93 pages • 3 hours read
Joyce Carol OatesBig Mouth & Ugly Girl
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2002A 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 39-43Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 39 Summary
Two nights later Matt calls Ursula. He says, “You won’t believe what’s happened, Ursula. What they’ve done to us now” (210). Ursula goes to bed crying with rage and pity.
Chapter 40 Summary
When Alex was out walking Pumpkin, someone in an SUV abducted the dog. Matt’s mother calls the police, and Matt takes the receiver to explain. Alex keeps apologizing, thinking it is his fault. Matt tells him, “if it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. But that doesn’t help Pumpkin, does it?” (213).
The patrolmen arrive and assume Pumpkin just ran off. Matt’s mother shows the police several threatening newspaper clippings sent to the house, of which the brothers only knew of the first. Matt tells the police about being harassed at school but not the extent of his fight with the jocks.
Matt stays up all night on a vigil for Pumpkin. Twice in the early hours someone phones the house, but they hang up after Matt answers. At 6:00 a.m. the phone rings again, and Matt hears Pumpkin yipping in pain before the line goes dead.
Chapter 41 Summary
Ursula goes to Matt’s house and meets his mother the morning after Pumpkin is abducted. Before she arrives, Matt’s mother asks if Ursula is his girlfriend.
The police do little to help the Donaghys.
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By Joyce Carol Oates
