93 pages • 3 hours read
Leslie ConnorThe Truth as Told by Mason Buttle
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2018A 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 32-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 32 Summary: “End of a Day”
Calvin plans to paint a mural to replicate the Shaft of the Dead Man from the Cave of Lascaux. The boys also brainstorm a good cap for the light shaft, but they don’t have any ideas. It is time for Calvin to go home, so the boys hose off. Moonie appears, and he plays in the water with them. Mason walks Calvin home, and then he walks Moonie back to the Drinker’s house through the orchard. They walk past the old tree fort, which still pains Mason to see: “Still hard to look at that spot. The missing ladder. And Benny at the bottom” (131). He wishes Benny could meet Calvin and see the changes in Merrimack. Mason drops Moonie off with Mrs. Drinker, and he agrees to watch Moonie over the Columbus Day Weekend. Then, he goes home for supper.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Extinct”
In the SWOOF, Calvin shows Mason the mural of the aurochs, an ancient ox that has now gone extinct. Mason loves the aurochs: “I don’t know why I get such a feeling about that animal, but it is like he is me. Like if he had come to school, he would be the biggest thing in the hallway. Like me. And I feel I am like him too” (135). Mason gets on the Dragon and talks about how he feels like his bad luck is leaving, though it is still painful to see the tree fort. Annalissetta Yang interrupts him to talk to the Dragon herself. Mason talks to Ms. Blinny about Lt. Baird, and Ms. Blinny seems worried he hasn’t come around recently. Mason decides to print off some of his Dragon entries for the lieutenant.
Chapter 34 Summary: “The Lieutenant”
Lt. Baird parks outside the Buttle house that day after school. Mason plans to meet Calvin in the root cellar after he talks to the lieutenant. Inside, Mason sits in front of his notebook and his printed pages. He shows them to the lieutenant, who wants to know more about Benny. He insists Mason help Andy and Franklin, Benny’s dads, by solving this puzzle, but Mason doesn’t have any more information. He thinks, “I have said it all before. I can’t do it again. I don’t want to see Benny the way I saw him. His neck. Don’t want to remember how it was to try to make him breathe” (142). Grandma glares at Lt. Baird, and Uncle Drum says the interview should be over. Lt. Baird leaves, and Uncle Drum tells Mason he did a good job, like he always does.
Chapter 35 Summary: “One Stuck Window”
After Lt. Baird leaves, Shayleen rushes out of her room and uses the bathroom. She asks Mason to open her stuck window. He goes inside his old room and discovers that Shayleen has covered it in unopened boxes and trash. He grunts and forces the window open, and then, he spots a clear salad bowl, which no one ever uses. Shayleen ordered it and now just keeps it around. Mason slides the salad bowl out the open window before Shayleen returns. Then, he sneaks out while Shayleen is watching TV.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Capping the Shaft”
Mason presents the salad bowl to Calvin as a cap for their light shaft. Calvin is thrilled, and he says it is a gift from the universe. Mason is skeptical about that idea. “I am not sure about the Universe. Because. Well. Some things are gone. Bing. Bang. Boom. So then what is there to say about the stuff the universe takes away?” (148). The boys use the bowl as a cap, but it slides to the side. They need glue. The glue bottles in the shed are dry, so Mason offers to pay for it with his dog-sitting money. They leave the bowl where it is for now, and Mason is happy that Calvin finally has his proper light shaft.
Chapter 37 Summary: “The Big Pink Cloud”
Mason feeds the Dragon some memories about Benny. He remembers what Benny said about sunbeams in clouds being gateways to heaven. He talks about how Lt. Baird’s visit made him want to return to the last time he saw Benny. This is the part that Lt. Baird always comes back to. Mason jumped from the tree fort. It was a big jump—too big. Mason rolled over twice and was covered in apple blossoms by the end. Benny checked on him, and then laughed. At that moment, Mason saw a big, beautiful pink cloud come out of Benny’s mouth: “And that is not the first time I saw some pink all around Benny Kilmartin… Because pink is the color of laughing. Of joy. Of a friend” (153). Mason writes about Lt. Baird questioning whether he jumped because he knew the ladder rung was broken. Mason insists he didn’t. Lt. Baird asks if he intentionally dumped his handsaw. Mason insists he didn’t, but Lt. Baird always comes back to ask the same questions.
Chapter 38 Summary: “The Chumsky House”
Calvin and Mason spend the afternoon at Calvin’s house to make charcoal in his fireplace. Mason has a fireplace too, but it doesn’t work anymore. Margie, the Chumsky’s housekeeper, gives Mason a pitying, cold look. Mason calls it a “sad-to-see-you” look (156). It makes Mason uncomfortable. She knows the story of what has happened to Mason, but she doesn’t seem sympathetic. The boys make charcoal using a recycled can and apple wood. It burns in the fireplace all afternoon. When Mason finally leaves, he says goodbye to Margie, who just gives him a small nod.
Chapter 39 Summary: “The Bad Day in the Diner”
Mason tells the Dragon about a bad day at the diner. Right after Benny died, he and Uncle Drum ran into Andy and Franklin at the diner. Mason tried to talk to them, but Andy said nothing, and Franklin asked Mason to leave them alone. He explained it was too painful for them to see him. Mason doesn’t totally understand this rejection:
I wanted to let the sad part worm all the way through me. Like getting it over with. Even though it was probably going to take longer than anything else in the world. I thought Andy and Franklin were probably the ones that missed Benny like I did (160-61).
The incident causes Andy and Franklin to leave the diner. After they leave, everyone else goes silent and gives Mason sad-to-see-you looks. After that day, Uncle Drum stopped taking Mason to the diner.
Chapters 32-39 Analysis
The symbol of the aurochs appears in this section. The aurochs is an ancient, extinct ox, and it becomes Mason’s spirit animal. He is drawn to the creature because of its strength and the way he relates to its physical presence. He also feels it deeply, in his heart. He says, “if [the aurochs] had come to school he would be the biggest thing in the hallway. Like me. And I feel I am like him too” (135). The aurochs quickly becomes a symbol of Mason’s spirit. Like Mason, the animal is physically imposing, and also like Mason, the aurochs is unique.
Grief is also prevalent in these chapters. Mason struggles when he relives the pain of finding Benny, and he cannot overcome the trauma of that incident. The visual memory of that day brings him incredible pain. Constantly having to recount that traumatic moment for the police retraumatizes Mason and makes it difficult for him to process his grief.
Mason also struggles to understand the differences he has in processing his grief as compared to others. He recalls running into Andy and Franklin at the diner and wanting to revel in the sadness of losing Benny with the other people in the world who loved Benny as much as he did, but Andy and Franklin aren’t able to process their grief in that way, and it hurts Mason. Mason wants to allow the sadness to “worm all the way through me,” but he can’t have that experience fully because he must distance himself from the people he associates with Benny. That distance stops him from being able to fully heal.
Andy and Franklin’s reaction, as well as the introduction of the “sad-to-see-you” looks, further foreshadow the community’s disapproval of Mason.
