43 pages • 1 hour read
Anthony HorowitzStormbreaker
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000A 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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Physalia Physalia”
The following day, Alex rides to Port Tallon. He is amazed by the beauty of the fishing town. He notices the tin mine near Sayle Enterprises, which he knows to have been used for thousands of years before the tin ran out. They arrive at Sayle’s house. Inside, Alex sees several artworks including one called Judgment Day showing a “swirling mass of doomed souls and demons” (90). Alex also sees a large aquarium containing a jellyfish. Sayle greets him and says the jellyfish reminds him of himself. Alex accidentally introduces himself as Alex instead of Felix. However, he protects his cover by explaining that he likes to be called Alex because of the name’s connection to his favorite soccer team. Sayle is friendly toward Alex, making him question Blunt’s suspicions. Sayle introduces Alex to his butler, Mr. Grin, who used to catch knives with his teeth. An accident mutilated his mouth and cut out his tongue. Sayle has Mr. Grin show Alex to his room, the same one Ian stayed in when he was undercover as a security guard. Alex uses the bug detector Game Boy cartridge and finds one behind a picture on the wall. After eating and showering, Alex goes to bed. As he tries to fall asleep, he notices a group of armed men entering Sayle Enterprises and wonders what Ian learned when he was in the same room.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Looking for Trouble”
Alex wakes in the morning and notices a paper folded in the canopy of the bed. It shows a design with a number under it in Ian’s handwriting. Alex uses the Game Boy to have MI6 examine the paper. Mr. Grin knocks, and Alex leaves with him. A German woman named Nadia Vole takes Alex to try out the Stormbreaker computer. Alex quickly becomes engrossed in the programs and admires Sayle’s gift with computers. After a few hours, he decides to investigate the building. He finds supplies and people working in blocks named A, B, and C. The door to Block D is locked. He uses the x-ray Game Boy cartridge and sees people on the other side of the door. He uses earbuds to listen to their conversation. He hears them preparing for the Stormbreaker’s release, and they reveal that something will be delivered at two o’clock in the morning. He finds Mrs. Vole behind him, telling him he was not supposed to leave. He explains that he needed a break and was looking for a bathroom. Mrs. Vole tells him there is only a generator in Block D. He believes that she is keeping something from him and that she suspects him.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Night Visitors”
Alex goes to meet Sayle and finds him playing snooker. Sayle invites him to join the game and wagers £10 a ball. Sayle asks Alex about his life, and Alex successfully answers as Felix Lester. Alex beats Sayle, winning £4,000. Sayle takes his loss poorly, but at dinner his mood improves. Sayle asks Alex about Stormbreaker. Alex tells him he likes it and suggests adding a headset and a microphone. Sayle tells him he looks like the security guard Ian Rider. Alex says he never met him. He then says he knows Alex wandered off, but Alex says he got lost. Sayle tells him not to leave the house to prevent the security guards from shooting him. He jokes, however, that he would not have to pay Alex the £4,000 if he were dead. In the middle of the night, Alex leaves to find out what is arriving at two o’clock. He sneaks into the back of a truck, which drives to the seashore. A submarine emerges, and Yassen Gregorovich exits. He, Mr. Grin, Mrs. Vole, and others start unloading metal boxes from the submarine. When a security guard accidentally drops a box, Yassen sees no damage but shoots the man, allowing the sea to wash the body away. As the trucks prepare to drive back to the house, Alex tries to open one of the boxes but cannot. He looks back and sees that the submarine is gone.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapters 7 and 8 show Sayle as charming and brilliant, and these traits quickly earn Alex’s admiration and respect. He starts questioning Blunt and Mrs. Jones’s suspicions and thinks Sayle might be doing genuine good for England’s schoolchildren. Alex’s first impression reflects both Sayle’s charm and charisma and Alex’s naivete as he begins his spy career. Sayle’s façade starts to come undone in Chapter 9 when Alex beats him at snooker and he cannot hide his anger. Moreover, Alex starts to become suspicious about Sayle and his company when they receive the boxes from Yassen.
Yassen Gregorovich appears in Chapter 9, quickly making a formidable impression on both Alex and Sayle’s guards. His cold, remorseless execution of a guard shows his intolerance of failure and incompetence. Yassen’s unemotional attitude toward Sayle’s men foreshadows his killing of Sayle at the end of the novel and his lack of loyalty toward anyone other than his organization. This act of violence shocks Alex and indicates that the boxes’ contents are not mundane. Sayle’s Stormbreaker might not be generous or benevolent.
Chapters 7-9 highlight Perseverance in the Face of Difficulty in Alex’s exploration of Sayle Enterprises and his efforts to uncover the nature of the Stormbreaker project. He uses his gadgets to investigate the house and provide intelligence to MI6. Then, in Chapter 8, Alex explores the four blocks comprising the Sayle Enterprises building. He ends up in the highly restricted Block D, where he learns that the workers will receive a shipment early in the morning. Later, Alex sees the guards, Mrs. Vole, and Yassen loading the metal boxes. Alex’s adventures in this section show him acting as a spy for the first time and quickly gathering important information. Alex also finds Ian’s diagram and begins his path to uncovering its meaning.
The Interplay of Technology and Espionage becomes essential as Alex begins his spy work. Alex uses his Game Boy to find the bug behind the portrait in his room. He also uses it to detect people on the other side of the metal door in Block D and learns about the delivery. Furthermore, he uses it to send a message about the diagram to his handlers. Smithers’s technology helps Alex while appearing as normal items a teenager might possess. Alex’s gadgets become even more important later in the novel.
The Judgment Day painting and the jellyfish appear as symbols and motifs concerning Herod Sayle. The Judgment Day painting foreshadows Sayle’s plan to wipe out England’s schoolchildren. The painting, one of many artworks in Sayle’s house, is the first one Alex sees when he enters and the only one the novel focuses on. Sayle demonizes England and its schoolchildren and sees them as damnable souls who deserve his righteous judgment. The painting reappears in the novel after Alex learns of Stormbreaker’s purpose.
The jellyfish symbolizes Sayle’s external image as a quiet but strong figure whom others respect, with Sayle proudly comparing the jellyfish to himself: “It’s an outsider […] It drifts on its own ignored by the other fish. It is silent and yet it demands respect” (93). This comparison foreshadows the revelation that he had been bullied at school and felt like an outsider as an Egyptian immigrant. Sayle then mentions the jellyfish’s stingers and delightedly remarks that whomever the jellyfish stings would endure “an unforgettable death” (93). Sayle intends “an unforgettable death” for the children who become victims of his project, which his comparison foreshadows.
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By Anthony Horowitz
