A Snicker of Magic

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2014

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 26-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 26 Summary

Cleo drives recklessly through town with Felicity, Day, Boone, Frannie, Jonah, and Toast in the back of the van. Toast is there in case they need to play the song again. They spot Mama at the Gallery, painting. Felicity hops out of the van first to check on Mama. She goes to her, and the two embrace. Mama has been crying, but she is also smiling. Felicity asks if Mama saw the shadows and heard the music, adding that they broke the curse. Mama doesn’t know what Felicity is talking about but assures Felicity that she saw her speak. Felicity’s talking inspired Mama to finish the Gallery because she realized what she needed to add. She tells Felicity they’ll talk once she’s done, but she wants to be alone. Cleo insists on staying with Mama.

Felicity spots Florentine across the street on Abigail Honeycutt’s bench. She runs to greet Florentine and present her with the locket. Felicity explains that she broke the curse and believes Isabella Thistle’s perfect memory is in the locket. In exchange for the locket, Felicity asks to take Florentine’s burdens. Florentine is reluctant, but she gives her bag to Felicity. Felicity leaves her alone to enjoy the perfect memory by herself.

As Day drives the van with everyone besides Mama and Cleo, Felicity and Jonah open Florentine’s bag. They find two sealed jars that are completely black inside. Neither can open the jars. On the jars’ labels are poems by Isabella Thistle.

Chapter 27 Summary

Early the next morning, before the break of dawn, Felicity, Cleo, Boone, Mama, and Frannie travel in the van. Felicity carries Florentine’s bag. She’s gotten everyone out of bed for a special viewing at the Gallery, which she hasn’t gotten to see since Mama finished. Mama, Frannie, and Felicity’s things are still packed in bags by the door. Felicity hopes Mama has just forgotten to unpack. Boone has his banjo, and Felicity plans to ask him to play “Fair and Tender Ladies” one more time. Mama is excited for everyone to see the Gallery now that she’s figured out what was missing. The sun rises while they drive through town.

At the Gallery, Jonah, his mother, Rosie Walker, and Florentine await Felicity’s family. The rising sun illuminates the Gallery wall so everyone can see the painting. Mama has painted the townsfolk across the mural of the town, including Mama, Frannie Jo, Felicity, and Biscuit, showing that they belong in Midnight Gulch like everyone else. Felicity and Mama hold hands. Felicity wants to remember this moment forever. She accepts that it’s OK to have a happy ending even though her father is gone. She feels her family is no longer “in pieces anymore” (302).

Boone points out that Mama included the Threadbare balloon, reminding Felicity why she came to the Gallery in the first place. She pulls out the jars from Florentine’s bag. Jonah comes to join her. They each hold a jar, and Felicity tells him to wait for the cue. Felicity gathers everyone’s attention and asks Boone and Rosie Walker to begin playing “Fair and Tender Ladies.” The two begin their song, and Felicity hears the wind chimes grow loud. When Boone sings the first lyric, Felicity and Jonah open their jars with ease. Two shadows pour out of the jars, stretching long across the pavement until they reach the Gallery, where they take the shape of men. Oliver Weatherly arrives in time to observe. The shadow men move through the painted landscape until they finally find each other. One shadow opens his arms, and the other shadow runs to embrace the first. Felicity cannot tell which shadow is which, but she knows they’re the Weatherly brothers and is happy that they are together again.

The shadow brothers climb into the painted hot-air balloon and sail across the painting, waving at everyone. The balloon then leaves the painting completely, casting a shadow across the pavement as it disappears into the sky. Everyone stares in awe. Cleo then notices something else moving in the sky. It’s the dove tattoo that Felicity sent to Jonah’s dad. A bus pulls up to the bus stop at Abigail Honeycutt’s bench, and Jonah’s dad gets off. The family shares an emotional reunion.

Florentine calls for the bus to stay put. She climbs on, ready to return to the coast and to Waylon now that she has gotten rid of her burdens. Felicity says goodbye to Florentine and thinks about how people are always coming and going, and one can never predict which people or places will leave a lasting impression. Oliver Weatherly invites everyone over for ice cream. Felicity and Mama acknowledge that Midnight Gulch is their home.

Epilogue Summary

Midnight Gulch becomes famous for its magic again. Oliver Weatherly buys a new sign for the town, returning to the old wording of “a magical place to call home” (308). Mama and Cleo both work with their respective arts. Cleo has launched a quilting business, while Mama has become the director of a community arts center. Mama, Felicity, Frannie, and Biscuit move into the apartment unit across the hall from Cleo’s. Cleo and Day Grissom have married.

Tourism has increased in the town. Day Grissom drives a tour bus around town on a route that ends at the Gallery. The Weatherly balloon comes and goes as it pleases from the painting, appearing in various places across the landscape and sometimes disappearing completely. Felicity believes there are probably more towns out there with more magic than they know.

In October, Miss Lawson takes the class outside to work on a nice day. While the students make planets out of clay, Miss Lawson whistles a song that Boone plays on his banjo. They have been spending more time together. Felicity sees beautiful, positive words come from Miss Lawson, so she writes them into a poem. When she returns to molding her planet, Jonah gets her attention. In the distance, the shadow of the hot-air balloon crosses over the mountains, approaching the school and eventually passing Felicity and Jonah in the field. They see it often, but the townspeople always stop to watch it in awe. Felicity’s heart beats yes every time.

Chapters 26-Epilogue Analysis

The final few chapters of A Snicker of Magic tie up the loose threads for Mama, Florentine, and Jonah, as well as illustrate how breaking the Threadbares’ curse positively affected the town. The largest conflict of the story, Felicity’s fear of leaving Midnight Gulch, is resolved in Chapter 27. Throughout Chapter 26 and the beginning of Chapter 27, Felicity is uncertain about whether the curse was broken for Mama since Mama missed the shadows dancing around the auditorium. In Chapter 26, Mama says, “I figured out how to fix the Gallery. I figured out how to fix…lots of things” (290). However, as Chapter 27 opens, Felicity isn’t sure that Mama has been cured of her wandering heart: “The plastic grocery bags full of our worldly possessions were still packed up all bulgy and full, propped beside Aunt Cleo’s door” (295). She hopes “Mama just hadn’t had time to unpack” (295). When Felicity arrives at the Gallery, Mama reveals that what was missing from the painting was their family. In addition to all the townsfolk painted into the landscape, Mama has added herself, her daughters, and their family dog, showing that she has decided to stay in Midnight Gulch. This implies that the moment Felicity broke the curse, Mama realized that she could stay in Midnight Gulch and rushed to the painting to make her decision permanent.

Another significant character who gets closure is Florentine, who represents the other side of the Threadbares’ curse. Florentine’s happy ending parallels the Pickles’. While the Pickle family’s curse causes them to move around and never settle down anywhere, Florentine is cursed with her own family burdens that keep her in Midnight Gulch. She knows that she needs to be there to release the burdens, but she has not figured out how to rid herself of them. In Chapter 26, Felicity gives Florentine the locket, which holds a perfect memory from Isabella Thistle. In response, Florentine slowly “shrugged off the strap around her shoulder and nodded to [Felicity]” (292). This exchange reverses the part of the curse that Florentine has carried all these years, freeing Florentine of her obligation to stay in town. When Felicity releases the shadows from Florentine’s bag, Florentine gets on the first bus out of Midnight Gulch, free to wander and return to her love on the coast. Florentine says, “I don’t feel cursed to wander, Felicity. I feel blessed to wander” (306). This opposes Mama’s story arc, in which wandering was a curse. While the Pickle family finally settles in one place, Florentine finally sets out on a new adventure.

Jonah’s main conflict resolves in Chapter 27 as well. Just as the Weatherly brothers’ balloon disappears from the painting, casting a magical shadow across the ground, Oliver Weatherly’s dove tattoo flutters through the air, signaling the return of Jonah’s father on the approaching bus. Jonah, whose main conflict was his concern for his deployed father, is finally reunited with him. When Jonah and his parents embrace each other, Felicity “heard the sound of three hearts colliding” (305). She wishes she were a shadow catcher like Isabella Thistle, so she could capture the shadows of their embrace and preserve it for them forever.

Aside from the Pickles, Florentine, and Jonah, several more characters, as well as the rest of the town, get optimistic endings in the Epilogue. Not only does Cleo establish her own quilting business, but her business cards reveal her full name as “Cleopatra Glorietta Harness Grissom” (308), showing that Cleo has married Day Grissom and found herself the man she had prayed for. Felicity also observes that Boone and Miss Lawson “are spending more time together these days” (310), indicating that Boone has mended his broken heart and found happiness with a new beginning. The Epilogue also reveals that Felicity has continued her word collecting, now writing poems on the spot when she sees a collection of words floating around. Finally, the town of Midnight Gulch is once again considered a magical place, with Oliver Weatherly declaring so on a new sign for the town. Tourism has increased, leading Day Grissom to take on more work as a bus driver. Tourists flock to see the Gallery, where “sometimes the balloon is big, up close. And sometimes the balloon is tiny, hovering up in the corner. Sometimes there is no balloon at all” (309). Felicity also describes how the shadow of the balloon travels through town from time to time, observing it “drifting slowly down the mountains, over the hills, and across the field where we’re sitting” (311). She adds, “No matter how often we see the shadow, we tremble when it passes over. We will never stop looking for it” (311). The regular visits of the balloon’s shadow, as well as its appearance in the Gallery, add a persistent presence of magic to Midnight Gulch, which the town reveres. This shows how the breaking of the curse has brought magic to the forefront of Midnight Gulch again.