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Chapter 18
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Walk Two Moons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment, Perspective, and Storytelling
Parents, Children, and Growing Up
Grief
Nature
Summary
Analysis
Gram asks where they are in Phoebe’s story; she needs Sal to refresh her memory after the snakebite. The last thing she remembers is that Phoebe wanted Sal to tell Dad that Mrs. Cadaver and Mr. Birkway cut up Mr. Cadaver. Sal picks her story up: Phoebe is very concerned about Margaret. One Sunday, Sal finds Dad looking through photo albums. She asks Dad if he knows much about Margaret, but she won’t let him explain anything. Instead, she tells him that Margaret is spooky, and that they shouldn’t visit her anymore. Dad just says that Momma isn’t coming back. Suddenly, Sal sees how foolish Phoebe’s beliefs are, and she refuses to let Dad tell her how he met Margaret.
Finding Dad looking through old photo albums suggests that he’s still grieving Momma, even if Sal seems to believe that he’s moving on and becoming close (perhaps even romantically involved) with Margaret. As Sal grapples with all of this, she seems to realize that she’s overreacting—just because she doesn’t like Margaret doesn’t mean that Margaret is “spooky” or dangerous. But by refusing to let Dad tell her the story of how he and Margaret met, Sal is shielding herself from truths that might be uncomfortable for her.
Themes
As Sal does homework later, she finds herself doodling an evil woman in the margins. She draws a noose and a tree to hang her doodle. The next day, Sal studies Mr. Birkway closely. He’s a lively murderer. Sal hopes he’s in love with Margaret so they can get married, go far away, and let Dad and Sal go back to Bybanks. Surprisingly, though, Mr. Birkway reminds Sal of Momma, before Momma became sad.
The evil woman Sal doodles is presumably Margaret, and the noose in the drawing speaks to Sal’s level of disdain for Margaret’s involvement in Dad’s life. She seems to wish that Margaret would die, or at least fall in love with someone else and leave Dad alone. In addition, describing Mr. Birkway as “a lively murderer” suggests that Sal wants to believe Phoebe’s insistence that Mr. Birkway and Margaret are criminals and in cahoots, even if she knows this story is far-fetched.
Themes
Mr. Birkway introduces Greek mythology in class. Meanwhile, Sal remembers how much Momma loved books and “Indian stories.” She especially loved stories featuring reincarnation of some sort. Mr. Birkway pulls Sal out of her reverie by assigning Phoebe an oral report on Pandora, due next Monday. Class ends, and Mr. Birkway asks Sal to stay after. Phoebe insists on staying too—Sal shouldn’t be alone with him, since he helped Mrs. Cadaver murder Mr. Cadaver. But the meeting is fine; Mr. Birkway assigns Sal a “mini journal,” where she has to write about something that interests her.
Many Greek myths (and probably many of Momma’s “Indian stories”) were developed to help people explain things that were difficult to understand. At this time, many things in Sal’s life seem inexplicable to her, such as why Dad insisted on coming to Euclid and why Momma left, so these stories might give her some new perspective. Phoebe’s desire to protect Sal is humorous, but it also reflects how caught up she is in her wild assumptions about people.
Themes
Sal is preoccupied as she walks home with Phoebe, Mary Lou, and Ben. She’s barely paying attention as she and Phoebe part ways with the others—and the lunatic appears in front of them. Phoebe is terrified already, but then the lunatic asks her name and puts his hand in his pocket. With a screech, Phoebe pulls Sal along with her and races for home. Sal is starting to believe that the boy is a lunatic too.
This young man doesn’t seem particularly frightening, just as he didn’t seem threatening when he showed up at the Winterbottoms’ door. It’s a mystery as to why he’s interested in Phoebe, but Phoebe refuses to let him explain who he is or how he’s connected to the Winterbottoms—from her perspective, everyone is out to get her.
Themes
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The door is locked when Phoebe gets to her house. Mrs. Winterbottom opens the door for the girls and says she thought she saw someone frightening. Phoebe says she saw the lunatic and they should tell Mr. Winterbottom. Sal realizes that Mrs. Winterbottom is more afraid than even Phoebe is. To Sal’s knowledge, nobody calls the police that evening.
Though Mrs. Winterbottom seems even more afraid of the lunatic than Phoebe does, the fact that she doesn’t call the police is important. This, along with the fact that she kept the lunatic a secret from Mr. Winterbottom, subtly hints that Mrs. Winterbottom is scared for a different reason than Phoebe is, and that she somehow knows the lunatic doesn’t pose a real threat to them.
Themes
