56 pages • 1 hour read
Sharon CreechThe Great Unexpected
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2012A 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 51-57Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 51 Summary: “Ashes”
On the day of the funeral, Nula carries Sybil’s ashes to the Crooked Bridge, and Miss Pilpenny runs across with them as fast as she can, for old times’ sake. She declares that, once again, she and Sybil have escaped the evil spirits. At the gravesite, there are two stones: one with Sybil’s name and one blank. Miss Pilpenny says that Mr. Dingle will explain and that it’s part of Sybil’s revenge. She deposits a murder mystery called After the Funeral into the hole where Nula places Sybil’s ashes, citing Sybil’s enjoyment of the genre. On the way back to the house, Miss Pilpenny shows them all the stone into which Sybil herself carved “F.M.” and the symbol of the broken heart. She did this just after Paddy McCoul stole her money and ran off. The stone used to be elsewhere, but it was moved here to mark where Paddy’s son, Finnbarr, died, having fallen from a tree. Miss Pilpenny says that Paddy’s grave is next to Finn’s in the cemetery, though Paddy is still around.
Chapter 52 Summary: “The Great Unexpected”
Mr. Dingle reads Sybil’s will. To her cook, Dora Capolini, she leaves her silver tea set, candelabra, and money. It’s enough for Dora to visit her sister in America. To Sybil’s gardener, Michael Canner, she leaves her hall clock, Albert’s gold pocket watch, and money. It’s enough to bring his brother over from America.
Sybil also leaves large amounts of money to Miss Pilpenny and Nula. Mr. Dingle hands Nula a gold bracelet with a rook charm, and she realizes it was Sybil who sent her the birds. Sybil has also left money and the entire orchard estate to Lizzie and Naomi, with the proviso that Miss Pilpenny and Nula be permitted to live there. She hopes to better the lives of these young girls, who have had so few opportunities. Sybil wants Miss Pilpenny to care for Rook, for Nula to be buried next to Sybil (hence the blank second stone), and for Naomi and Lizzie to take care of her dogs. Mr. Dingle says that this is “Sybil’s revenge.” Sybil knew she and Nula were used by Paddy, who stole her money and drove a wedge between them, and that the Master—Sybil’s father-in-law—felt women were worthless and deserved no rights. Thus, Sybil’s revenge on these men is that the women, together, will control the estate. Lizzie can’t believe this is real, and Nula is shocked. Naomi, however, is worried about the dogs.
Chapter 53 Summary: “One More Trunk”
Naomi wonders if any sudden change, even a good one, is jarring. Nula feels sorry to have misjudged Sybil and wishes she’d seen her sister before she died, but she is very grateful. Lizzie is shocked at their good fortune, and she hopes Naomi can bring herself to be around the dogs because, otherwise, they must give it all up. Naomi tells herself that her visions of the dogs lunging at her are not real, but her fear is. Naomi cries, unsure why, and she feels like someone has pulled them up a ladder and shown them the world. Anything seems possible. Nula tells her it is “okay to accept good fortune” (210).
Later, Miss Pilpenny asks Lizzie and Naomi to help with young Finn McCoul’s trunk in the nearby cottage. The cottage is filled with iron rooks the Kavanaghs used to give to guests. Miss Pilpenny confesses that she sent her sister (Lizzie’s mother) a pair of rooks while Margaret worked as a nurse in Ravensworth. Lizzie wants to know everything: all the stories about everyone and everything. Naomi, on the other hand, doesn’t want to know everything; she wants some things to remain mysteries. Miss Pilpenny explains that she, Margaret, and Sybil loved Finn, Paddy’s son, very much, but one day, he told Margaret that he dug up a sack of gold from inside the fairy ring. Margaret got so mad she hit him with a bag of flour, and he died the next day. His trunk contains clothing and personal items, as well as a secret compartment. Naomi jiggles it open and finds a bag. The bag is full of coins.
Chapter 54 Summary: “Across the Ocean: The Mail”
It is now sunny and calm in Blackbird Tree. Mrs. Mudkin gets a check from an anonymous donor who wishes to help the unfortunate. Down the street, Mrs. Cupwright opens a letter with a check as well. “Crazy” Cora opens a letter from her sister Dora, and she learns Dora is coming for a visit. Mr. Canner reads the letter from his brother, Michael, and can hardly believe that he is, at last, going to Ireland. Bo Dimmens and another boy stand in the ashes of Joe and Nula’s barn, and Bo is amazed that someone is giving them the property. A ring of mushrooms has sprouted nearby.
Chapter 55 Summary: “Mary-Mary and the Gold”
Naomi gets a letter, which includes a piece of blue paper covered in a child’s print. It is a poem she wrote and sent to one-armed Farley years ago. Under the poem, she wrote a note expressing her sympathy about his arm. A new note has been added from Mr. Farley, saying he likes her poem. A separate paper contains a message from Hazel Wiggins; it says that Naomi’s mother was a hospital aide when Mr. Farley met her, and she was kind to him when most people weren’t. Naomi marvels at how they are all, somehow, connected to one another without having realized it.
Chapter 56 Summary: “Across the Ocean: True as True”
The gossips at Tebop’s General Store have a lot to discuss. One woman saw the Ravensworth florist’s truck at Hazel Wiggins’s house; apparently, Mr. Dingle sent her roses.
Chapter 57 Summary: “Standing on the Moon”
Mr. Dingle takes one of Finn’s gold coins to be appraised. Naomi is still afraid of the dogs; she tries to be around them, but it is agony. Lizzie says she knows that her mother saved Naomi’s life, and Naomi thinks about everything that had to happen for them to be together, alive, and in Ireland and about everything they think they know and all the things they don’t and can’t.
The next week, Naomi goes to the moon, and she sees both its smallness and its largeness. That day, she looks into the eyes of Sadie, the dog, and falls in love. The same happens with Maddie. Mr. Dingle’s appraiser says the coin is real gold but doesn’t want to touch it because of a mark on it that identifies it as fairy gold. Naomi reburies the gold in the fairy ring while Lizzie apologizes to them for the disturbance. They are all happy. Nula misses Joe, and Miss Pilpenny misses Sybil, but their burdens are lightened by their many joys. A month later, Naomi and Lizzie are in the orchard, near the fairy ring, when Naomi sees Finn walking toward her.
Chapters 51-57 Analysis
The number of links among the people of Rooks Orchard, Blackbird Tree, and Ravensworth grows even larger, underscoring The Interconnectedness of Lives. The number of connections is staggering, prompting Naomi to ask, “Did a delicate cobweb link us all, silky lines trailing through the air?” (220). Dora Capolini, Sybil’s cook, is the sister of Cora Capolini, or “Crazy” Cora. Michael Canner, Sybil’s gardener, is the brother of Thomas Canner, or “old man” Canner. Hazel Wiggins explains that Naomi’s mother was an aide at the hospital when one-armed Farley met her before Naomi’s birth, and Naomi already knows that “Mary-Mary,” the woman one-armed Farley loved, was given the iron rooks by Lizzie’s mother Margaret, who was Miss Pilpenny’s sister. Naomi’s mother’s middle initial was “M,” which must have stood for Mary, and, evidently, Lizzie’s and Naomi’s mothers were friends, else Margaret would not have known that Mary loved birds or given her the iron rooks that her sister, Miss Pilpenny, anonymously sent. This explains how Nula ended up with her pair of rooks from her sister Sybil and how Margaret’s pair were given to Mary, who must have given them to one-armed Farley. Perhaps Mr. Farley calls her Mary-Mary because she was already married, preventing him from marrying her, or he might mean to say “marry Mary” because he wanted to marry Mary, but it sounds like “Mary-Mary” to everyone else. Mr. Farley left Ravenswood after he found out Mary was already married, but Hazel Wiggins must have known him and Mary in order to be familiar with their situation and to know that Mary was Naomi’s mother. Years later, this same Margaret cared for Mary’s daughter, Naomi, after the dog attack. Eventually, when Margaret died, Lizzie moved to Blackbird Tree to live with the Cupwrights, where Naomi already lived with Nula and Joe because she and her father moved there after her mother Mary’s death. Then Lizzie and Naomi, whose mothers had been friends, became best friends. The overwhelming number of associations among these individuals—the friendships, loves, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, and more—certainly suggests that such connections can exist without our being aware of them and have significant effects on our lives.
Finn’s tragic death after digging up the gold within the fairy ring, the new fairy ring that appears where Joe and Nula’s barn stood, and Finn’s appearance in Blackbird Tree years after his death suggest the Compatibility of Reality and Fantasy. All the Irish characters believe the fairy ring is real, though Naomi thinks it’s only a story, but after she learns what happened to Finn, she returns the gold to the ring, indicating an acceptance of its reality. Even Mr. Dingle and the appraiser seem to be persuaded that the gold belongs to the fairies because it contains a very real mark that is associated with such creatures. Further, “a ring of mushrooms had sprouted overnight” (216) on the property Nula gave to Bo Dimmens. Though Bo doesn’t notice it, the ring’s sudden appearance is difficult to explain. Finally, Finn McCoul died several decades prior to the start of the story, but his ghost manages to appear multiple times across an ocean. Many of these events seem to be best explained by the idea that many of the things people think of as fantastic are actually quite real.
In fact, Naomi’s understanding and enjoyment of this is a massive indicator of her growth. She says, unlike Lizzie, “I didn’t want to know everything that was already known; I wanted to leave room for possibilities” (212). Before, the idea of unexpected bad things scared her, but she realizes now that any unexpected change can make one feel odd. After all, she’s been given a lot of money and a beautiful estate by a woman who was a total stranger to her, and that unexpected event has turned out to be very good. It is not long after this realization that she thinks of “the few things we thought we knew and the billions of things we couldn’t know, all spinning, whirling out there somewhere” (223), and she is suddenly able to stand on the moon, so to speak, and to love Sybil’s gentle dogs. Once she embraces the idea that there are billions of unexpected possibilities and that those things can be good as well as bad or sad, she feels “such freedom, such lightness” (225). She is grateful for all she does have, cognizant of how many tiny details and how many relationships had to exist in order for life to bring her such Unexpected Good Fortune.
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