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Chapter 3
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
Back in Phoebe’s story, Phoebe invites Sal over for dinner. Sal is relieved; she doesn’t want to eat with Dad and Margaret again. She wants to be back in Bybanks with the farm animals, and she wants to run into the kitchen and find Momma and Dad peeling apples. But instead, Sal walks home with Phoebe. Sal stops by her house to call Dad at work; he has a new job selling farm machinery. Dad is thrilled that Sal has a friend. As the girls pass Margaret’s house, Mrs. Partridge calls to the girls and asks Sal if it’s her. Sal starts to move toward Mrs. Partridge, but Phoebe tells her not get any closer.
Phoebe offers Sal a convenient way to escape Margaret and Dad, who just annoy and anger Sal. This is in part because Sal longs to be back on the farm, where she felt more connected to nature and where she has happy memories with her parents. Phoebe, meanwhile, seems to judge Mrs. Partridge as threatening, similar to the way Sal writes off Margaret as not worth getting to know.
Themes
Mrs. Partridge asks who Sal has with her and then asks to feel Phoebe’s face. Gently, Mrs. Partridge feels her face and declares that Phoebe is 13 years old. Sal introduces Phoebe and notes that she lives next door, and then the girls head for Phoebe’s house. Phoebe hisses that she doesn’t want Mrs. Cadaver and Mrs. Partridge to know she lives next door. She also says it’s not at all remarkable that Mrs. Partridge managed to guess her age.
Again, Phoebe’s insistence that she doesn’t want Mrs. Cadaver and Mrs. Partridge to know she lives next door suggests that she’s judging her neighbors as dangerous without even having met them. It’s unclear why she feels this way, but it nevertheless prevents her from getting to know the women, who may well be harmless.
Themes
Before Sal can say anything in response, Phoebe launches into a story about a time when she, Mrs. Winterbottom, Mr. Winterbottom, and Phoebe’s sister, Prudence, went to a state fair. There was a man there guessing people’s ages by looking at them; if he guessed wrong, the person won a teddy bear. Sal privately thinks Mrs. Partridge is more “astounding,” but Phoebe continues. The man guessed Mr. Winterbottom’s age—and he was 24 years off. Mr. Winterbottom carried his teddy bear all day, but he was miserable wondering if he actually looked 52 instead of 38.
Sal doesn’t want to jeopardize her budding friendship with Phoebe, so she doesn’t voice any thoughts that might make Phoebe feel less important. As Phoebe describes the man incorrectly guessing her father’s age, it hints that Mr. Winterbottom may indeed look 52 rather than 38, which could suggest that stress or a particularly uptight personality have made him age more rapidly.
Themes
Phoebe leads Sal into the kitchen and explains that Mr. Winterbottom doesn’t look anywhere close to 52 years old. Her mother, Mrs. Winterbottom, is in the kitchen, and she asks if Sal likes blackberries. She’s making a pie. Sal says she loves blackberries, but she has some allergies. She can’t admit that blackberries remind her of Momma. The girls join Mrs. Winterbottom at the table, and Phoebe tells her mother about Mrs. Partridge. Phoebe insists that Mrs. Partridge guessing her age is nothing special—but then, Sal shares that Mrs. Partridge is blind. Both Phoebe and Mrs. Winterbottom are shocked.
Because Sal hasn’t met Mr. Winterbottom yet, it’s impossible to tell how old he looks. What is clear, though, is that Phoebe is very loyal to and defensive of her father. The way that Sal reacts to the blackberry pie suggests that remembering Momma is painful for her, possibly because of trauma associated with Momma leaving their family. The fact that both Mrs. Winterbottom and Phoebe are shocked to discover that Mrs. Partridge is blind speaks to how closed off the Winterbottoms are from their neighbors, especially since Sal knows this information despite being a newcomer to the neighborhood.
Themes
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Later, Phoebe suggests that it’s odd that blind Mrs. Partridge can see things about her, but Phoebe was “blind about her.” She also says there’s something fishy about Mrs. Cadaver. Mrs. Cadaver is frightening, mostly because her last name means “dead body.” Sal didn’t know this. Then, Phoebe says that Mrs. Cadaver is a nurse—and who wants a nurse with a name like that? Her red hair is “spooky,” and she also has a scary voice.
Phoebe recognizes that she was ironically “blind about” Mrs. Partridge being blind, meaning that her presumptions about the old woman figuratively “blinded” her to the truth. This begins to suggest that judging people the way Phoebe judges Mrs. Partridge (and the way Sal’s classmates judge one another) can be harmful, as it can lead to false assumptions that prevent people from getting to know one another. Phoebe clearly hasn’t internalized this lesson, though, as she immediately judges Mrs. Cadaver as morbid and “spooky” based only on the woman’s name and appearance.
Themes
Sal explains that this is Phoebe’s power. In Phoebe’s world, people are either perfect, or they’re axe murderers. So, after this conversation, Margaret does look spooky to Sal. Sal is relieved to have a reason to hate her. Back in the story’s present, Phoebe agrees to tell Sal a secret. She asks if Dad goes over to Mrs. Cadaver’s all the time, and if Sal knows what happened to Mr. Cadaver. Phoebe says she’s sure she knows, and it's “purely awful.”
Sal goes along with Phoebe’s tales about Margaret because she’s already looking for excuses to hate her—Phoebe’s stories line up with Sal’s own preconceived notions about Margaret. Given that Sal has already established that Phoebe makes up stories to suit her own worldview, readers can assume that whatever Phoebe’s assumption about to Mr. Cadaver is probably wrong.
Themes
