103 pages • 3 hours read
Pseudonymous BoschThe Name of This Book Is Secret
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2007A 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 2-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “A Wednesday”
The reader is introduced to Cass, the protagonist, who is distinguished by a few personal quirks. One such quirk is her physical appearance, mostly her “large, pointy ears” (11). Cass is a self-proclaimed survivalist, and her personal creed is to be prepared for any and all potential disasters. She carries a backpack with her at all times, filled with an assortment of survival gear. Cass’s survivalism often puts her at odds with authority figures in her life, as she frequently catastrophizes ordinary situations, predicting disasters that never occur. Consequently, Cass is often told not to cry wolf (13). This chapter also introduces Cass’s grandfathers, Larry and Wayne, and their “seeing eye dog” (14), the old blind basset hound Sebastian. Larry and Wayne are not biologically related to Cass but are instead close mentors and friends of her mother. Cass refers to them as her “substitute grandfathers” (14).
The plot begins on a Wednesday afternoon, as Cass pays an after-school visit to her grandfathers, who have converted an old fire station into a downstairs antique store and upstairs living quarters. Gloria Fortune, one of Larry and Wayne’s acquaintances, drops by with a box of antiques. Gloria is a probate specialist, “meaning that she sold houses after their owners had passed away. She was, in effect, a real estate agent for the dead” (19). The items Gloria brought are from the most recent house she’s been working with, the home of a magician who passed away under mysterious circumstances without any next of kin. Gloria explains that the gardener discovered the magician’s body after he noticed the smell of huevos podridos (Spanish for rotten eggs) coming from the kitchen. While going through the magician’s things after Gloria leaves, Cass and her grandfathers discover the Symphony of Smells, an exquisitely crafted wooden box with a number of vials inside, each containing some kind of scented liquid, powder, or herb. Cass notices that one vial is slightly damaged and seems to be missing a fair amount of powder. When she investigates it, she notes that it smells like huevos podridos.
Chapter 3 Summary: “And Now Introducing… Max-Ernest”
Chapter 3 introduces the second protagonist, Max-Ernest. Like Cass, Max-Ernest is set apart from his peers by a few distinct quirks—most notably, the fact that he literally never stops talking. This trait is referred to as his “condition,” for which his parents take him to many specialists, none of whom can provide a solid diagnosis. Like Cass’s ears, there are also physical features that make Max-Ernest stand out, including his small stature and the fact that his hair looks like “a cartoon character who had just stuck his finger in an electrical socket” (27). Max-Ernest is determined to become a stand-up comedian and is constantly testing jokes on his classmates; however, due to this and his excessive talking, he is labelled “annoying” by his peers and so does not have any friends. This chapter also reveals the story behind Max-Ernest’s unusual name: His parents fought over naming him Max or Ernest but could not come to an agreement. In the end, they compromised and gave him both names, but the argument resulted in a divorce right after he was born, although his parents still live in the same house.
Meanwhile, Cass investigates the field at school because she saw a dead mouse there earlier and is convinced the school must be built on a toxic waste dump that poisoned the mouse. She presented these suspicions to Mrs. Johnson, the principal, who denied Cass’s request for an evacuation.
After her meeting with Mrs. Johnson, Cass unsuccessfully tries to convince her classmates Veronica and Amber about the toxic waste. Cass receives a “Smoochie” from Amber; Smoochies are a brand of lip gloss that Amber is obsessed with, as they are sponsored by her favorite celebrities, the Skelton Sisters. Amber gives a Smoochie away each week when she gets a new one; Cass is a frequent recipient of these Smoochies, but she knows it’s only because Amber pities her. Back on the soccer field, Max-Ernest approaches Cass, looking for someone new to try his jokes on. Cass’s initial impression of Max-Ernest is that he is annoying; however, she quickly changes her mind when he does not dismiss her theory about the toxic waste dump and instead validates her ideas and offers to help, which Cass accepts.
Chapter 4 Summary: “A Message for the Winds”
Cass fills Max-Ernest in on the magician’s death and shows him the Symphony of Smells. Max-Ernest discovers that there is a hidden compartment in the box. He opens it and the two discover “recipes” for classical music compositions by Beethoven, Mozart, and Liszt; there is a list of scents for each song corresponding to scents found within the Symphony of Smells. Cass and Max-Ernest try out a few but can’t find any special meaning behind the connection between the smells and the songs. They find one last paper hidden in the secret compartment, a note that reads, “A message for the winds. In order to spell it, you must first smell it” (44), followed by a list of musical instruments.
Cass and Max-Ernest match each instrument to its corresponding smell in the Symphony of Smells, and although they don’t glean any information from smelling all the scents in order, they do realize that when they write the names of the corresponding smells out on paper in order, it spells out “HELP.” Cass and Max-Ernest deduce that the magician was trying to send a coded message to someone for help, and although they do not know the intended recipient, they determine that it’s their responsibility to help the magician. Before they can discuss the matter further, Cass notices that Benjamin Blake, a peer considered weird by their classmates but beloved by teachers, is watching them; he appears to be smelling something. Benjamin mumbles something about having heard an oboe and walks away once Cass shuts the Symphony of Smells.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Lying”
Cass meets Max-Ernest at his house so they can investigate the magician’s house together. Cass discovers that Max-Ernest’s house is very unusual; although his parents are divorced, they read that it is bad for children to not have both parents in the house, so they instead divided the house perfectly in half, with neither parent acknowledging the other or encroaching on the other’s territory. Cass finds the arrangement strange because she only has her mother. Max-Ernest asks what happened to her father, and Cass replies that he was struck by lightning when she was very young. However, she asks that Max-Ernest not tell anyone or talk to her about it because she doesn’t want people feeling sorry for her. Cass and Max-Ernest, with Sebastian the basset hound in tow, ready themselves for their expedition to the magician’s house.
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Magician’s House”
Cass is surprised that the magician’s house appears so normal from the outside, given that Gloria had described it as “quirky and offbeat” (20). Inside the house, Cass and Max-Ernest find themselves in a single small room, which turns out to be an elevator that takes them down to the lower levels of the house where the magician’s real living quarters are. Max-Ernest and Cass investigate the rooms, looking for clues that might give them further information about the magician and the Symphony of Smells. Max-Ernest leaves to use the bathroom, and shortly after, Cass hears two screams: Max-Ernest’s and one that sounds inhuman.
Chapter 7 Summary: “A Striking Couple”
Cass rushes to Max-Ernest’s aid; it turns out that Max-Ernest has made an important discovery (and that the other scream belonged to a cat). When Max-Ernest flushed the toilet, the opposite bathroom wall slid open to reveal a hidden room. In the room, Cass and Max-Ernest find a large desk and all the magician’s belongings, leading them to conclude that it must be the magician’s workroom. However, nothing appears out of the ordinary until Cass and Max-Ernest find a large notebook in the desk. Before they can examine it, however, they hear Gloria exiting the elevator, talking to a young couple who is there to see the house.
Cass and Max-Ernest find a grate that looks into the magician’s library and use it to spy on Gloria and the couple. The man introduces himself as Dr. L and speaks with “one of those elusive accents you can’t quite identify no matter how hard you try” (74); the woman is Ms. Mauvais, and her voice is “tinkling in a way that should have sounded light and musical but instead sounded icy and unpleasant” (74). They are both very attractive, but in a way that is “terrifying” to Cass. Max-Ernest, however, thinks Ms. Mauvais is the prettiest woman he’s ever seen. Cass notices a peculiar thing about them: They are both wearing long, elbow-length gloves. Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais inquire about the magician’s belongings, particularly his notebook. Cass, Max-Ernest, and Sebastian exit the bathroom; Cass tells Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais that the notebook they are looking for is in the hidden room, and while they are distracted, Cass and Max-Ernest attempt to make a getaway on the elevator. However, Ms. Mauvais rushes back into the room just as the elevator’s doors are closing and spots Cass holding the notebook.
Chapters 2-7 Analysis
Chapters 2 through 7 provide exposition and set the stage for the inciting incident that kicks off the main action. The reader is introduced to the two protagonists, Cass and Max-Ernest, as well as the ordinary worlds they inhabit. Both Cass and Max-Ernest are somewhat eccentric, and both their ordinary worlds reflect this, which reinforces the similarities between them. Cass is odd because of her focus on survivalism and tendency to predict disasters; her ordinary world complements this, as she has “substitute grandfathers” who live in a converted fire station turned antique store. Max-Ernest shares this eccentricity in both his personality and his home life; he is committed to jokes, to being funny, and never stops talking, thus alienating many of his peers. His home life is unusual because his parents are divorced yet refuse to move out of the house, so Max-Ernest’s life is perfectly divided between two parents.
This eccentricity enables Cass and Max-Ernest to make contact with the “secondary world,” so to speak; the secret world of the magician can be considered a kind of secondary world-within-a-world, one that is accessible to Cass and Max-Ernest but mostly inaccessible to the adults around them in their ordinary worlds. Cass and Max-Ernest’s unique qualities allow them to touch the secondary world—Cass because her connection with her grandfathers and the fire station introduces her to the Symphony of Smells and the magician’s world, and Max-Ernest because his personal eccentricities lead him to connect with Cass. As such, Cass and Max-Ernest’s relationship is a focal point of the novel. The first few chapters establish this early on, and their individual character arcs and interpersonal relationship ultimately inform one of the novel’s key narrative themes: the power in personal differences.
Chapter 7 introduces the primary antagonists and encapsulates the narrative’s inciting incident. The author’s description of Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L gives them a particular significance that signals they are villains who will be key figures in the novel. Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais are unnaturally flawless: “It was as if [Ms. Mauvais] and Dr. L had taken photographs of themselves at just the perfect moments when they looked their absolute best, and then they had cast a spell so that they would look like their photographs forever” (75-76). Their uncanny beauty terrifies Cass, and this focus on their appearance and the unique terror they inspire designates them as significant and the main antagonists of this story. The inciting incident is Cass’s decision to escape with the notebook. After meeting the antagonists and learning they are also after the notebook, the reader knows that Cass’s choice will have consequences. At this point in the narrative, Cass and Max-Ernest have directly involved themselves in the workings of the Secret world, as opposed to observing it from the outside. They have taken their first true steps into the secondary world, and the consequences of their actions will follow.
