Chapter One
It starts off with our narrator’s seventh birthday party. He states that no one came to his birthday party. The cake, party games, and presents (well, just one present) were all set up. Starting the book off depressing, it leads to him opening his Batman action figure. When his father came home from work, there was a cardboard box on the counter. It was a black kitten and he named it Fluffy. It was his only friend, unless you count books as friends. Then, his kitten, Fluffy, gets hit and killed by a taxi. The taxi was dropping off an opal miner, which is apparently their new boarder. The opal miner gives the narrator a cat named Monster. It was a “huge, ginger-striped tomcat”.
Chapter Two
Our narrator starts off this chapter by saying that he was not a happy child. What a surprise, considering that he was lonely for his seventh birthday. Following this, his parents called him into their bedroom to tell him that they are not affluent anymore. Because of this, they must lease his bedroom. He gets upset cause he must share a room with his sister. He liked his room, because he had a tiny, yellow washbasin that they installed just for him. Every Saturday morning, his dad makes him a piece of burnt toast. I guess his dad makes up for it by bringing him a copy of “SMASH!”. When he goes to retrieve his comic book from the back of the car, it’s not there. It turns out that the car got stolen. When they find the car, the opal miner is in the backseat, dead. It was apparently a suicide. Then, our narrator goes with Lettie, and talks about milk fresh from the udders, burnt toast, the opal miner, etc. What a long chapter.
Chapter Three
The narrator’s dad gets a Rover to replace the Mini. Then, he explains that he never gets letters in the mail. One lucky day he checked, there was a letter addressed to him. Being the small child he is, didn’t understand what the letter was saying. He took the letter to his mom and she said that he won twenty-five pounds. In the afternoon, the gardener, Mr. Wollery was digging in the vegetable garden and he came across a bottle full of pennies, halfpennies, and threepenny bits. He went to bed happy, because he was “rich”. But good things come to an end. He has a dream where he gets bullied and the bullies force something into his mouth. Then when he wakes up, he finds out that he is choking on a silver shilling. After this, he was eager to tell someone, he just did not know who. So, he tells Lettie. They go to old Mrs. Hempstock to show her the coin. She could tell that the coin is new, but the thing is, it has 1912 on it. Lettie’s mother says, “Tastes like a she,” and tells them that they need a “hazel wand”. Fun.
Chapter Four
It starts with Lettie dragging the narrator to a hazel thicket to make a hazel wand. She breaks off a branch and uses it as a guide. Lettie says that they are looking for a blue bottle of some sort. The narrator spots a bluebell in the shadows under the milk-churn table. Lettie spots something and tells the narrator to hold onto her arm and not let go no matter what happens. Lettie says that they’re looking for a storm. Lettie pulls them both to the ground and tells him to be quiet. A manta wolf flies over their head. He doesn’t feel safe, but Lettie promised that she would keep him safe. Moments later, they find the “thing” they were looking for. It is described as grey canvas with deep eyes. Lettie asks the “thing” to name itself. And this is the thing that put money in the narrator’s mouth.
Chapter Five
When he got home, he saw his sister on her bed, brushing and brushing her hair. He proceeded to look at his foot. He inspects the part of his foot where he felt that pain earlier. Being curious, he pokes the hole and sees something retreating away. He gets some stainless-steel tweezers and tries to pull the worm-like parasite thing out. He puts his foot under hot water to try to get the parasite out. He almost gets it, but then it snaps off and leaves a small end in his foot. He later flushes the part of the worm he pulled out, in the bathtub drain.
Chapter Six
His foot begins to heal now. But his mom tells the family that she got a new job, as an optometrist. This means she is going to be gone for most of the week. This is where Ursula Monkton comes in. She is supposedly the boarder that will watch over the narrator and his sister when his dad and mom go to work. When he went inside to eat lunch, he explains that he feels this pain in his heart when he sees Ursula. So, he leaves the house, without eating, and hungry. When Ursula goes outside with sandwiches, he goes inside and gets a handful (or armful) of fruit and brings it to his “lab”. He later tries to escape the property but when he tries, Ursula catches him in the act. Then, he tries to call the Hempstocks and Ursula catches him again. He doesn’t like Ursula, but his dad is being “flirty” with her.
Chapter Fifteen
Ginnie Hempstock takes him home, and whilst he’s asking a bunch of questions, she simply tells him to not waste his life away
His mother brings him in and tells him the “bad news,” which was that Ursula had to leave
Years later, his sister talks to him about suspicions that their father had an affair with Ursula.
His memory is pretty much gone from all the events, but one day a cat shows up at his door named ocean, and he isn’t exactly sure why.
Chapter Fourteen
They walk to the place the opal miner died together. The boy is protected because he is on the Hempstock’s land but the varmints have had enough so they start eating at the land, the trees, basically everything in sight creating a big void. The boy tries to run to them to stop them but Lettie tackles him down and tells him he’s an idiot for even risking his life. The hungry birds go after Lettie instead and the boy can hear her screaming, gran appears glowing bright and commands them to stop, she tells them to put everything back into place and threating them as she takes Lettie into her arms whilst weeping. Lettie is not dead because her kind cannot die, her gran takes her to the ocean and places her in where she is captured by a large wave, she then takes the boy home.
Chapter Thirteen
Lettie finally arrives with a bucket of water, the bucket was supposedly her ocean, she asks him to step in it for some unknown reason but he still complies because he trusts her.
The feeling of being in the water was surreal to him, he could breath and open his eyes, but when he resurfaced he coughed up water.
What surprised him most was when he stepped out of the water he was completely dry, Lettie takes him back to the house where he enjoys some delicious shepherd's pie as they discuss how they will rid themselves of the varmints.
Chapter Twelve
They boy hiddles in the ring, he was more frightened when he saw the opal miner come to him looking like a wax figurine trying to convince the boy to leave the circle so the varmints can finish their job of “cleaning up.” The boy closes his eyes and starts to recite poetry from Alice and Wonderland to try to calm himself down. This process repeats with his sister so he proceeds to recite Gilbert and Sullivan to calm his fears. His dad comes next and begins yelling at him which makes the boy cry, after all he does have a fear of his dad when he’s mad. Then comes Ursula trying to convince him that they let her free, but after he doesnt believe her, she blows him a kiss and fades away. Last a Lettie look alike comes and tells him it is safe, but he now he could definitely see right through the act. The varmints speak to him directly and tell him that because of the hole in his heart, his life will be wasted away so he might as well let them eat him now. He continues to sit there reciting Gilbert and Sullivan to himself and waiting for his only friend, Lettie, to come “save” him.
Chapter Eleven
Ursula is crying because she’s scared, she asks Lettie why she let the varmints come but Lettie explained that they only came for food and she was food.
She gets upset and grabs the boy and starts raising him into the air but Lettie whistles and a bunch of bird/bat like creates come and “take care of her” then they ate the jam jar which was the doorway/tunnel to her home.
Lettie tries to get the creatures to leave but they say that there is still more to eat, mainly talking about the boy, so Lettie takes him to the “fairy ring” which will protect him from any creatures that try to get to him, she tells him that nothing can harm him while he stays in the ring.
Chapter Ten
He has nightmares that night, but cannot remember a single part of them, he wants everything to be normal
When he wakes up the house looks different and some old fashioned clothes are laid out for him. Granny explains to the boy that the only reason the flea (Ursula Monkton) is being rude to him is because he is her way home... Lettie goes and collects many items that were to be used to send her home, although it looks like it was quite a struggle, but when the boy looks in her bag he just sees a bunch of jumbled up and broken toys. Lettie says she knows what Ursula is scared of and Lettie is scared of them too, a thing called varmints. The broken toys help to stop things travelling when you don't want them to, so Lettie starts scattering them in strategic places around his yard. Ursula is laying down in her room, there were dozens of strips of gray, ragged cloth hanging from the ceiling. She's lying naked on the bed, but is awake when they walk in and doesn't seem to mind her nakedness. Lettie tells Ursula that she has to go back home and even brings a jam jar that leads there to help, this only makes the flea madder leading her to wrap the boy in the pieces of cloth causing him to become completely immobilized. Lettie also tells Ursuala she knows her real name, Skarthach of the Keep, and that they do not want her hanging around because she could attract varmints (varmints eat fleas) which they do not want around. Ursula runs off, and Lettie helps the boy out of the creepy clothes. Ursula leaves and follows the trail of the broken toys Lettie set out for her.
Chapter Nine
Grandma and Mrs. Hempstock let him take a bath in the kitchen, while Lettie takes his pajamas to fix them.
After his bath they all ate a delicious dinner, and then his parents are on the way to pick him up. The women all argue on what they are going to do with him--turn him into an object/creature to hide him or make his parents arrive two weeks ago. They decide to "snip and stitch," apparently a way of tampering with people's memories. They take out the entire fight with his dad, so there can be no reason for him to be mad at the boy, and then they "magically" convince his parents that he's there for a sleepover and they are just dropping off his green toothbrush that was forgotten. Once the boy's parents leave, he begins to feel a sharp burning pain in his foot, which Old Mrs. Hempstock removes the remainder of the worm with the same needle she used for sewing the fabric and successfully stores it in a mason jar. They keep the boy safe with them and help him to bed.
Chapter Eight
After that drowning scenario, he feels broken and tries to get dry without a towel, but he is still soaking wet. That night, he got “disowned” in a way (disowned by his family). He gets threatened and gets locked in his room. I guess he was feeling rebellious, so he attempted to escape the house. There is a window so he climbs out of the window and down on the drainpipe. He tries his best to run to the Hempstock farm. But out of the blue, a thunderstorm appears and guess who he sees in the storm, Ursula Monkton. He sees her floating and threatening him. Then, when he gets to Lettie’s farm, Lettie comes and tells Ursula to get out of her land.
Chapter Seven
This chapter is a bit shorter than the others. The narrator wakes up and his parents left to work before he could wake up. Hoping that he would not see Ursula again, he goes downstairs and there she is, waiting for him. She tells him that if he tries to leave the property again, then she will lock him in his room for the rest of the day and make up something horrible he did. And today, his dad comes home way earlier than expected. Then, at dinner, he refuses to eat the meatloaf that Ursula made cause, warning, she’s a monster. He runs and locks himself in the bathroom. His dad proceeds to kick down the door and fills the tub with cold water. Then, tries to drown him. Short, but crazy chapter.
Epilogue
He goes back to the Hempstock’s place “to remember” but it seems he had already tried to do that many times before, Ginnie tells him that Lettie is still healing but she is still watching over him.
He then sees that cat and pets it, just like that the “spell” is broken and he goes back to “remembering” that Lettie is in Australia and that he needs to get back to his family.