86 pages • 2 hours read
Rodman PhilbrickMax the Mighty
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1998A 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 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Sometimes the Truth Is Just Plain Stupid”
Running through the dark as if he has night vision, Max carries the sleeping Worm through the countryside until he comes to a train moving slowly down the tracks. Worm wakes and says, “I dreamed we were flying and I wasn’t afraid” (84). Max jogs alongside the train and, carrying Worm, jumps onto a flatcar loaded with farm equipment. Despite his fear, he makes it safely. Worm says, “You’re amazing.” Max doubts it.
The train speeds up. Max notices that the night sky’s stars don’t move, even though they do. Despite ending the fine trip on the Prairie Schooner, Max feels strangely happy. Worm is still safe from the Undertaker; Max did well getting her away. He feels dumb to think like that but admits that the truth sometimes is “just plain stupid” (85).
Worm says she wasn’t really asleep when the police came: She knew Max the Mighty would save her. She heard stories about him back at home, including that his dad killed his mom. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but her face looks so innocent in the starlight that he tells her how his dad strangled his mother, he called the police, and his dad went to prison.
Later, Kevin told him it’s important to remember even the bad things, because they’re part of who we are. When Max’s dad got out of prison, he kidnapped Max, who felt too scared to escape. Worm understands that part. Then Kevin appeared with a squirt gun filled with eye irritant and sprayed it in Max’s father’s face, and they escaped. After Kevin died, Max felt desperate until he wrote it all down, and now he just feels sad about it.
Worm gives his hand a quick squeeze. She asks if, when they die, they’ll go to heaven. Max says he hopes so.
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Horrible Howl”
After dawn, the train rumbles into a city and stops next to a junkyard. Several mangy, half-starved dogs attack Max and Worm. He grabs her and climbs atop the farm equipment, but the dogs nip and tear at them until a “scrawny little dude” appears with a stick and, howling and laughing like crazy, chases off the dogs (93).
Chapter 18 Summary: “Keep Us Safe from You Know Who”
The skinny man calls himself Hobo Joe. He talks a mile a minute. From his perch in a boxcar, he’d seen Max and Worm jump the train but let them sleep, then heard the dog attack and chose that moment to introduce himself. He offers them a breakfast consisting of a large can of beans heated over a Sterno flame and some stale bread that perks up nicely when dipped in the beans.
The train begins to move, and Joe explains that it’ll go faster now that it’s unloaded some cars. He knows the railroads from long experience, and he doesn’t feel homeless because “wherever I’m sleepin’, that’s my home, and I like it fine” (97). He points to the car’s open door, and Max watches as the ever-changing scenery goes by—cows, farm buildings, silos, even a herd of bison—and agrees with Joe that it’s better than watching TV.
Worm pulls out a book, The Sword in the Stone, that Max remembers Kevin talking about. In it, a boy pulls a magic sword from a huge boulder and discovers he’s King Arthur. Worm says it’s about being honorable and protecting the innocent and never giving up. She adds that the book’s heroes demonstrate chivalry, which is the name of the town where her father lives.
Max asks if she’s sure her father is still there, and Worm gets mad. Hobo Joe says he can get them to Chivalry, Montana, but it’ll take some time on the train. Worm apologizes to Max for getting angry and admits that it’s because she misses her mom. She also hates her mother for marrying the Undertaker and lying for him instead of protecting her. Max says her mom is scared, and scared people sometimes do stupid things.
Worm says she can hear giants talking. Max listens and realizes that the train’s noise is bouncing off the nearby mountains and coming back to them at a low rumble. He says nothing, not wanting to spoil her fantasy. Instead, he hears his own: The train’s wheels, clicking on the tracks, seem to say, “Rackety-roo, rackety-roo. Keep us safe from You Know Who” (101).
Chapter 19 Summary: “Wide-Open Country”
Joe wakes and, leaning out the door, says he can smell Wyoming coming. He loves the wide vistas and tall skies and how a man can disappear in all that hugeness. When the train stops, Joe explains what it’s doing, and whether cars are being added or shunted. At each stop, he disappears for a while and returns with food. Sometimes it’s stale, but he finds ways to make it tolerable. Worm doesn’t eat much, but Max eats a lot, and Joe says that’s because he’s still growing: “[I]f you get any bigger you’re gonna need your own time zone!” (103-4).
Early the next morning, Joe informs Max that the train they’re on will dead-end at Chivalry. Joe, however, must hop off because he has business elsewhere. He leaves them some food and the blanket Worm is sleeping under. Max feels sad because he enjoys Joe’s company and wants the train ride to go on forever.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Chivalry”
As the train slowly winds its way into Montana, tall mountains jut up around them. In a dark tunnel, Worm switches on her helmet light and says she sometimes wonders if, in the pitch dark, people simply disappear.
The train finally arrives at Chivalry. Tucked up against the mountains, the town looks old and abandoned. Shiny tin roofs have holes in them; the main street is made of dirt. A couple of old trucks, their hoods up, stand idle. Max thinks, “I always wondered what a ghost town was. Now I know” (111).
Chapters 16-20 Analysis
In this phase of the story, Max and Rachel ride the rails as they continue their trek toward Rachel’s father in Montana. On the way, they’re befriended by a young drifter who teaches them how to value what little they have and enjoy each moment on their journey.
Hobo Joe is cheerful, talkative, and a bit wacky but relentlessly optimistic about whatever situation he finds himself in. He imparts this confidence to Max, who realizes he can live anywhere and handle most any problem that comes up. It’s part of his growth toward confidence and self-acceptance. Hobo Joe’s attitude helps Max, but it also embodies the theme of Comforting Beliefs and Powerful Truths. He lives a difficult life but prefers to think of it as a luxury of freedom. His optimism is remarkable and inspiring, but it relies on beliefs about his situation that exaggerate his advantages and minimize his problems.
Hobo Joe uses Sterno to heat food. It’s a can of alcohol paste that, when ignited, provides a steady flame. Commonly used to keep foods warm in buffet lines, it also can be helpful when camping. Sterno cans have seen action in wartime, and transient populations know about them. They’re just the sort of useful little item that Joe would keep on hand as he travels across the country.
By now, it’s clear that Rachel’s backpack contains almost more books than can fit into such a small space. It’s as if she conjures up each book when she needs it. Like many bookish kids, her mind spends more time within the stories she reads than out in the real world. Max finds that he enjoys the vast scenery through which they travel, but each time he glances over at Rachel, he sees her reading a book. She sees more than he thinks she does, though, and the passing world affects her as well.
Rachel reads The Sword in the Stone. It tells of a nobody who pulls from a rock a sword that no one else can extract, thereby discovering his destiny as the hero King Arthur. This resonates with Max, who has spent his life thinking he’s a loser but who keeps pulling friendships from impossible situations and heroically protecting them.
As they approach Chivalry, Rachel grows quieter. Max knows she’s hiding something from him—something about her father—and doesn’t want him to leave when he learns it. When they arrive, and the town is abandoned, Max decides to resist his uncertainties and gamble that Rachel knows what she’s doing.
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