64 pages • 2 hours read
Watt KeyTerror at Bottle Creek
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Cort can sense the hurricane coming. The animals have all left, leaving the area unnaturally quiet and still. He goes to the Stovall house for breakfast and to discuss preparations for the storm. While Mrs. Stovall cooks him bacon and eggs, Cort thinks of how his father never cooks anymore since his mother left. It begins to rain.
Chapter 11 Summary
Liza helps Cort and his father move their possessions from the houseboat to the Stovalls’ garage. Despite the rain, Cort does not bother with a raincoat, reasoning that he will get wet through whatever he wears. Cort’s father still cannot decide what to do about the houseboat, but eventually he starts working on it because “[i]t’s gettin’ mean out there” (57).
Chapter 12 Summary
After helping Liza prepare propane lanterns, Cort goes to help his father with the houseboat. They tie it off with heavy rope to two sturdy water oaks and adjust the stabilizing poles at the corners of the boat’s platform. Cort’s father tells him to get Catfish out of the boat while he goes to get final supplies from the shops. Catfish is reluctant to leave, and Cort has to make a rope leash and haul him off the sofa and out onto the deck.
Chapter 13 Summary
Cort recalls how Liza saw Catfish first, while they were playing in the woods. He was a stray, and Cort was quick to befriend him before Liza did, suddenly realizing that he really wanted a dog. Since then, they have been together all the time. Cort tells him everything, even talking about his feelings about his mother and father’s breakup, and Catfish makes him feel “a little less alone in the world” (63).
Cort ties the dog up in the garage and he whines, wanting to go back to the boat. Looking from the Stovalls’ house, it seems that the houseboat is not level and one of the ropes is too tight. This could make it list, fill with water, and break loose from its moorings (64). He tries to radio his father, but there is no answer; Cort thinks, “Surely he isn’t at Mom’s now […] Not with all this going on” (65).
Chapter 14 Summary
The beginnings of the storm strike, but Cort’s father is still not answering his radio. Mrs. Stovall says she will go and pick him up once she has put Francie to bed. Cort is angry with his father for prioritizing his mother and putting the Stovalls in danger.
Mrs. Stovall leaves but does not return. An hour later, she calls to let them know that she and Cort’s father are at Cort’s mother’s house but cannot get back because the creek has flooded. Cort speaks to his father and tells him about the houseboat floating wrong. He realizes that the phones will soon be cut off and he can’t ask him everything that he needs to know. His father tries to explain that his mother is on her own, but Cort angrily cuts him off, reminding him, “She’s a grown-up, Dad! We’re kids!” (70). His father reassures him that he can handle the situation. Cort has no other choice because it will be days before the floods allow his father and Mrs. Stovall to return.
Chapter 15 Summary
Cort cheers up when he realizes that he can spend the night with Liza but worries that she does not like him. However, when he asks her what she thinks of living on a houseboat, she seems to like it. He admits that he sometimes wants to live in a brick house, and Liza assures him that he will someday. She doesn’t want to leave the river but admits that it’s not the same without her father. Their conversation is cut off by a loud crash and the power cutting out.
Chapter 16 Summary
While Cort gets the generator going, Liza gets Francie from her room, where she is crying out for their mother. Once they have power, Liza calls her mother to calm Francie. Cort goes back out to check on Catfish and finds him straining on his leash, looking towards the houseboat. Cort sees a deer standing frozen in confusion. It occurs to him that “deer, wild hogs, bears—everything” (77) are fleeing out of the swamp in search of safety.
Chapter 17 Summary
The storm continues to rage outside and a branch smashes through Liza’s bedroom window, terrifying Francie. They try to calm her down but she is worried about Catfish and wants to go see him. Liza intends to go with her sister, but while Cort is using his shirt to gather up the broken glass, he hears her shout: Francie’s hand got caught in Catfish’s leash, and she was dragged away when the dog bolted.
Chapters 10-17 Analysis
Having introduced the key characters and some of the themes and symbols, the tension in the novel begins to increase as the storm begins, leading to the main narrative of the story. This tension is reflected in short chapters that increase the pace of the plot, and the increasing use of cliffhangers pull the reader on through the text.
As the storm arrives, Cort’s father still cannot decide what to do about the houseboat, again representing his confused and distant relationship with his son and his family home. It is not until the storm’s intensity increases that Cort’s father knows what to do about the boat. The storm symbolizes the tensions within the family, something that will soon come to a head and affect Cort’s safety, largely because of his father’s lack of proper engagement with him and the storm preparations. The houseboat becomes even more symbolic when Cort later notices that it has been tied up badly and is not standing level, meaning that it could easily tip, fill with water, and come loose from the shore. The boat, like the relationship between those who live on it, is no longer stable. Cort’s father is not fulfilling his responsibilities as a father, which introduces the theme of responsibility differences between children and adults. This is highlighted when Cort tries to radio him to tell him about the problem and discovers that his father is with Cort’s mother instead of with his young son.
This makes Cort feel isolated, especially after he discovers that he only feels comfortable confiding in Catfish about his problems. Cort’s parents are not providing him with what he needs: support, understanding, and a place to talk about his feelings. Therefore, Cort is taking responsibility for more than he should. This enforced responsibility erupts as anger when Cort recognizes that his father is putting him and the Stovalls in danger because he keeps prioritizing Cort’s mother. Cort is forced to remind his father that, as an adult, his mother should take responsibility for herself while, as a child, Cort should not have so much responsibility forced upon him. Cort’s father assures Cort that he is up to the task and is capable of handling it on his own. This is a mixed experience for Cort: On the one hand, it is part of his coming-of-age story and his growth into an adult. On the other hand, it is too soon and dangerous for his father to give him so much responsibility.
The symbol of the houseboat reappears in the later chapters of this section. When Cort is anxiously discussing it with Liza, we see it reflecting the theme of connection and belonging as Cort expresses his concern that living on a houseboat makes him an outsider and will prevent Liza from loving him. His worries are relieved slightly when she says that she actually thinks living on a house boat is “kind of cool” (73). However, when she admits that life on the river is not the same without her father, he feels that anxious separation from her again, feeling shame about his lifestyle, and preparing for the possibility of more loss.
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