Part 4
Deep in the crossing now, the crew lives by the tools of navigation. They measure the boat’s speed in knots, bend over sea charts, watch the compass, and keep track of how far they have come by simple arithmetic — speed times time — the old art of finding your way when there is no land in sight. Between the chores, the crew’s hidden hearts start to show. Uncle Dock, usually so steady, goes soft and sad when the name Rosalie comes up — a woman he once loved and lost — and he guards a small keepsake that clearly means the world to him. Sophie tells another Bompie story, the swimming-hole tale in which young Bompie again ends up underwater, and the family’s puzzlement deepens. Most troubling of all, Sophie’s dreams turn dark: night after night she is chased by nightmares of a ‘little kid’ near water, images she cannot explain and does not want to face. Something long buried is pushing up through her sleep. Dock carries an open grief he can name; Sophie carries a hidden grief she cannot — and the two losses quietly mirror each other as the Wanderer sails on.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Navigation words: knot, chart, compass, course, reckoning… |
| Literary Elements | A keepsake symbol, parallel griefs, and dreams that foreshadow |
| Cross-Curricular | Finding your way at sea — charts, compass, knots, and dead reckoning |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Chapters 30–32 | Finding the Way — the crew navigates by chart, compass, and knots; Dock grows sad over a lost love named Rosalie; and Sophie tells the swimming-hole Bompie story. |
| Chapters 33–35 | Nightmares Rising — Sophie is haunted by dreams of a ‘little kid’ near water, Dock keeps a treasured keepsake, and two very different griefs quietly mirror each other. |
Part 4’s words steer the boat and the heart: a compass and a chart to hold a course, speed measured in knots, and a nightmare of a little kid near water rising from a buried past. With no roads and no landmarks, how does a boat find England across three thousand miles of water? For centuries the answer was three tools working together. First, the compass, which always points toward magnetic north, lets a sailor hold a steady course in any direction. Second, the chart — a detailed map of the sea — shows depths, dangers, and the grid of imaginary lines (latitude and longitude) that pin any spot on the globe. Third, sailors measure their speed in knots (one knot is one nautical mile per hour) and multiply speed by the hours sailed to learn how far they have traveled.
Such language choices reveal the author’s deliberate diction.
ⓘ 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.
The narrative traces the deeper crossing: the crew navigating by chart, compass, and knots; Dock’s sorrow over lost Rosalie; another underwater Bompie story; and Sophie’s nightmares of a ‘little kid’ near water. Chapters 30–32: Finding the Way — the crew navigates by chart, compass, and knots; Dock grows sad over a lost love named Rosalie; and Sophie tells the swimming-hole Bompie story. Chapters 33–35: Nightmares Rising — Sophie is haunted by dreams of a ‘little kid’ near water, Dock keeps a treasured keepsake, and two very different griefs quietly mirror each other. Deep in the crossing now, the crew lives by the tools of navigation. Between the chores, the crew’s hidden hearts start to show. Uncle Dock, usually so steady, goes soft and sad when the name Rosalie comes up — a woman he once loved and lost — and he guards a small keepsake that clearly means the world to him.
The unstated link is supported by careful inference.
- Dock grows sad when Rosalie’s name comes up.
- Nightmares of a ‘little kid’ near water begin to haunt Sophie.
- Sophie tells the swimming-hole Bompie story.
- The crew navigates by chart, compass, and knots.
- Dock’s grief and Sophie’s buried grief quietly mirror each other.
Part 4 uses three tools: an object that carries meaning (symbol), two characters whose losses echo (parallel characters), and dreams that hint at what is coming (foreshadowing). The narrative reveals how Creech places Dock’s sorrow right beside Sophie’s — a technique of parallel characters, where two people echo each other so we understand both more deeply. Dock’s grief is open: he can name Rosalie, sigh over his keepsake, and let the family see him hurt. Sophie’s grief is buried: it has no name yet, and it can only reach her sideways, through nightmares of a ‘little kid’ near water. By setting the two side by side, Creech shows a range of ways the human heart handles loss — some out loud, some hidden so well that even the griever does not know what they mourn.
Sentence and scene arrangement determine its pacing.
This part brings together a compass and chart, a treasured keepsake, a swimming-hole story, a nightmare of a little kid. Uncle Dock guards a small keepsake tied to Rosalie, the woman he loved and lost, and that little object works as a symbol of longing — of a love that is over yet still carried everywhere. Creech gives the gruff, capable uncle this tender secret for a reason: it shows that grief does not only belong to Sophie. Everyone on this boat is carrying something. The episode demonstrates how a physical object can hold an entire invisible history — a whole lost future folded into a thing you can hold in one hand. The keepsake reminds us that the people who seem strongest often ache the most quietly, and it prepares us to understand the far deeper loss that Sophie herself has buried.
That conflict belongs to the field of ethics.
Below deck, a lantern swings and the chart lies open on the table, its blue expanse crossed with faint lines and numbers. Dock bends over it with the compass, plotting how far six knots for six hours has carried them across the empty ocean — and then his eyes drift, and his thumb finds a small keepsake in his pocket, and for a moment he is somewhere else entirely, with a woman named Rosalie he lost long ago. Across the cabin, Sophie sleeps — and does not rest. Behind her eyelids a little kid stands near dark water, again and again, and she wakes with her heart pounding, unable to say what the dream means or why it will not leave her alone. Two people on one small boat, both carrying a loss. One can name his. The other does not yet know what she has buried.
With no roads and no signs, crossing an ocean means answering one hard question over and over: where are we now? For hundreds of years, sailors answered it with three simple tools. The first is the compass, whose needle always swings toward magnetic north, letting a sailor hold a chosen direction, or course, no matter which way the waves push. The second is the chart, a detailed map of the sea that shows depths, hidden rocks, and the grid of lines — latitude and longitude — that can pin any point on the whole round Earth.
The third tool is arithmetic. Sailors measure their speed in knots, where one knot equals one nautical mile each hour, and then multiply that speed by the number of hours they have sailed to learn how far they have come. By adding up each heading and each distance in turn, a navigator can estimate the boat’s position without ever glimpsing land, a patient method called dead reckoning. Modern crews also carry GPS, a small device that listens to satellites and reports the boat’s exact spot within seconds. Yet good sailors still learn the older skills, because batteries die and screens fail, while a compass, a chart, and careful counting almost never do. Navigation, in the end, is really a kind of bookkeeping: keep track of your speed, your time, and your heading, and the vast sea can no longer lose you.
“Before satellites existed, this patient bookkeeping was the only way to guess where a boat was.”
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 4 “Something I Carry”
Dock keeps a small keepsake that holds a whole story of love and loss. Write about an object you keep that means far more than it looks — a gift, a photo, something handed down. What is it, where did it come from, and why do you hold on to it? 6–10 sentences. End with what the object reminds you of every time you see it.
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.
Part 4 Complete!
You finished Chapters 30–35 of The Wanderer.
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Your writing was checked automatically for length, spelling, grammar, and whether you included the key parts of the scene. Scroll back to Part 5 anytime to read your feedback and improve your work.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Sharon Creech. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Sharon Creech’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.