The Cricket In Times Square

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1960

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-15

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary: “Chinese Dinner”

Mario worries that Chester ate the $2 bill because the cricket wasn’t getting the right food. Mario takes Chester to Chinatown to ask Sai Fong what to feed him. It’s late when Mario arrives, and Sai Fong’s shop is closed, but Mario hears voices speaking in Chinese and knocks. Sai Fong is glad to see the “little clicket boy” (76). An elderly Chinese friend is visiting for dinner, and the old man is excited to meet Mario and Chester. Sai Fong invites Mario to share dinner with them. He sets another place with beautiful plates featuring an “Oriental” design and brings a purple robe for Mario to wear. Sai Fong wears a blue-and-green robe, and his friend wears a red-and-gold robe. Sai Fong places Chester’s cage in the middle of the table. The three share a delicious meal of different Chinese dishes including chow yuk, fried rice with pork, and duck with pineapple. Sai Fong makes a miniature version of the dinner for Chester, who chirps with joy. Mario, after getting used to chopsticks, greatly enjoys the meal.

After dinner, the two men smoke their pipes, and Mario explains the problem with Chester’s diet. The men consult a book written in Chinese and discover that an ancient Chinese princess fed her cricket mulberry leaves. Sai Fong has a mulberry tree outside his window and gives Mario leaves for Chester. Chester is so happy that he sings while everyone listens contentedly. The older gentleman is moved to tears. Mario is glad that Chester made the men so happy.

Chapter 10 Summary: “The Dinner Party”

To celebrate the two-month anniversary of his arrival in New York, Chester holds a dinner party in the newsstand for Harry Cat and Tucker. Tucker proudly provides the food: scraps of liverwurst, bacon, lettuce, and tomato, pieces of chocolate bars, and Tucker’s crowning achievement: ice for their soda pop. Chester is impressed. Harry, returning from an outdoor concert, tells Chester that he plays better than the violinist. Harry turns on the Bellinis’ radio while they eat. When Harry hears his favorite song, Chester urges Harry to sing. Harry yowls along with the song and then asks Chester to play. Inspired by thoughts of his country home, Chester creates a beautiful song. The friends are enthusiastic and ask Chester to play something they know. Chester listens first to the “Blue Danube Waltz,” which he immediately memorizes and plays perfectly, even improvising to the tune. Chester learns Italian folk songs, opera hits, and a rhumba that inspires Tucker to dance.

Unfortunately, Tucker twirls into a box of matches, which tumble and strike the concrete floor. One ignites, setting fire to a bundle of newspapers. The animals put the remaining ice on the fire, but it flares up again. They push magazines on it to smother the flames but block their exit. Chester leaps onto the Bellinis’ alarm clock, setting off the alarm. They hear Paul, the train conductor, say that he smells smoke and then hear sounds as men lift the cover of the newsstand. The animals escape through the smoke.

Chapter 11 Summary: “The Jinx”

The friends watch from the drainpipe as Paul extinguishes the fire and calls Papa Bellini. Chester insists that he must return to the newsstand, or the Bellinis will think he started the fire and ran away. Chester is downhearted as he sneaks back into his cage. The Bellinis arrive quickly, and Papa tries to console Mama, saying they didn’t lose much inventory, but Mama believes that the family business is “ruined.” When Paul describes seeing animals run out of the newsstand, Mama is immediately furious with Chester, whom she accuses of starting the fire and bringing animals into the stand. She insists that he’s bad luck and must go. Mario knows she means it. He and Papa quietly clean up the newsstand and start selling papers. Chester feels guilty. While the fire wasn’t directly his fault, he feels responsible and worries that he’s a jinx.

Tucker checks on Chester, who is sad and unconsciously begins playing one of the Italian folksongs he learned. Mama Bellini asks in Italian who is singing. Tucker urges Chester to keep playing the song, which turns out to be Mama’s favorite song, “Come Back to Sorrento.” It brings back happy memories of when Papa wooed Mama in Italy. She begins to sing along with Chester, who plays his very best. Mario is astounded. Papa is agog when he returns and hears Chester, who is now playing opera. Mama says that any cricket who could sing the song so beautifully couldn’t have set the fire. Chester can stay. Tucker excitedly offers to be Chester’s manager.

Chapter 12 Summary: “Mr. Smedley”

After the Bellinis leave, Tucker, Harry, and Chester relax in the newsstand. Tucker observes three things: that Chester has a lot of talent (Harry concurs wholeheartedly), Chester shouldn’t waste this talent, and maybe Chester can generate some money. Tucker suggests that any profits will help the struggling newsstand and keep Mama Bellini happy with Chester. If Tucker also happens to benefit, that’s okay too. Chester wants to help the family. While Harry and Tucker prefer Chester’s original songs, they suggest that he learn songs humans would recognize. Chester listens to the radio and learns new music, including several movements from symphonies and songs from musicals.

The Bellinis return Sunday morning and anxiously wait to see if Chester will play again. Chester starts with a hymn, and the Bellinis are overjoyed. Mr. Smedley arrives to buy his copy of Musical America. The Bellinis excitedly describe Chester’s new ability to the kind but disbelieving Mr. Smedley. However, the music teacher is floored when Chester breaks into “Onward Christian Soldiers.” He listens to Chester perform for an hour, entranced with Chester’s perfect pitch, beautiful phrasing, and the heart he puts into his song. Mr. Smedley thinks everyone should hear about Chester. He writes a flowery, gushing letter to the music editor of the New York Times, praising Chester as a “musical miracle”—while also advertising his music lessons.

Chapters 9-12 Analysis

Chester and his friends experience a rollercoaster of emotions in this section as Chester’s growing sense of belonging in New York suffers a blow with the newsstand fire and is then followed by a rapid return of confidence and security as the Bellinis and Mr. Smedley praise his musical ability. While Selden continues to build on themes of personal courage and the value of friendship, in this section, he greatly expands on the theme The Power of Music, highlighting how Chester’s music has profound effects on thoughts and feelings.

After two months in New York, Chester feels both happy and comfortable. He has settled into his matchbox and enjoys being with his friends. Harry, with his steady support, is “an awfully nice person” (107); big-hearted, funny Tucker bends over backward for his friends, putting them first despite his materialistic nature; and Mario and Sai Fong also strive to make Chester feel happy and valued. With the support of all his friends, Chester is content. Chester’s friends, along with the personal courage Chester shows in adapting to his new life, help make New York a home, foregrounding the theme Home: Where the Heart Is. Chester’s feelings of contentment inspire him to sing his own songs after the Chinese dinner he enjoys so much and when he happily performs for Harry and Chester. Music, in these cases, stems from joy. Chester’s joy turns to heartbreak, however, when the fire hurts the family that has been so kind to him. Although the fire isn’t directly his fault, Chester feels guilty because he sees how it negatively impacts the Bellinis. Chester’s guilt stems from his feelings of friendship and connection. His guilt is maladaptive, because it’s based on circumstances that Chester couldn’t control, yet for which Chester still feels responsible because he suggested the party and inspired Tucker to dance. Chester, understandingly, doesn’t blame Tucker for his clumsiness or Mama Bellini for her anger.

Chester again reveals his personal integrity by returning to the newsstand after the fire and facing the consequences. The fire and Mama Bellini’s angry accusations and hostile rejection deflate Chester’s good mood and self-confidence. He engages in negative self-talk and begins to believe Mama Bellini’s claim that he’s bad luck. In his downheartedness, Chester even rejects the positive things he has experienced, wishing that “[he] had never come to New York” (101), a comment that cuts Tucker, who dearly loves both Chester and the glories of his New York City home. Music helps soothe Chester’s unhappy feelings: “He found that it helped somehow if you sang your sadness” (101). By unconsciously singing the folk song that is Mama Bellini’s favorite, Chester turns everyone’s mood around and launches a change in the Bellinis’ family fortune.

Music has a powerful positive effect on mood, emotions, and memory. Hearing his favorite song on the radio brings Harry joy and inspires him to sing (88). When Chester plays a spicy rhumba beat, it energizes Tucker to dance. Chester’s songs also summon cherished memories and help people recall their feelings at the time those memories were made. Chester’s original composition brings Sai Fong’s elderly friend to tears: He feels “like being in palace garden” (83). When Mama hears Chester’s rendition of “Torna a Surriento”—her emotional favorite song—brings Mama back in time to the positive memory of Papa serenading her on moonlit nights in Italy. The memory, inspired by the music, extinguishes Mama’s anger and unhappiness. She speaks in Italian, something Mario knows she only does when she’s “in a good mood” (82). Music “softens” Mama’s hard edges.

Her feelings toward Chester completely reverse because his music is so beautiful and because it mentally transported her back to a positive time and helped her carry those warm feelings into her present: Chester can’t be bad luck. Chester’s music affects the moods of other characters too. Papa, an opera enthusiast, is thrilled with Chester’s operatic offerings. Mr. Smedley—a “musicologist” who has, as he proclaims in his letter to the New York Times, spent “a lifetime devoted to the sublime art. (Music, that is)” (115)—is also profoundly moved by Chester’s playing. Mr. Smedley is impressed with both Chester’s technical prowess, like his perfect pitch, and his musicality, or his sensitivity, emotion, and expression. Listening to Chester’s concert inspires Mr. Smedley to reach out to fellow music lovers and foreshadows Chester and the Bellini family’s fame and fortune.