Killing Mr. Griffin

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1978

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-14

Chapters 15-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 10-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary

Mark’s uncle and aunt, his adoptive parents, wonder aloud about why Mark never spends time with them. They took him in when Mark was 13 years old, after his father died and his mother had a nervous breakdown. Mark witnessed his house burn down with his father inside, and his own mother told him to his face she didn’t want to see him again. Mark’s uncle says he thinks Mark is weird and compares him to his own children, commenting that his children were sociable as teenagers, and he saw them more than he ever sees Mark. Mark’s aunt reasons that the tragic events Mark went through as a child had a traumatic effect. Mark’s uncle wonders aloud where Mark goes to at night and whether he’s involved with drugs.

Meanwhile, Dave snaps at his grandmother, worried that her bad memory will ruin his alibi from the night before. His grandmother says that Dave rode around with his friends after school the day before and didn’t come home until after dinnertime. Dave slams his cup down at the breakfast table, frustrated and lies that he sat with his grandmother and watched TV while she ate her Jell-O.

Cathy Griffin goes to the police department to report her husband missing. Detective Baca asks Cathy some questions about Brian, then muses that many expectant fathers have gone missing because they’ve run out on the family. When Cathy insists that that’s not within Brian’s character, Detective Baca agrees to investigate further. He’ll start with Susan, whom Cathy knows was the last person to see Mr. Griffin at school.

Chapter 11 Summary

Susan feels sick over what’s happened with Mr. Griffin, but she goes to school anyway as Mark advised them all to do, to avoid suspicion. At school, Susan is called into the principal’s office. Mark catches Susan before she gets to the principal’s office. He had seen a police car and figured Susan would be questioned, since she was the last one to see Mr. Griffin at school. Mark wants to check in with her, and wants to make sure she hasn’t lost the resolve to keep up her alibi.

Mark tells her to tell the truth about why she met with Mr. Griffin about her work and asks her why they were meeting. Susan explains to Mark that Mr. Griffin said her work was promising, but that no one in his class was doing work that was perfect or that earned an A. She tells Mark that Mr. Griffin told her that she and her classmates were spoiled by over-grading because the other teachers reward them if they do anything that stands out from the crowd. Susan says that Mr. Griffin asked her if she needed a ride home, to which Mark cuts in and says that he didn’t ask Susan that question. Mark explains to a confused Susan that she should say that Mr. Griffin acted strange during the meeting and that after they met, she saw a younger woman waiting for Mr. Griffin in his car. Susan exclaims that she can’t lie, but Mark says that she can and that she should so that the police will be led away from looking further at the students. Mark figures that the suggestion of an extramarital affair will help get suspicion off the students and towards the idea that Mr. Griffin walked out on his wife.

Mark soothes Susan and convinces her enough to use the explanation, calling her baby again. Susan begs Mark to come with her, but Mark says that if he is brought into the situation, things will immediately seem off and that Susan will not be suspected of anything.

Chapter 12 Summary

Betsy, Dave, Mark, and Jeff go out to the waterfall to bury Mr. Griffin’s body. Mark didn’t force Susan to come along because he’s worried she’ll break, which makes Betsy jealous. Dave angrily defends Susan when Betsy begins to make fun of her. As they arrive, Betsy sees that flies have begun to cover Mr. Griffin’s body. Mark steals Mr. Griffin’s wallet while Jeff starts digging his grave. Jeff takes a break to check on Betsy, who’s pouting by the water. She tells Jeff she thinks Mark might be interested in Susan, and Jeff gets jealous that Betsy seems to like Mark too much. Mark calls Jeff back over to take a turn at digging the grave, and Jeff stabs the shovel into the ground. Mark jokes that they should have brought a radio and becomes hyper and begins fidgeting.

When the grave is deep enough, Dave closes Mr. Griffin’s eyes and covers his face with his jacket out of respect. Dave attempts to say a prayer. Dave goes into Mr. Griffin’s car while the others bury Mr. Griffin. As his friends walk towards the cars, Dave is disturbed that Mark is “vivacious, sparkling Mark, talking and talking” and doesn’t recognize him compared to the sullener Jeff and Betsy (168).

Mark tells Betsy to drive Mr. Griffin’s car to the airport and when she protests, he tells Dave to go with her. They park in the lot and leave the keys in the ignition, just as Mark said, hoping that someone else might steal it. They wipe down their fingerprints and leave like Mark told them to do, but as they pass by a police officer, Betsy is recognized.

Chapter 13 Summary

Susan’s family talks about Mr. Griffin’s missing status after seeing a report about him on the news. Cathy Griffin is offering a $20,000 reward for any relevant information. Cathy knocks on Susan’s door to ask her questions. While Susan’s parents supervise, Cathy confronts Susan about the lies she told the police. Susan reported that Mr. Griffin seemed jumpy during his meeting and was constantly checking his watch, but Cathy says that his watch broke, and he wasn’t wearing it the day he disappeared. She also rebukes Susan’s details about the young woman in Mr. Griffin’s car. As Cathy escalates the conversation by calling Susan a compulsive liar, Dave and Mark stop by to pick Susan up for a drive.

Cathy recognizes Dave and Mark’s names from the conversations she’s had with Mr. Griffin about his students. Dave is surprised that Mr. Griffin talked about him. Cathy recognizes Mark’s name as well, connecting him to the copied term paper he turned in the year before. Mark becomes demure and expresses his gratitude to Mr. Griffin for helping him sort some things out in his life. Cathy begins to ask the name of the girl whose paper he copied, and Mark cuts her off suddenly, saying that he doesn’t remember. Susan’s parents apologize that she couldn’t be of more help, to which Cathy says she thinks Susan can help more, pointedly looking at her. Susan’s parents tell Cathy that she will contact her if she thinks of anything else.

Chapter 14 Summary

Dave’s grandmother and mother talk about his recent odd behavior; getting angry and staying out late. His grandmother proposes that he’s been secretly seeing his father. His mother denies the theory, citing that his father has been gone for 14 years. His grandmother is adamant that Dave is up to something, noting that when Dave provided details to a game show that he said his grandmother slept through, his grandmother checked on them and the details were wrong. Dave’s mother becomes frustrated, maintaining her conviction that Dave is not seeing his father. Dave’s grandmother argues that his mother doesn’t want the truth to come out because she likes the attention that she receives about being a single mother. As Dave’s mother walks away, his grandmother says that she has proof, holding up a small object she found in Dave’s room.

Lana, Mark’s ex-girlfriend and the girl who first showed him the deserted waterfall, turns in Brian Griffin’s pill bottle, which she found on the ground while she was walking by the waterfall with her new boyfriend. Lana tells Detective Baca she knows of Brian Griffin because she helped an ex-boyfriend get an essay to plagiarize for his class. She also reveals that there was a mound of dirt at the waterfall, as though someone had been digging.

Mark confronts Betsy about getting pulled over on her way to the parking lot of the high school the day they kidnapped Mr. Griffin. She got a speeding ticket that she hadn’t told her friends about—this puts her alibi into question. The police officer who gave her the ticket was the same one who recognized her in the airport parking lot after she and Dave deposited Mr. Griffin’s car. They discuss moving the car and changing its appearance and agree that they spray paint the car and mess with the plate, so that no one recognizes it.

Jeff joins them and reveals that the police have found Mr. Griffin’s body, with his wallet and school ring missing. Mark says their only solution is to retrieve the car and keep it in Jeff’s parent’s garage, and he tells Dave and Betsy to go with Jeff to get the car. Dave says that he can’t because he must get Susan home, and he told his mother he’d be home by 5 o’clock himself. Mark mocks him for his plans and says that he will ride with Jeff, but that he’s going to the bathroom first to shred Mr. Griffin’s credit cards and flush them down the toilet. As he leaves, Susan asks why Mark is getting rid of the cards if he doesn’t think the police have really found Mr. Griffin, but Mark doesn’t hear her.

Chapters 10-14 Analysis

These chapters highlight cracks in the veneer of the image the teenagers have crafted for themselves. Mark’s uncle and aunt know that something is off with Mark. They figure that the trauma of losing his father in a fire and the abandonment of his mother has challenged Mark’s ability to relate to others and live a happy life. Notably, Mark’s uncle is impatient with Mark’s shadiness and looks forward to letting Mark go off into the world independently. This implies two important factors in Mark’s characterization. First, that he is possibly dealing with unsupervised and untreated trauma. Second, that there is quality about Mark that does not charm adults but puts them on edge. Adults can see something in Mark that is dangerous, a juxtaposition to the way that other teenagers see Mark.

Another crack in self-image is Dave’s increasing anger. Dave’s guilt over Mr. Griffin’s death and his anxiety about getting caught makes him lash out at his loved ones. Dave’s grandmother and mother notice that his mood has shifted, and he is uncharacteristically angry. Dave’s character development demonstrates his crisis of conscience. Without help from his loved ones, Dave is caught in his own internal conflict. Dave’s family dynamic emphasizes the importance of seeking help when it’s needed.

These chapters are also full of important moments of foreshadowing. Dave’s grandmother is not as unaware as she allows others to think. She is much more aware of what’s going on around her. She knows that Dave is lying about his whereabouts the night that Mr. Griffin went missing. There is also a nosy neighbor who constantly watches Dave’s grandmother, providing more foreshadowing for secrets to be revealed later in the narrative. Dave’s grandmother is another example of Duncan’s message that people are not always what they seem on the outside. His grandmother is characterized by her dependence on Dave and his mother, but she is also a woman who mourns her lost son and the abandonment of that son. This yearning for a repair of her relationship with her son becomes the ultimate motivation for determining Dave’s secrets after she becomes convinced Dave is seeing his father. While she is incorrect about Dave’s father, she homes in on key details that Dave thinks she will miss.

Duncan includes foreshadowing when Cathy Griffin confronts Susan about lying to the police. Unlike many other characters in the novel, Cathy is confident in herself and in her relationship. She knows that contrary to Susan’s false claims, Mr. Griffin was not having an affair and didn’t walk out on Cathy and their unborn child. Confronting Susan is a major plot development because it demonstrates that Mark’s plan is more transparent than the teenagers believe. The confrontation makes Susan insecure about the idea that people won’t suspect her and the others of taking part in Mr. Griffin’s death. Cathy’s fortitude and her determination to find closure for her husband foreshadows that Cathy won’t stop searching for answers, implying that Susan and the others will eventually be caught.

Another major moment of foreshadowing is Mark’s lack of concern for other people. He manipulates the others into believing that he’s looking out for them, when really, he is throwing other people under the bus. He conveniently places Dave and Betsy in Mr. Griffin’s car so they can dispose of the car at the airport. This makes any culpability about associations with the car on Betsy and Dave, not on Mark. Duncan demonstrates that Mark uses other people to look out for himself, which foreshadows that eventually, the other teenagers will discover that Mark places the burden of evidence and responsibility on others.

Small mistakes lead to big errors. Duncan increases the drama and tension of the novel by revealing the ways in which these teenagers have made small errors that will lead to revelations of their guilt. The teenagers are in over their heads, such as when Jeff keeps Mr. Griffin’s car under his parents’ noses. It is implied that it is inevitable that they’ll get caught, because small errors such as Dave’s jacket draped over Mr. Griffin’s body or Griffin’s stolen wallet are sure to be uncovered.