64 pages • 2 hours read
Michael NorthropTrapped
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011A 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 1-4
Chapter 1 Summary
Trapped opens on a winter day in a small New England town. Weather reports predict a nor’easter, a type of storm specific to the New England region that involves large amounts of snowfall in a short period of time. Scotty Weems (known as Weems) is the narrator, a sophomore, and a basketball player. The story centers around Weems and six other kids, “the last seven kids waiting around to get picked up from Tattawa Regional High School” (1).
Weems explains that the storm lasted for a week, including that “they still show the picture on TV sometimes” (2). Even in a place like New England, where governments are prepared for winter weather, this storm dropped so much snow that even the plows couldn’t get through. Weems and the other six kids remained trapped in their school during the storm and wondered if there would be anyone to pick them up when the storm ended.
Chapter 2 Summary
Weems repeats he’s the narrator and tells the reader they are stuck with him. They don’t get a choice because, of the seven kids trapped, “not all of us made it” (6).
Jason asks Weems and Pete if they’ll stay late with him to work on his shop class project. The project is a go-cart Jason has named Flammenwerfer (German for “flamethrower). Weems and Pete are hesitant, but Jason says his dad is working nearby and will be able to pick them up despite the snow. Pete and Weems agree to stay.
Chapter 3 Summary
During Scotty’s geometry class, the principal comes over the loudspeaker with the official announcement of early dismissal and all after-school activities cancelled. Weems is upset his basketball game won’t be happening but shrugs it off and goes to lunch. Looking back, Weems remembers how he didn’t eat his corn and later wished he had since it was his “last real meal for quite a while” (16).
Despite early dismissal, Jason, Weems, and Pete still plan to stay and work on Flammenwerfer. Mr. Trever, the assistant principal, asks Weems and his friends why they aren’t leaving. The kids explain Jason’s dad is picking them up, leaving out how it isn’t right then. Mr. Trever sends them to wait with Mr. Gossell (another teacher) by the gym.
Chapter 4 Summary
The kids head toward the gym until Mr. Trever is gone. Then, they go back to the shop room. They find the door locked, but Pete sees Mr. Holloway (the shop teacher) through the window on the door. Mr. Holloway encourages the boys to go home because of the snow, but Jason manages to convince him to leave the shop unlocked so they can stay. After Holloway leaves, Weems looks out the window and can’t see the hills in the distance because of the snow. He “knew right then that we’d made a mistake” (24).
Weems suggests Jason call his dad to come get them, but Jason doesn’t have any cell service. Pete also has no service, and Weems accidentally left his phone home that morning. Since they have no way to tell Jason’s dad about early dismissal and have to wait until normal pickup time, Weems concludes it is “time to work on a crappy go-kart” (26).
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
These chapters introduce three of the seven kids who end up trapped in the school. Weems is the protagonist; though, his resignation about telling the story shows he is a reluctant narrator. Weems’s hesitation extends to other aspects of his personality. Partly because of his status as a sophomore on the varsity basketball team, Weems is skittish about doing anything that might get the group in trouble when school reopens. He’s the first to present an argument to any proposed ideas, and he’s the last to act—even up to the end of the book.
Weems is a retrospective narrator, meaning he tells the story as if looking back on the events. As a result, events such as Pete’s death are alluded to throughout the story, and there are several passages where Weems considers what they could have done differently.
Weems also files people into categories based on personality traits or activities they participate in. This filing by status, combined with Weems’s retrospective narration, makes Jason, Pete, and the other kids come off as flat characters. Weems defines Jason as a shop kid who’s interested in the military, a filter that follows Jason throughout the story. Pete is an average, non-descript kid who blends into the background. Only when he goes for help in later chapters does Pete stand out from the group. Weems’s views of others keep him from fully fleshing them out as rounded characters.
These chapters also introduce the antagonist of Trapped—the nor’easter. Trapped is a story of man versus nature. The kids fight for their survival against increasingly worsening conditions, until Weems (as protagonist) finally goes outside to do direct battle against the storm.
