44 pages • 1 hour read
Sheila TurnageThree Times Lucky
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Keep Your Windows and Doors Locked”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and addiction.
The Colonel comes to pick up Mo. She can’t believe that Mr. Jesse is dead after she just served him a few hours ago. The Colonel admits that it’s a shock and that although Mr. Jesse wasn’t exactly friendly, he will still be missed.
The café hosts a karate night every week run by Mr. Li, and Mo, along with several other kids from the neighborhood, attend. At karate night, Detective Starr shows up to ask questions about Mr. Jesse. Anne-Celeste reveals that she saw a boy (Dale) pulling a boat around Mr. Jesse’s house. To try and cover for Dale, Mo suggests that maybe Mr. Jesse wasn’t murdered at all, but the detective ignores her.
Mo notices that Skeeter, a seventh grader who wants to be a lawyer, seems to know that Dale was the boy Anne-Celeste saw and asks to speak with her the following day. Before Starr leaves, he accuses the Colonel of lying about when he bought his car. The Colonel admits that he lied and says that he doesn’t think it’s any of the detective’s business either way; the detective tells him not to leave town.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Desperados”
The Colonel and Mo arrive home. The Colonel checks the house for intruders, but everything is clear. Mo writes a letter to her biological mother that she never plans to send, detailing a conversation she once had with Miss Lana about wanting to have a “normal” family. Mo’s vision of a normal family is one where the parents have standard jobs and live in a standard house. Miss Lana replied that she loves Mo just the way she is and that she would be different if she grew up that way.
Mo calls Dale to tell him that he’s a suspect in Mr. Jesse’s murder, and Dale immediately rushes over. Mo and Dale decide to investigate the murder on their own and create the Desperado Detective Agency. Suddenly, someone appears at the window and backs away when Mo throws something at him. Mo screams for the Colonel, but he’s fast asleep. Mo and Dale go into the living room and find someone asleep on the couch. It turns out to be Miss Lana, and Mo couldn’t be happier to see her.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Miss Lana”
Mo tells Miss Lana about the man at the window, and Miss Lana calls a neighbor named Tinks to come over and check it out. Tinks brings Sam, and they find nothing. Mo and Dale decide to confess everything about the boat and Mr. Jesse to Miss Lana, who mentions valuable information about Mr. Jesse having an affair with a woman named Selma. That night, Mo writes another letter to her mother about a dream she has in which she finds a message in a bottle from her but the words on the paper are wet and blurry.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Cousin Information Network”
Mo and Dale ride their bikes to Skeeter’s “law office” at her mother’s hair salon. They tell her what she already knows—that Dale was the one Anna-Celeste saw—and ask if she will be their “lawyer.” With Skeeter sits Sal, her “accountant,” who happens to have a crush on Dale. Dale offers to trade a model race car for their services, and Mo asks them to find out more about Selma.
Sal reveals that Anna-Celeste already knows that she saw Dale but that she isn’t revealing it publicly. Miss Lana decides to hold a service for Mr. Jesse, and the reverend offers to have it at the church. The reverend’s son, Thes, employs Mo and Dale’s services to find his missing cat.
Chapter 10 Summary: “At the Tobacco Barn”
Dale and Mo go back to Dale’s house, where his mother is waiting for him. She is angry about him leaving without permission in the middle of the night. Dale wrote a note saying where he would be. He also included the fact that he was a murder suspect, which made Miss Rose panic. He tries to talk his way out of trouble, but Miss Rose insists that he’s grounded and will be spending the next several days or weeks cleaning. Dale’s first task is to clean out the tobacco barn, which hasn’t been used in years and is filled with old junk. Mo tries to tell Miss Rose that she needs his help to investigate the murder, but Miss Rose sees that as adult work and drives Mo home.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Murder Weapon to Go”
Miss Lana doesn’t want Mo to visit the crime scene or be out on her own at all with a potential murderer lurking about. She presents Mo with a surprise gift that she made while she was away: a scrapbook of Miss Lana, the Colonel, and Mo in her early years. Mo loves the gift, but when she looks at Miss Lana’s family, they still don’t quite feel like her own. Miss Lana notices that the usual customers aren’t at the café, and it turns out that they’re all crowded around Mr. Jesse’s property, watching the forensic investigation.
Mo takes the opportunity to bike down to the creek at the end of Mr. Jesse’s property and start searching for clues. She gets spotted by Detective Starr and is almost shot. While traipsing through the creek, Mo comes across one of Mr. Jesse’s boat oars with specks of blood on it.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Stay Away From My Crime Scene”
Detective Starr drives Mo back to the café and admits that the oar is being examined as evidence. Mo introduces the detective to Miss Lana, and Starr questions where she was on the night of Mr. Jesse’s murder. Macon comes in for lunch, inebriated and angry after his wife kicked him out of the house. He overhears Starr talking about the boy who was seen and tells Starr to leave Dale alone. This immediately makes Starr focus on Dale. Miss Lana insists that Dale could never do such a thing.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Don’t Call Me Baby”
Miss Lana doesn’t know how to drive, but she gets behind the wheel of the Thunderbird and tries anyway. Mo hopes that nothing will go wrong, but Miss Lana reverses into a tree right away. She still manages to get them to Mr. Jesse’s property, where she and Mo hand out lunches. Miss Lana then drives to Dale’s to pick him and his mother up, and everyone heads back to Mr. Jesse’s to talk to Detective Starr. Starr questions Dale about being at the property, and Dale admits that he was returning a boat that he “borrowed.” He also tells Starr about the reward money and using his brother’s shoes to create bigger footprints. Starr decides to put Dale in handcuffs, but only long enough for everyone in town to see it. He hopes that doing so will make the killer feel more comfortable and get sloppy in their actions.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Deputy Marla”
Dale becomes famous after being seen in handcuffs and riding in Detective Starr’s car. Miss Lana asks Mo to take some flowers over to Miss Retzyl’s house for Mr. Jesse’s funeral. Mo finds the idea of visiting her teacher at home strange but has no choice but to do what Miss Lana asks. At Miss Retzyl’s house, Mo meets Deputy Marla and asks her if the police ever investigate cold cases. Marla regrets to say that they never have time, and she leaves before Mo can ask anything else.
Chapter 15 Summary: “A Spiritual Curveball”
The whole town and several outsiders show up for Mr. Jesse’s funeral at the church. Dale sings “Amazing Grace,” and Miss Rose plays piano. Everyone has a chance to say something they learned from knowing Mr. Jesse. The reverend’s son reveals that Mr. Jesse used to anonymously donate $100 to the church every week, and he knows this because he saw him do it. Mo and Dale spot who they think is an undercover police officer watching over Dale. After the funeral, Deputy Marla approaches Mo and asks why Mo was interested in cold cases. Mo admits that she’s looking for her long-lost mother, and Marla says that Mo can come to her for information any time.
Mo and the detective meet with the reverend and his son to find out more about Mr. Jesse’s donations and calculate that they range in the tens of thousands in total. Mo writes another letter to her Upstream Mother, this time about the town’s varying beliefs in God and church-going habits, as well as Lavender’s “NASCAR Zen” philosophy. She worries about the Colonel, who has been gone for three days without a word.
Chapters 6-15 Analysis
This section throws out all sorts of hints, both misleading and true. The Colonel dislikes authority figures and believes in Being One’s Own Authority. This makes him an automatically suspicious character, particularly from Detective Starr’s perspective. The Colonel also doesn’t remember his life before coming to Tupelo Landing, making it possible that he could have been involved in a robbery committed by Robert Slate, who will be revealed to be Mr. Jesse’s murderer. The Colonel gives Starr yet another reason to suspect him when he lies about when he got his car. The Colonel is not lying because he has something to cover up; he just has a blatant dislike of authority figures and doesn’t want to give Starr information that he thinks he doesn’t need. The result is that the Colonel is asked not to leave town, an irony since Slate will kidnap him.
While the Colonel seems suspicious, Deputy Marla is introduced as a friendly and good-natured person, another irony considering that she will turn out to be a villain. She claims to understand Mo’s history of losing her mother and not knowing where she came from. She plays on Mo’s desire to discover the past to get close to her and make her believe that she couldn’t possibly be involved in the crime. Marla also tells Mo to come to her with any questions or information, the first hint that she might have ulterior motives.
The book is true to the mystery genre in that clues set the plot in motion. Mo finds Jesse’s oar in the creek, and Thes reveals that Mr. Jesse donated cash to the church every week. These events signify that Mr. Jesse was murdered and that the motive revolved around money. To address all these questions and to protect Dale’s innocence, Mo and Dale form the Desperado Detective Agency. While their mission—to discover the murderer—will propel the adventure further, it will also showcase The Power of Unconditional Friendship. Dale and Mo are foils, or characters that illuminate one another through contrasting qualities. Dale seems somewhat simple, while Mo is direct and brash. However, both act beyond their years and take thoughtful risks as they explore clues and unearth their town’s secrets. They are also loyal to and love one another, a further example of found family.
The narrative places roadblocks in the friends’ mission. When Dale is grounded for sneaking out, it puts an obstacle in their path, but not one that can’t be overcome with some honest hard work. During the night, Robert Slate appears at the window of Mo’s home, foreshadowing how he will later kidnap the Colonel and Miss Lana.
Mo’s attachment to her town and found family is clear by how much they are a part of her life. When Miss Lana is away, Mo thinks to herself, “There is a peculiar spin to Miss Lana’s universe, but I admit it’s a spin I miss” (89). She knows that Miss Lana and the Colonel do not make up a traditional family, but as time goes on, this becomes less important. The advice and wisdom of Miss Lana and the Colonel are always running through Mo’s mind, and she looks to them for guidance in everything in life. When Mr. Jesse dies, the Colonel reminds Mo that death is shocking and that everyone in the town will miss Mr. Jesse even if they didn’t like him. This statement reaffirms the communal attitude of the townspeople and how every piece of the town, no matter how grumpy or unlikeable, is an important part of it. Similarly, when the townspeople speak up against Starr, defending one another against his suspicions, they demonstrate the unconditional friendship that binds them.
When Miss Lana gifts Mo a scrapbook of their family history, Mo thinks about her possible biological family and what they might look like: “I studied her parents’ faces: strong faces, with eyes that peered straight into my heart. I wondered if my own people would look into my heart too” (124). Her attitude is misguided; she still doesn’t fully realize that Miss Lana and the Colonel are the only family she needs. Mo’s letters to her mother demonstrate how Mo’s attitude shifts over time. She begins by writing to her Upstream Mother about wanting to meet her, but her letters slowly change until they are about and addressed to Miss Lana.
