64 pages • 2 hours read
Mary Downing HahnClosed for the Season
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A 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 13-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
The boys race into the cemetery where they hide under a giant willow tree. The long branches hide them from view, and they stay there for a long time, on the lookout for Silas. Arthur tells Logan that he found the hiding spot previously when Danny and his crew had been chasing him. The two boys then begin looking at the map where they notice there is a “fence made of gingerbread men leading to the Witch’s Hut” that look exactly like the plastic men mentioned in the note (86). Arthur and Logan make plans to go to check the place out tomorrow, and as they make their way out of the cemetery, Arthur points out “a statue of a woman and her little boy. The woman had an open book in her lap, and the boy stood beside her, looking up into her calm marble face” (87). According to Arthur, the woman is Eleanor Beale, who was once the wife of the town’s founder.
The little boy was Eleanor’s son, also named Arthur. Arthur tells Logan that he used to pretend that she was his mother, climb into her lap, and pretend to read together. Logan asks Arthur about his real mother, but the boy in question insists that he has lived with his grandmother since he was a baby. According to Arthur, his mother never calls or writes; he does not seem to care if she is dead or alive because he believes she must feel the same way about him. Logan is saddened and embarrassed by Arthur’s clear distress. Arthur has no idea who his father might be. Arthur’s mother left him with Mrs. Jenkins when he was just a baby. Logan tries to comfort Arthur, but Arthur insists that he does not care about it anymore. They head home where they find Violet and her children at Mrs. Jenkins’s. Danny tells Arthur that they are still not friends. He even insists that Bear will be coming with them when they leave, but Violet is quick to correct him, telling him that they cannot afford a dog. May is a sweet young girl who tries her best to cheer her mother up.
Chapter 14 Summary
Chapter Fourteen tests Arthur and Logan’s established friendship. Nina calls the house and speaks with Logan’s mother, telling her exaggerated lies about what occurred at the library earlier that day. Logan’s mother is distraught at the thought of Logan stealing and vandalizing things at the library. She forbids him from seeing Arthur anymore. Though Logan tries to stand up for Arthur and himself, Logan’s mother does not listen to him. She insists that “Arthur is not the sort of boy I want my son to associate with,” and goes on to suggest that Logan will be unpopular and shunned at school should he continue to be friends with Arthur.
Logan realizes that Nina must have heard about what happened at the library from Silas. The next morning, Logan’s mother tells Arthur that Logan will be unable to play with him that day. His mother drags Logan to the library, where she is surprised to hear how much the librarians like him. Afterward, she brings Logan to Rhoda DiSilvio’s house to play with her son, Anthony. There, Logan is teased and made fun of by Anthony and his friends because Logan refuses to denounce Arthur. In fact, Logan openly sticks up for Arthur. The children call the Jenkinses crazy and even point out that Logan and his family are poor because his father is an art teacher.
Chapter 15 Summary
Rhoda and Mrs. Forbes set up for lunch and soon everyone is eating together. Logan sits silently, but he is eventually asked a deluge of questions about sports. Rhoda and the other children are cruel to Logan when they discover that he does not play sports and they all laugh at him. Rhoda attempts to convince Logan’s mother to sign him up for a sport.
In the car, Logan and his mother get into an argument. She wants him to try harder to make friends with “a nice boy from a good home” and not with someone like Arthur (108). Arthur, Mrs. Jenkins, and Bear all stay away from Logan and his family as well, likely offended by the snub. To prevent Logan from hanging out with Arthur, his mother drives him all the way to Washington D.C., where they go to a variety of different museums. Logan feels like a phony in his Anthony-like clothes.
Chapter 16 Summary
The day of Rhoda’s party comes around and Logan’s father does not want to attend it either. He does not wish to attend a party with “Republicans or Libertarians” and is dressed in art-stained jeans and a faded shirt (111). Logan’s mother is furious and attempts to get him to change, but his father refuses. Logan misses Arthur, Mrs. Jenkins, and Bear furiously.
When they arrive at the party, Logan has a run in with Anthony and a group of other kids who begin to make fun of Arthur. He then sees Nina, with whom he is still furious. He tells her as much and becomes even more enraged when she says, “but I honestly think you'd be better off without Arthur. He's not really your type, Logan” (113). Logan then meets Mr. DiSilvio, who threatens him and warns him to stay out of the Magic Forest.
Logan argues with Nina after she insults Mrs. Jenkins, telling the reporter that he’d “take her word over [Nina’s] any day” (117). Logan finds his father and they both make their escape. Mrs. Forbes enjoys the party and says as much, but Logan and his father just laugh, continuing to make fun of it.
Chapters 13-16 Analysis
In this section of the novel, Hahn focuses on a separate part of Bealesville’s social hierarchy. While the previous section went into great detail about the lower classes in the town, of which the Jenkinses, Phelpses, Jarmons, and O’Neils are a part, these chapters show the reader how the upper echelons of Bealesville society live. This occurs primarily through Mrs. Forbes’s interference. After she hears about the scene Arthur and Logan made at the library, she forbids them from seeing each other. Mrs. Forbes is portrayed and particularly superficial and vapid throughout the novel. She desperately wants to be accepted as one of the wealthier families in town, to blend in with Rhoda DiSilvio’s friends. In fact, she even wears an identical dress to the one Rhoda dons at her party. After a short interaction with Anthony and his friends, however, Logan is more aware than ever that his family is nowhere near as wealthy as the DiSilvios: regardless of Mrs. Forbes’s posturing, Mr. Forbes is an art teacher and they live in the Jenkinses’ neighborhood for a reason. Showing wisdom and maturity far beyond his age, Logan accepts this in a way that his mother cannot.
Despite Logan’s obvious misery, Mrs. Forbes continues to push him to be friends with Anthony, to give up reading, and to play a sport. Though sports are undoubtedly a worthwhile pursuit, Hahn appears to set up a clear dichotomy between sports and reading, physical strength and intellectual prowess. There does not seem to be any character in the book that possesses both traits. This can be read as a focus on the external and internal as well, the outer and the inner. The focus on the external can be seen as yet another superficial pursuit, one that is tied up almost solely with appearances and looks. Internal drives can be read as things that go deeper than the surface, that serve to enrich the self, regardless of one’s appearance. Similarly, sports is a competitive activity while reading is communicative, which foreshadows which characters will turn out villainous in the end.
Related Titles
By Mary Downing Hahn
