50 pages • 1 hour read
Lindsay CurrieScritch Scratch
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2020A 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 16-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
After several hours of research, Claire asks Sam for help hiding all signs of ghost activity in the house. Sam agrees to help get the Sharpie off the bathroom wall while Claire fixes the broken frame. Claire worries that their parents will find out what is happening, and she wants to solve the mystery quickly before anything worse happens. At dinner, Claire’s dad reveals that his publisher wants him to write a second book. Claire worries that his research will attract more ghosts. Claire’s mom loves that her husband’s work sheds light on otherwise forgotten history. Claire learns that everyone will be out of the house tomorrow after school. Her mom asks her to put dinner in the oven and Claire worries about being home alone with the ghost.
Chapter 17 Summary
Claire sleeps in her closet again that night hoping that, if she locks herself in, the ghost will leave her alone. She wakes up to the sound of scratching at the closet door and a storm outside. There is a shadow outside the door, and the air is cold. The doorknob starts rattling, and Claire decides she has to be brave and face whatever is out there. She swings the door open and finds that her bedroom is empty. There is nothing out of the ordinary except a trail of wet footprints leading to the closet door. The doorknob is dripping. The next morning, Claire tells Sam what happened. Sam is shocked but promises her that they will figure something out together.
Chapter 18 Summary
At school, Casley confronts Claire and asks why she has not been texting her back. She insists that Claire tell her what is happening, but Claire refuses. Casley asks her to give Emily a chance, but Claire does not trust Emily. When Claire admits that she has told Sam about what is happening, Casley is shocked that Claire trusts her brother over her. She tells Claire that she will leave her alone but that she will be there if Claire changes her mind. Casley looks like she is about to cry and insists that change is not always a bad thing. Claire privately disagrees and slams her locker angrily. Casley walks away.
Chapter 19 Summary
Claire is so exhausted that she falls asleep in science class. She goes to the bathroom and checks to make sure that each stall is empty. As she splashes her face, she hears a noise and turns to see old-fashioned shoes and white pant legs behind one of the doors. The ghost boy is there. Suddenly, the lights go out, and Claire can hear whispering. The ghost asks, “Where are they?” (119) over and over. The lights flicker and Claire catches a glimpse of the ghost boy in the mirror before the bathroom goes dark again. Unable to find the exit, Claire starts to cry.
Chapter 20 Summary
Claire hears Casley’s voice asking if she is okay. The lights come back on. The ghost is gone. Claire tells Casley about the ghost. Casley is surprised and skeptical, but she is pleased that Claire is confiding in her. She reminds Claire that it is okay to be scared and that Claire helped her through her fear of her parents’ divorce. She will help Claire now. Claire is relieved that they have reconciled. She explains that she believes that the ghost wants something from her and will keep haunting her until she figures out what. The faucets in the bathroom suddenly start gushing water. The toilets flush, the lights flicker, and the girls cannot turn the water off. Claire yells at the ghost to stop, and everything returns to normal. Casley is shocked but she now believes Claire’s story and promises to help. Claire apologizes for being mean to Emily and admits that she was worried Emily would take her place. Casley insists that no one could ever replace Claire, and Claire agrees to give Emily a chance at friendship.
Chapter 21 Summary
Claire and Casley meet after school. Casley does not appear to be afraid and promises that she would never let her best friend face a ghost alone. Emily arrives, to Claire’s surprise, and Casley reveals that she invited her so that they could talk together. She believes that Emily will be a great help in their investigation because she likes puzzles. Emily understands that Claire must have felt left out recently, but she explains that Casley has been a good friend to her. She is currently going through a difficult time: Her parents recently divorced and her mom lost her job. Claire apologizes for how she has treated Emily.
Chapter 22 Summary
Claire was not expecting Emily’s story. Emily seems like she has a perfect life. Emily goes on to explain that she and her mom have moved to Chicago to stay with her aunt while her mom looks for work. Casley comforted Emily one day when she was crying, and Emily confided in her about what is happening in her life. The two girls bonded over their shared experience of parental divorce. Emily likes makeup because it is a distraction from her life that helps her stay positive. She was trying to use makeup to cheer Claire up the other day in the cafeteria. Claire apologizes again to Emily, who accepts and apologizes in return. Claire feels a lot better. She tells Emily that she and Casley are in the middle of investigating a ghost haunting. Emily assumes that she is joking, but Casley confirms the existence of the ghost. Emily agrees to help them, and they all head to Claire’s house.
Chapters 16-22 Analysis
This central section resolves the novel’s central emotional conflict up to this point: the hurt and fear that Claire has felt about Casley and Emily, developing the theme of Overcoming Fear. Because of this resolution, the thematic focus of the book shifts during this part from Feeling Left Behind to Uncovering the Real Story, and the novel shows that the negative feelings represented by the first theme hindered Claire’s ability to move forward with the second. This section focuses again on the importance of trust, teamwork, and respect. In their first real conversations in the novel, the girls all show that they have all helped one another in different ways and wish to do so for the future. Claire’s fears are allayed by Casley and Emily’s openness with her, which reveals that she had made negative assumptions. In particular, Casley’s avoidance of judgment, her reassurance, and her restraint in the face of Claire’s anger show her to be a role model in the novel, as a character whose emotional regulation is more mature than Claire’s at this point.
Overcoming Fear is getting extremely difficult for Claire. She starts to feel as though there are no places in her life where she can be safe: The ghost will still haunt her if she sleeps in her closet, and he will even haunt her at school. The only thing that makes Claire start to feel better is the fact that she now has some allies who can help her learn why she is being haunted and restore her life to its usual equilibrium. When the ghost frightens Claire and Casley in the bathroom, Claire yells at him to stop, and he does. This is an important moment: It shows Claire that if she is willing to stand up for herself, the things that frighten her or cause her pain will have less power over her. She is no longer as afraid of ghosts as she once was, which indicates a major moment of character growth.
At the beginning of this section of the story, Claire is still Feeling Left Behind in her friendship with Casley. Casley tells her that change is not always bad, but that is a hard thing to hear for someone in Claire’s position whose primary experience of that change is what she perceives to be the loss of her closest friendship. On the other hand, Casley has her own moment of feeling left behind when Claire says that she has told her brother about her secrets instead of telling Casley. The two of them are usually each other’s primary confidantes, and it is painful for them both to recognize the ways in which they have started to drift apart. Claire has not yet fully realized that a friendship is a two-way street and that how she treats Casley is just as important as how Casley treats her.
Fortunately, Sam’s advice for his sister turns out to be correct: Talking to Casley is the best way to resolve their differences and save their friendship. Casley tells Claire in no uncertain terms that she will not leave her behind, and she also expresses her willingness to help with the ghost investigation. In return, Claire just has to give Emily a chance instead of resorting to snap judgments about her. Getting to know Emily is all about Uncovering the Real Story. It turns out that Emily’s life is not perfect; she is struggling with a very difficult set of circumstances. Claire is slowly learning that things and people are not always what they seem. She even has to accept that Emily’s interest in makeup is not just vanity; it is a way to distract herself from her pain.
The novel makes some tongue-in-cheek references to the way it showcases Chicago’s history. When Claire’s father announces at dinner that he is writing a second book, his wife says that she really admires the way he brings otherwise forgotten history to light. Both Claire’s parents are role models for Uncovering the Real Story. Despite this, Claire dismisses her father’s research as embarrassing and invasive and still has to learn the value of an approach that combines evidence and belief. This moment foreshadows the book’s ending: As Claire has already intuited, the ghost haunting her died during a real Chicago tragedy. The fact that she has not yet figured out which tragedy provides the ongoing mystery suspense for the rest of the novel.
