the son of a Russian count. The Carters tell him that Maia is too sick to attend the show. Meanwhile, Maia finally arrives to the theater and runs into the Goodley’s nephew, who gives her a free front-row ticket, revealing the Carters’ lie that the show was sold out. At the Goodley’s production, Clovis plays his part well despite playing a character much younger than his actual age. But suddenly in the final act, his voice cracks and drops to a low bass, which causes the Carter twins and other audience members to laugh him off the stage. When Maia finds him weeping, he begs her to help him escape the furious Goodleys and stow away on a ship to return to his home in England. She promises that she will try.
Chapter 7 Summary
Maia worries about Clovis getting caught and punished as a stowaway, so she resolves to write a letter to Mr. Murray to request that he buy Clovis a ticket to England, using her inheritance allowance. Miss Minton asks her whether she would also like to return to England, but Maia decides she wants to stay in the Amazon, which she finds beautiful; she also wants to find the boy from the canoe again. To help Maia escape the Carter house and explore outdoors, Miss Minton comes up with a plan to tell Mrs. Carter that Maia is suffering from an illness that requires her to spend time in the fresh air. Mrs. Carter agrees, worried that she will lose access to Maia’s fortune if the girl’s health declines. One night, when Maia is walking outside, she finds a baby crawling through the jungle and realizes that it belongs to one of the servants who live in the huts behind the Carter house. She returns the baby safely, singing it a Portuguese lullaby, and is warmly welcomed by the Carter servants Tapi, Furo, Conchita, and Lila. Maia loves eating their traditional dishes and enjoys the warmth of their company in comparison with the severity of the Carters.
Furo takes Maia on a secret voyage on his boat to a hidden lagoon. There, she sees the boy from the canoe waiting for her, though his hair color has changed from dark to light. Finn reveals his identity and asks for her help in a plan to save him from being taken away to Westwood in England. Maia agrees to help him, and they enjoy tea together in his father’s hut, where he reveals his plan to go on a journey to seek refuge with his mother’s family tribe, the Xanti. He shares that his mother died giving birth to him because the British doctor, upon learning her race, refused to travel to treat her. Meanwhile, in Manaus, Clovis hatches a plan to escape his miserable life with the Goodleys. He plans to use the last of his money to catch a boat to the Carter house to ask Maia and Miss Minton for their help to return to England.
Chapter 8 Summary
Clovis arrives at the Carter house at dinnertime and asks them to let him stay. The twins laugh at him, and Mr. Carter orders him to be sent back to the city, appalled by his disheveled appearance. Miss Minton pretends to go along with the plan but secretly hides Clovis in one of the empty huts behind the house, where Maia sneaks out to visit him. Days later, Trapwood and Low, who have recently returned from their unsuccessful trip up the river to find Finn, show up at the Carter’s place to question the household. They are determined to find Finn quickly and have doubled the reward being offered for information of his whereabouts. Greedy for money to buy dresses, the twins reveal that Maia is hiding someone in one of the empty huts. But when they go to check it out, the hut is empty.
The next day, Maia feigns illness so that she can sneak away to visit Finn while the Carters are at church. She discovers that Finn snuck Clovis away at night to prevent him being caught by the investigators. Now, Finn proposes a plan to get Clovis back to England by sending Clovis with the investigators instead of himself.
Chapter 9 Summary
Finn reveals to Maia and Clovis the reason he is being pursued by Trapwood and Low. Finn’s father, Bernard Taverner, had been the youngest son of a rich, landowner family that owns a large English estate called Westwood. Bernard ran away from his family when he was 16 years old to become a naturalist, a career that his family thought wasn’t suitable for a Taverner man. His older brother, Dudley, was named the inheritor of the estate but when he recently died in a horse-riding accident, Sir Aubrey Taverner, Finn’s grandfather, became desperate to find a legitimate blood relative to inherit his estate. He tracked his estranged son’s whereabouts to the Amazon but learned that Bernard had died in a canoeing accident. When Sir Aubrey realized he has a grandson and living heir, he sent the private investigators, Trapwood and Low, to bring Finn back to become the future head of the Taverner family estate.
Finn, loyal to his father’s wish for his own son to escape such a privileged and stuffy existence in England, now hatches a scheme to swap places with Clovis, whose life circumstances would be greatly improved by taking Finn’s place at Westwood. In Finn’s plan, Clovis will hide near the dock of the ship for England, and Maia will betray his location to the twins, who will alert the police in hopes of a reward. Then, Trapwood and Low will mistakenly take Clovis back with them, thinking that he is the heir. Clovis agrees, satisfied with the idea of living in a large house with British food and weather, and the hope of seeing his foster mother, whom he misses so much.
Chapter 10 Summary
Maia, Finn, and Clovis get to work setting their plan in motion. Maia visits the Natural History Museum with a letter from Finn to Professor Glastonberry, vouching for her. The professor agrees to let the three children use the hiding place in the museum: a cellar with a small window vent, located under a trapdoor beneath the skeleton of a giant sloth. The professor helps Maia to steal a key so that the servants won’t later be blamed by the police.
Meanwhile, Clovis uses his acting talents to practice his impersonation of Finn, putting on an accent and memorizing the layout of Westbrook and the details of Finn’s father’s life there. Clovis is nervous, but Maia assures him that it’s the best plan, as the Goodleys are currently in debtor’s prison and he has nowhere else to go. Maia helps Finn to prepare his boat for his journey to the Xanti tribe. She wants to go with him, but he thinks it’s too dangerous.
The twins complain to their mother about living with Maia, annoyed that she is more popular than they are at dance class and miffed that she is friendly with the servants. Mrs. Carter informs the twins that they will not be sending Maia away because they need her money, so the twins decide to get the investigators’ reward money to free themselves from the necessity of living with Maia.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
The rising action of the novel is told through third-person omniscient narration that shifts amongst a variety of perspectives to heighten the suspense. The introduction of the characters Trapwood and Low, the mystery of their mission in the Amazon, and its links to Finn are part of the novel’s mystery subplot, which adds flavor to the larger narrative and creates a sense of urgency as the search for the “Taverner boy” creates a useful McGuffin for various characters to chase. Likewise, Trapwood and Low are portrayed as bumbling and inept in their pursuit, ill-suited to their task of locating and retrieving Finn for their illustrious English client. Ironically, because they are unaware of and uninterested in the customs of the Indigenous tribes, they are easily led astray by the local police and community members, all of whom deeply dislike them. Colonel De Silva is portrayed more favorably as “a crack shot, a man of steel with an amazing moustache, but he loved the theatre” (56). However, the author’s choice to depict him humorously as a vain and sentimental man adds to the light-heartedness of the caper, for her habitually irreverent characterization of the police force and the investigators creates the distinct sense that they are all inadequate to the task of completing their duties.
The Value of Friendship is inherent in the events that lead to Finn’s revelation of his past and the team effort to allow Clovis to take over his official identity as heir to the Taverner estate. Indeed, Maia’s determination to help her friend Clovis despite the Carters’ disapproval of her loyalties sets her apart from them and allows her to enter a secret world with Finn and the Carters’ servants. Finn invites her into his hideaway in the lagoon and trusts her with his identity because she is empathetic to others, unlike the selfish twins, who seek only their own gain and enjoyment. Maia’s difference is demonstrated by her immediate appreciation for the wild beauty of Brazil, which sharply contrasts with the Carters’ inherent fear of it. The natural imagery of the lagoon, described from Maia’s perspective, therefore displays her appreciation for the beauty of the landscape, for she lovingly recounts her sightings of “clumps of yellow and pink lotus flowers” and “[h]ummingbirds clustered in an ever-changing whirl of color” (68). From such passages, it is clear that she and Finn are alike in their sense of adventure and appreciation for Romantic Portrayals of Wilderness Exploration. Finn’s own love of adventure is indicated by his boat, his father’s naturalist background, and the books of exploration and natural history he reads. Their combined effort to protect Clovis and dupe the investigators also brings them closer together.
After Finn kidnaps Clovis and brings him to the secret hut on the lagoon, the three friends work together and use their strengths and quirks to prepare for their planned crime: the identity swap of Clovis and Finn. Earlier scenes depicting Clovis’s acting talent are revealed to be effective foreshadowing, for Clovis now uses his acting skills to prepare for this all-important, potentially lifelong role, and as the narration states, “he [is] absolutely first-class at learning his lines” (99). The theme of subterfuge is intensified when Maia also develops her acting ability by performing fake “pulmonary spasms” to feign illness and gain an excuse to leave the Carter house and visit Clovis and Finn. As her own hero’s journey progresses, she grows bold, stealing the keys to the museum and skillfully helping Finn to prepare his boat for his journey to find his mother’s tribe. From a pragmatic standpoint, Finn’s logistical and practical knowledge also gives the group the means to carry out their caper. Each character therefore brings strength to the team, though at times, their personality quirks clash as they face the Fear of the Unknown. For example, Clovis’s fear annoys Finn, who is brave and bold, while Finn’s bravado and experience with weapons shock Clovis and Maia. Likewise, Maia is annoyed that Finn stubbornly believes the journey up the Amazon will be too dangerous for her to accompany him because she is a girl. However, despite their flaws, they find a way to work as a team and deepen their mutual understanding of The Value of Friendship as they help each other to grow from experience.
In Chapter 9, Finn reveals his father’s origin story, which serves as the catalyst for the three friends’ adventures together. The story of the Westwood inheritance problem reinforces the impact of attitude on experience and the evil of Human Greed and Exploitation. In a sharp contrast with the community that surrounds the three children, the Taverners are portrayed as insensitive and obnoxious. Likewise, the animal imagery used to describe Sir Aubrey emphasizes his disagreeable nature, for the narration states that he “brayed at people and spoke to the servants as if they were deaf” (86). The comparison of Sir Aubrey to a donkey adds to the farcical tragedy of his heir Dudley’s death, which is narrated with a mocking tone: “The horse was all right and people were glad of that because it was a good horse, but Dudley wasn’t. He broke his neck” (88). The narrative therefore uses wry humor to imply that people are fonder of animals than they are of the wealthy and self-centered Taverners; likewise, the family’s misfortunes can be interpreted as cosmic justice for their incurable selfishness. This philosophical undercurrent will appear again later in the story when the Carter house is likewise destroyed in a fire that is caused by their own reckless and selfish actions.
