New here? Just sign up with Google — your account includes Matilda, our gift book, forever.
Restart · Garden Heights
Part 6
for Restart · Part 6 · Chapters 21–24
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 6
Backing Aaron's lie costs Chase the video club — until a forgotten camera proves what really happened in the band room.
The Frame-Up HoldsIn the principal's office Aaron explains the band-room chaos away as an electrical short, and Chase — who knows exactly what happened but cannot prove a word — backs the story rather than turn informer. Dr. Fitzwallace, unwilling to bench his football stars, settles for a lecture, and the school decides the old Chase is back. The price is immediate: Ms. DeLeo throws Chase out of the video club, Brendan cannot meet his eyes, and Shoshanna's glare could strip paint.
The Old Life ReturnsThen a new doctor clears Chase for football. His father Frank celebrates like a national holiday — even praising the 'statement' he imagines his son made by flattening Joel, who was hurt in the band-room scramble — and Chase ends the day alone on his roof, handed back a life he no longer wants.
Guilt Hardens ShoshannaShoshanna does harder arithmetic: she talked her parents into bringing Joel home from boarding school because Chase had changed, and now the snake has apparently struck again at his school. Guilt hardens her — when Brendan suggests giving Chase the benefit of the doubt she refuses, and the club bars Chase from its lunch table to protect Joel.
The Camera KnowsPractice proves Chase still loves the game — and his teammates distrust him: after the coach orders laps, Bear plows him into the turf while Aaron applauds. They accuse him of faking amnesia; when he threatens to report the stolen medal they laugh — Chase took it, and a returning memory proves them right. Then Brendan, filming a slug, finds the club camera full: Kimberly left it recording the band-room attack, and he summons Chase, Shoshanna, Joel, and Kimberly.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Vocabulary
Words for trust on trial: frame, betrayal, relapse, evidence, exonerate…
Literary Elements
Dramatic irony at full power, a flashback that arrives as evidence, and an internal conflict fought on a rooftop
Cross-Curricular
The psychology of reputation — why one apparent lapse outweighs months of change, and what actually rebuilds broken trust
Chapter Summary
Ch.
What happens
Chapter 21
Chase Ambrose — In the office, Chase backs up Aaron’s electrical-short story rather than accuse his old friends without proof. The principal settles for a lecture, the video club throws Chase out, a new doctor clears him for football, and he ends the day on his roof, staring at the old life he has just been handed back.
Chapter 22
Shoshanna Weber — Shoshanna blames herself. She argued Joel home from boarding school because Chase had changed — and now, as far as she can tell, the snake has struck again. She refuses Brendan’s plea to give Chase the benefit of the doubt, and the club bars Chase from its lunch table to protect Joel.
Chapter 23
Chase Ambrose — Back at practice, Chase finds he still loves the game itself. Then, after extra laps, Bear flattens him while Aaron applauds. They accuse him of faking his amnesia, and when he threatens to report the stolen medal, they reveal that Chase took it himself — and a returning memory agrees.
Chapter 24
Brendan Espinoza — Missing Chase and Kimberly, Brendan tries to film a slug and finds the club camera full: Kimberly had left it recording, and it captured the whole band-room attack. Holding proof of who really did it, he calls Chase, Shoshanna, Joel, and Kimberly together at his house.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from Chapters 21–24, then answer each question.
📚Knowledge Bank · Words That Keep Score
Linguistics · The Language of TrustEnglish hides little pictures inside its trust words, and Part 6 sets nearly all of them in motion. Reputation comes from a Latin verb meaning to reckon over and over — a reputation is literally a running tally, recalculated every time you act, which is why a single afternoon can move the arithmetic so far. Betrayal descends from a verb meaning to hand over: a betrayer hands his own side to its enemies, and the word traitor grew from the very same root. Evidence is built on the Latin videre, to see — evidence is whatever makes the truth visible — and exonerate joins ex, meaning off, to onus, a burden: to exonerate someone is to lift a weight of blame from their back. Watch all four pictures work in these chapters: a tally collapses, a side is handed over, a camera makes the truth visible, and one boy waits for something to lift the burden.
framev.Ch.21
To make an innocent person look guilty of something
“The band-room attack was staged to frame Chase in front of the whole school.”
reputationn.Ch.21
The opinion people generally hold about someone, based on the past
“One bad afternoon, and Chase’s old reputation snaps back into place.”
loyaltyn.Ch.21
Faithfulness to a person or a group
“The team’s code of loyalty says you never inform on your own.”
betrayaln.Ch.22
The breaking of someone’s trust
“To Shoshanna, the lie in the office feels like a personal betrayal.”
skepticaladj.Ch.22
Doubting; slow to believe without solid proof
“Even Brendan, the least skeptical member of the club, is shaken.”
relapsen.Ch.22
A slip back into an old condition or old behavior
“The whole school reads the band-room disaster as a relapse.”
accusationn.Ch.23
A claim that someone has done something wrong
“Bear’s accusation is that the amnesia was an act all along.”
tauntv.Ch.23
To mock someone in order to provoke or upset them
“Aaron and Bear taunt Chase with the truth about the medal.”
evidencen.Ch.24
Facts or objects that help prove what really happened
“The camera’s full memory turns out to hold the evidence.”
exoneratev.Ch.24
To clear someone of blame
“Brendan realizes the footage could exonerate Chase completely.”
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, to exonerate someone literally means to ___.Ch.21
2Your ‘reputation’ is the opinion people already hold about you.Ch.21
3‘Loyalty’ means ___.Ch.21
4A ‘betrayal’ is ___.Ch.22
5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.21
Word choices:framebetrayaltauntevidence- some words will not be used
The band-room prank was staged to Chase.
To Shoshanna, the lie feels like a .
6A ‘relapse’ is ___.Ch.22
7An ‘accusation’ is a claim that someone has done something wrong.Ch.23
8To ‘taunt’ someone is to ___.Ch.23
9Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.24
Word choices:exonerateevidencerelapseloyalty- some words will not be used
Brendan’s footage is the that can clear Chase.
Only real proof can him now.
10To ‘exonerate’ someone is to prove that they are guilty.Ch.24
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in Chapters 21–24.
🔍Knowledge Bank · Why the Old Label Sticks
Psychology · Confirmation BiasOnce a group decides what someone is, the label does its own maintenance. Psychologists call the engine confirmation bias — the mind’s habit of noticing evidence that fits what it already believes and explaining away evidence that does not. If a school believes Chase Ambrose is a bully, then any rough moment confirms it, while months of decency get filed under he’s faking or just wait. The bias is not stupidity; it is efficiency. A brain that re-judged every person from scratch each morning would never get anything else done, so it leans on stored verdicts and defends them. That tilt is the quiet tragedy of these chapters: one staged afternoon in the band room outvotes a whole season of visible change, because the school was already primed to believe the worst. Nearly every character is running the same mental shortcut — and only the reader is positioned to see the bias.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1The Knowledge Bank explains that confirmation bias is not stupidity but efficiency, because ___.Ch.21
2The principal punishes the football players harshly for the band-room incident.Ch.21
3What happens to Chase’s place in the video club?Ch.21
4What news does the new doctor bring Chase?Ch.21
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events. Number 1 = what happens first.Chapters 21–24
Brendan finds the attack recorded on the club’s camera.
In the office, Chase backs up the electrical-short story.
Bear flattens Chase during extra laps after practice.
A new doctor clears Chase to return to football.
The video club tells Chase that he is out.
6Shoshanna blames herself for talking her family into bringing Joel home.Ch.22
7At practice, what do Aaron and Bear accuse Chase of?Ch.23
8What do Aaron and Bear reveal when Chase threatens to report the stolen medal?Ch.23
9Chase’s returning memory tells him the accusation about the medal is a lie.Ch.23
10What does Brendan discover on the club camera?Ch.24
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Gordon Korman tells the story across Chapters 21–24.
🎭Knowledge Bank · The Ache of Knowing More
Narrative Craft · Dramatic IronyDramatic irony is the gap between what the audience knows and what the characters know, and Gordon Korman (author) builds Part 6 almost entirely out of it. The reader saw who staged the band-room attack; the school did not. So every consequence that follows — the lecture in the office, the expulsion from the video club, Shoshanna’s verdict that the snake has struck again — lands twice: once on Chase, and once on the reader, who must watch reasonable people reach a wrong conclusion for understandable reasons. That double vision is the tool’s power. It converts information into tension, because the story now owes us a scene where the gap finally closes, and it converts judgment into sympathy, because we see exactly why everyone is wrong. When Brendan’s overloaded camera turns out to hold the truth, the machinery is armed: the audience leans forward, waiting for the characters to learn what we already know.
Dramatic Irony
The reader knows Chase did not stage the band-room attack; almost no one in the story does. Every unfair consequence lands twice — once on Chase, once on the reader who knows better.
Flashback
Chase’s past keeps returning in fragments — and in Chapter 23 a memory arrives like a witness for the prosecution, confirming what Aaron and Bear say about the medal.
Internal Conflict
Cleared for the sport he is built for and expelled from the club he chose, Chase sits on his roof between two identities that cannot share one boy.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, dramatic irony converts information into tension because ___.Ch.21
2Chase’s sudden memory of taking the medal, arriving mid-argument, works as ___.Ch.23
3Dramatic irony happens when readers know something important that characters do not.Ch.21
4Chase wanting the video club but being pushed back to football is best described as ___.Ch.21
5Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.21
Word choices:ironyflashbackglossaryrhyme- some words will not be used
Readers knowing more than the characters creates dramatic .
A memory scene that interrupts the present is a .
6An internal conflict is a battle between a character and an outside enemy.Ch.21
7What makes Chase’s removal from the video club sting for the reader?Ch.21
8Brendan’s discovery of the footage promises that the story’s dramatic irony may soon be resolved.Ch.24
9Rotating first-person narrators mainly let Gordon Korman (author) ___.Ch.22
10Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.24
Word choices:conflictpointindexpreface- some words will not be used
The tug between Chase’s two lives is an internal .
Brendan’s discovery becomes the story’s turning .
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
💡Knowledge Bank · Talk Is Cheap, Proof Is Expensive
Behavioral Science · Costly SignalsScientists who study communication — in animals, in markets, in people — keep arriving at the same rule: a message is believable in proportion to what it costs the sender. A gazelle leaping high in front of a lion burns energy it may need for escape, which is exactly why the leap works as proof of fitness; a store offering a money-back guarantee is staking cash on its own honesty. Researchers call these costly signals, and they explain why some apologies land while others bounce. Saying I’ve changed costs nothing, so it proves nothing; the words come equally easily to the reformed and the faking. But a choice that visibly sacrifices something the old self prized — status, friendship, an easy reward — is hard evidence, because only a genuinely changed person would pay for it. As you weigh Part 6, price what each character’s beliefs and claims actually cost them. Then trust the spending, never just the words.
Picture a boy sitting on the roof he once fell from, taking inventory of a week that has cost him everything he built. A few days ago he had a film club, a purpose, and the beginnings of a new name. Now the school believes he helped wreck the band room with his old crew, the club has thrown him out, and a doctor has cheerfully handed his body back to football — the one life he no longer wants. The unfairness has a strange shape: for years Chase Ambrose was guilty and never paid; now he is innocent and paying full price. Part 6 watches trust crack in both directions at once. The people who had started believing in the new Chase stop, and the old friends who want their leader back decide he has gone soft and dangerous. And all the while, two recordings are waiting. One is a memory inside his own head that will convict him of a crime he cannot remember committing. The other is a camera across town whose overloaded memory holds the proof that could clear him.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “Part 6 shows that one apparent lapse can undo months of proof that a person has changed.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2The old label closing back over Chase, or The truth working its way loose? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ The old label closing back over ChaseThe truth working its way loose ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
Aaron and Bear stage the band-room attack→
Chase backs up the electrical-short story→
Chase threatens to report the stolen medal→
Kimberly leaves the club camera running→
🧠Knowledge Bank question
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
In behavioral science, saying that you have changed proves nothing, because , so belief should follow .
Part 5
Standardized Test
The Slow Math of Trust · Reading & Vocabulary · SAT & TOEFL-style practice
Read the passage — the highlighted words are tested — then answer. Tap an answer, then tap it again to confirm.
SATCentral Ideas — the passage's main point
SATWords in Context — a word's meaning in this passage
SATInference — a conclusion the passage implies
SATAuthor’s Purpose — what the author wants to achieve
TOEFLFactual Information — a fact stated in the passage
TOEFLVocabulary — a tested word's meaning here
TOEFLProse Summary — the three sentences that sum it up
The Slow Math of Trust
Economists who study trust like to strip it down to a game. One player is handed some money and may send any part of it to a stranger; whatever is sent grows on the way, and the stranger then decides how much, if anything, to return. Thousands of rounds of this game confirm something ancient: before we risk anything on another person, we consult their record. That record is a reputation, and it exists because past behavior is usually the best single predictor of future behavior — which is exactly why a person who has genuinely changed finds the new self so hard to sell.
Words barely move the needle, and researchers can explain why. Talk is cheap: a claim that costs nothing to make carries almost no information, since the reformed and the unreformed can pronounce it equally well. What observers respond to instead is the costly signal — a message backed by real sacrifice. Paying restitution, surrendering a prized position, or refusing an easy reward in front of witnesses is persuasive precisely because the old self would never have paid that price. Even then, credibility returns only through repetition, because human minds weigh one bad act more heavily than many good ones, and a single relapse can undo months of steady behavior.
So do people actually change? Studies that follow the same individuals for decades find that personality is not frozen: most adults grow steadier, calmer, and more considerate with age, and people who deliberately practice new habits can speed that movement along. What the research does not offer is a shortcut, because observers stay skeptical and update their predictions slowly. Trust is spent in a moment and earned back in installments.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2In the trust game described, money sent to the stranger is ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
3In the passage, skeptical most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
4The passage suggests a spoken claim of change carries little information because ___.SAT · Inference
5According to the passage, human minds weigh ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
6In the passage, restitution most nearly means ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
7Why does the author end with the image of installments?SAT · Author’s Purpose
8In the passage, relapse most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
9Prose Summary (TOEFL).The passage explains how broken trust can be rebuilt. This TOEFL task lists six sentences; choose the THREE that best capture the passage’s main ideas. The other three do not belong — they state minor details or ideas the passage does not present.TOEFL · Prose Summary
10Based on the passage, which person would most likely win back trust fastest?SAT · Inference
Part 6 · Optional
Creative Writing
A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.
About This Section
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 6 “Believed Guilty”
In Part 6, Chase is innocent of the band-room attack — but his reputation convicts him before he can say a word. Write about a time you were blamed for something you did not do, or watched someone else be blamed unfairly. Describe what people believed, why they believed it, and how it felt to know a truth that no one would accept. 6–10 sentences. End with what happened when the truth came out — or what you wish had happened.
You can start with: “Everyone had decided what happened before I said a single word...”
0 / 40 words minimum
🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Gordon Korman. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Gordon Korman’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.
