No Great Mischief

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999

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Chapters 31-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 31 Summary

Calum and Alex drive to Sudbury beneath the warm summer sun. Calum recalls the times he went out on the sea in a boat, trying to throw up enough froth in his wake to create a rainbow from the setting sun. His father had done the same, but Calum was never able to replicate the effect.

Next, Calum tells Alex of a time that he returned to the island with his brothers and an assortment of drilling equipment. On the drive back to the island, they recover a kitten that has been thrown to the side of the road and nurse it back to health. They arrive home, visit their grandparents, and then ride a boat to the island the next day. They use the drilling equipment to carve their parents’ names into the rock, as well as Colin’s, and then tour the old house, which has been abandoned. They drink water from the well and think about their dead parents before riding the boat home.

Chapter 32 Summary

Calum and Alex take it in turns to drive. The memory of their parents hangs over them constantly, and Calum details his memories of them. Alex has fewer memories, on account of his age when his parents died, but recalls a time when he had a nightmare and was comforted by his Grandpa. He slept in his grandparents’ bed, and the next morning, his Grandma roused his Grandpa. Alex felt his Grandpa’s erection brush against him, and the old man made an embarrassed joke. Alex admits that he had no idea what it meant at the time and simply drifted back to sleep.

Chapter 33 Summary

During the car ride, a tire bursts. Alex and Calum make it to a service station, where they’re sold a used tire to match their other worn-out tires. Pulling out onto the road, Calum begins to speak about the day Alexander MacDonald—Alex’s cousin—died. It had been a bad night, and while out for a walk, Calum ran into Fern Picard. The French-Canadian man mocked Calum’s failures down the mine, so Calum punched him in the face. The pair had been involved in a tavern brawl years before, and bad blood lingered between the two.

Later, an extra man is needed for a shift. Alexander MacDonald goes and, when a hand signal is misunderstood, is decapitated by a falling ore bucket. Calum seems to believe that the death is related to his fight with Fern Picard and has not trusted the French Canadians ever since.

A police cruiser pulls them over. Without any registration papers, Alex and Calum are in a difficult position. The officer asks them to step out of the vehicle and open the trunk. Finding a receipt with Marcel’s name on it, the officer returns to his vehicle and tells Alex and Calum to wait in the car. He writes up a number of tickets, hands them to Calum, and then sends them on their way. The police car follows them for some distance along the road, and when he finally passes, Calum throws the tickets out of the window.

They arrive at the airport in an exhausted condition. They meet Alexander as he exits the airport, recognizing his red hair as a mark of their family heritage. Alex drives while Calum sits in the back seat, worried that they have only a few hours before their shift begins. Calum sleeps and, after he finally wakes, offers to drive the rest of the way while Alex sleeps.

Arriving back at the mining camp, they meet Marcel and return the keys. Alexander asks why Marcel cannot speak any English, but he is ignored. Alex and Calum begin their shift while Alexander sleeps in the bunk. Without much sleep, the shift is long and hard. The next day, they use the dead Alexander MacDonald’s card to register the new Alexander MacDonald for work.

Chapters 31-33 Analysis

These three chapters offer essential insight into Calum’s character. The time Alex shares with his brother on the drive to the airport helps to illustrate why he spends so much time in the present caring for Calum. There is a constant sense of familial duty, which Calum perpetuates. When Alex informs his brother that their cousin is set to arrive, Calum is indifferent. But on learning that it is important to Alex, he immediately commits to driving a long distance and wearing himself out for a person he doesn’t know. Calum has been raised to believe in the importance of family, and whenever he has the chance, he perpetuates this belief. Many years later, Alex drives across the country frequently to be with his brother, himself now dedicated to this sense of familial duty.

Calum himself is now shown to be more introspective. His escapades in the boat, when he tries to throw up froth in his wake to replicate his father’s rainbow, shows a side of Calum that had not previously been seen. As hard as he tries, Calum cannot replicate his father’s work. He fears that he might look silly for trying, so stops, but he carries that memory with him forever. Calum, as a character, is motivated by his parents’ death. He looks after his brothers and believes in the importance of family because that is what his father taught him. Although he might fail to replicate his father’s works, he will still try. He is committed to taking care of Alex and his other brothers, continuing his father’s work in whatever way he can.

Alex’s other brothers, as well as his sister and his cousins, are not afforded nearly as much narrative attention when compared to Calum. Because Calum is used as the novel’s framing device, the contrast between the rugged, inspiring young man and the tired alcoholic is important. The reader wants to know what happened to Calum to have robbed him off his energy. The feud with Fern Picard, it is suggested, could be the answer. The suspicion and the paranoia that surround the death of Alexander MacDonald turn a tragedy into an inciting incident. As the reader wonders what could possibly have happened to Calum, the suggestion of foul play raises the stakes in the man’s feud with Fern Picard, hinting that further tragedy may lie ahead. Yet another run-in with the law heightens this sensation, and there is the increasing sense that Calum is already heading down a doomed path.