47 pages • 1 hour read
Jaleigh JohnsonThe Mark of the Dragonfly
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014A 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 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Trimble comes to check on Gee’s condition after the slaver attack. The chamelin still has trouble breathing, though he shrugs off the advice to rest. The train is three days away from Cutting Gap, a dangerous pass, and Gee will need his strength to fend off bandit attacks.
The following morning, Piper is awakened by the steward. He is concerned because Anna is wreaking havoc in the train’s library car. Piper suspects that Anna is “organizing things” the way she did back in Piper’s shack, and she agrees to take care of the problem. Piper finds Anna seated on the floor with towers of books piled around her, claiming that this is the optimum way to read because she can see all the titles at once. She changes her mind when the train’s motion topples her book stacks. Then, she allows Piper to help her put everything back in the bookcases. Anna has an encyclopedic memory for facts of all kinds. She says she dimly remembers reading some of the books in the library before. She also recalls a kindly old man reading to her out of them. She also shows Piper a jagged scar on the back of her neck. She recalls that this has something to do with Doloman, though she doesn’t think he caused her injury.
After breakfast, Anna returns to her books while Piper searches for Gee to thank him for his timely rescue the night before. Gee says that there is something he wants to show Piper at the back of the train. As the two walk, they converse, and Gee reveals that he is 13, like Piper. He also says that he was sold into slavery by his parents when he was only 7. Gee was eventually rescued by Jeyne and has worked aboard the train ever since. It has become his home, and Trimble and Jeyne are his family.
They eventually reach the car where Piper first entered the train. Gee is perplexed as to how she disabled the fire vent. Piper protests that she did nothing, but Gee isn’t convinced. He says she has some special power over machines because the train has been running unusually well ever since she boarded it. He fetches Trimble and has Piper explain that, in her terror, she willed the vent to malfunction. Trimble isn’t surprised by Piper’s command of machinery since he can command fire not to burn him. He demonstrates this ability by holding a flame in his hand.
Trimble explains that people with powers like theirs are called synergists and that this is a rare magical gift. He wants to test Piper’s ability by duplicating her command of the fire vent, but she refuses: “You think I’m going to stand in front of the fire vent again, maybe whistle a pretty tune while I wait for it to turn me crispy? No, thank you” (231). Gee apologizes for the suggestion but then collapses, overcome by the toxin still in his system.
Chapter 13 Summary
Two guards and Trimble carry Gee back to his cabin, with Piper trailing behind. Trimble explains that he is the train’s healer and can prepare antidotes, but a chamelin’s biology differs from a human’s, and his potions have little effect. Gee is still unconscious and is now gasping for breath, but Piper has a brainstorm and runs to fetch Anna. She concludes that Anna’s immense book knowledge might be of use. The girl brings several volumes to Gee’s cabin, where Trimble, Piper, and Anna search madly for any information that might help. Eventually, Anna starts researching the toxic powder the slavers use to stupefy their prey. She finds the core ingredient and makes a connection to bat physiology. Anna concludes that bacteria have infected Gee’s lungs because of the weaker immune system of his species. Trimble immediately knows what to do and goes to prepare a remedy. After he administers the treatment, the girls spend a tense night watching for any improvement in Gee’s condition. Several hours later, he is breathing freely again. The girls then return to their cabin to get some rest.
Early the next morning, Piper wakes up to test Trimble’s theory that she can magically command machinery. While the train is stopped at a station, she disembarks and trips the pressure plate, which should result in a fiery blast from the vent. Using all her willpower, she commands the vent to close. She succeeds, but the effort almost knocks her out. Piper concludes that big mechanical objects take more power than little ones. On her way back to her cabin, Piper begins to consider a future as a mechanic aboard the 401. She believes that this is where she truly belongs.
Chapter 14 Summary
Later that morning, Piper goes to Gee’s cabin to see how he’s doing. She finds him standing on the rear open platform, where he explains what awaits them at Cutting Gap. Bandits inhabit the caves on either side of the tracks and often attack from the sky using gliders. While the front of the train is well protected, the rear is more vulnerable because someone must run back to trigger the defense systems.
Piper volunteers to take that post. Gee agrees that they have a day before they reach the gap, so he takes Piper to the car where Trimble keeps the schematics for the train’s defenses. Piper immediately grasps what each system is supposed to do. There are smoke screens and spikes that jut out of the roof to repel boarders. Gee’s job is to fly above the train and stop the gliders, while Piper and Anna will protect the back of the train by manually activating the defenses.
Chapter 15 Summary
It doesn’t take long before the train is under attack. Unexpectedly, the bandits are heading for the rear cars, so Piper and Anna immediately spring into action. Anna begins loading crossbows and says that she remembers how to shoot one. They manage to prevent the gliders from landing on the roof. When Piper climbs onto the roof, she sees gliders with nets, presumably to snare Gee. Before one reaches him, she shoots an arrow from a crossbow, causing the glider to crash. While she is distracted, Piper doesn’t realize that another aircraft is swooping down to catch her. She fights with the pilot in midair and tips one of the glider’s wings, forcing the aircraft lower. Making a desperate move to escape, Piper jumps through the air, hoping to land on the train’s roof.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
Much of the third segment focuses on the theme of Hybrid Identities. Gee has already noticed Piper’s almost magical way with machines, and he suggests that she has a strange power over them. This notion frightens Piper, and she denies that it could be true. Piper had already been the target of fear and superstition in the scrap towns when people began gossiping that she might have some unusual power with mechanical devices. Fear turns to violence, and she does her best to avoid being singled out as different.
When Trimble joins the conversation, he demonstrates his ability to control fire and explains that Piper is a synergist:
‘I just have magic inside me that the fire responds to. It makes me immune to it, and I can manipulate it like a baker molds his dough.’ His blue eyes pierced her. ‘I have a connection to it, the same way you do with machines’ (228).
This explanation does little to alleviate Piper’s fears. She worries about being viewed as a freak. In previous chapters, Gee mentions his altercations with humans who have seen his chamelin transformation. Their terror immediately turned to anger.
Piper believes she could lose everything if her abilities are noticed:
What about the people who call him a monster for what he can do? That’s all it takes, you know. They find something about you that they don’t like, something different, or some weakness—[…]. They take everything from you! (230).
Piper perceives being a hybrid and being different in any way as threatening. Trimble does his best to point out the value of unique abilities. Knowing she isn’t the only person with such a gift causes Piper to begin to value her power and its potential use to the crew of the 401:
She had something to contribute—her magic. She didn’t know how her power worked, but she made machines run better, and when she needed to, she could make them stop running. That was worth something, even if it set her apart or made her strange (263-64).
Although everyone, including the reader, is still unaware of Anna’s hybrid nature, she demonstrates power over the written word in this segment. When Gee nearly dies because of the slaver dust, Anna is the one who is able to suggest the right remedy. She does so by consulting her beloved books and making logical connections among unrelated snippets of information. The hybrid group on the train has now expanded to four: Gee, Trimble, Piper, and Anna.
The 401 is foregrounded in this segment as the refuge for all these hybrid beings. More than simply offering a container to transport them to Noveen, the train also shelters what is rapidly becoming a found family. In this respect, the 401 has become a home for the homeless, and the theme of Finding Home is emphasized. When Gee reveals that his parents sold him into slavery, Piper is appalled that someone couldn’t even trust their own family:
‘You didn’t tell me that part.’ ‘About the scars?’ ‘That you were a slave! I mean, you warned me about the slavers, but I didn’t know…your parents…they sold you?’ The idea was incomprehensible to Piper (219).
Gee is as much of a social outcast as Piper and Anna and regards the 401 as his only home. During the crew’s battle with the bandits in Cutting Pass, Piper and Anna volunteer to defend the rear of the train while Trimble and Jeyne guard the front, and Gee offers protection from the air. As the battle intensifies, it becomes clear that Piper and Anna are fighting for more than simply valuable train cargo. They are fighting to protect their only source of refuge in an uncaring world.
When Piper sees Gee about to be snared by bandits in gliders, she tries to defend him with a crossbow. Later, she sacrifices her freedom so that he can escape their clutches. He, in turn, repays her devotion by returning to rescue her from her captors. Anna, too, tries to defend the train to the best of her limited abilities by triggering the defense in Piper’s absence and sheltering Gee and Piper when they return to the train. The battle seems to cement the bond that forms among the hybrids who could never find a home in the human world but have found an ambulatory home aboard the 401 and a family among its crew.
