Part 3
Everyone trades clues and favors, Judge Ford tallies real Westing ties — then a first bomb explodes.
Buying the CluesSunset Towers becomes a marketplace where almost nobody pays cash. Grace Wexler, suddenly sweet, brushes and braids Turtle's hair, hoping flattery will buy her daughter's clues; Turtle keeps them.
The Judge's TallyAt her party, Judge J.J. Ford quizzes her guests, decides Grace's claimed Westing kinship is invented, and tallies heirs with real Westing histories — Mr. Hoo's old lawsuit, Sandy McSouthers fired from the Westing plant, and George Theodorakis, identified in an old caption as Violet Westing's escort.
Notebook and BombAt the coffee-shop meeting Theo proposes pooling clues for equal shares, Mr. Hoo produces Sydelle Pulaski's missing notebook, and Sydelle reveals her shorthand is written in Polish — worthless to the thief. The first bomb bursts the kitchen's tomato-sauce cans, and while tenants argue over whether it was an accident, Judge Ford decides to hire a private investigator.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Market words: shorthand, broker, speculation, evasive, alliance… |
| Literary Elements | Omniscient narration, red herrings, and the dramatic irony of a braided bribe |
| Cross-Curricular | What a share of stock is: owners, brokers, and why prices move |
| Ch. | What happens |
|---|---|
| Ch.9 | Lost and Found — notes bloom on the elevator wall: Sydelle demands her stolen notebook back, and suddenly everyone lists something missing — Turtle’s Mickey Mouse clock, Flora Baumbach’s pearls, jewelry from the Wexler apartment. Other signs invite the players to a clue-sharing meeting in the coffee shop and to an evening party at Judge Ford’s. Grace turns unexpectedly tender, brushing and braiding Turtle’s hair while fishing for her clues; Turtle enjoys the attention and surrenders nothing. |
| Ch.10 | The Long Party — Judge Ford’s party is an investigation with refreshments. Grace, pressed about her Westing kinship, gives a muddled answer about relations on her father’s side, and the judge privately writes her off as a pretender. Ford tallies what she already knows: she herself, Mr. Hoo — who once sued Sam Westing — and Sandy McSouthers, fired years ago from the Westing plant, all have histories with the dead man. |
| Ch.11 | The Meeting — Theo calls the coffee shop to order and proposes pooling every team’s clues for an equal split of the winnings. Mr. Hoo produces Sydelle’s missing notebook, insisting he simply found it on a restaurant table — and Sydelle reveals the punch line: her shorthand is written in Polish, so the thief stole nothing but paper. Anonymous written questions follow, revealing among other things that Turtle’s real name is Tabitha-Ruth. |
| Ch.12 | The First Bomb — a blast in the coffee-shop kitchen bursts the tomato-sauce cans, leaving Catherine Theodorakis red-splattered but not badly hurt while the tenants argue over whether it was a bomb at all. Sydelle and Angela begin translating the notebook into English, interrupted by Turtle hunting for the newspaper — she wants the stock pages. An old newspaper caption identifies George Theodorakis as Violet Westing’s escort, and the judge decides to hire a private investigator. |
ⓘ 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.
- Mr. Hoo hands back the notebook, and Sydelle reveals it is in Polish.
- Judge Ford decides to hire a private investigator.
- Judge Ford quizzes Grace about her Westing relatives at the party.
- Notes about missing belongings crowd the elevator wall.
- An explosion in the coffee-shop kitchen sprays tomato sauce.
Think back over these chapters. An elevator wall goes shaggy with notices — a notebook, a clock, a string of pearls, each note a small accusation pinned at eye level. A mother’s hands turn unexpectedly gentle in her daughter’s hair, and the daughter, who wants the gentleness to be real, still will not sell what she knows. Upstairs a judge pours drinks and studies faces the way she once studied testimony. A stolen notebook comes home unreadable, its secrets folded inside a second language. Then the kitchen goes off like a cannon, and the reddest stain in the room turns out to be tomato sauce — while one girl checks the stock pages before the air has cleared.
A share of stock is a small slice of ownership in a company. A business that wants to grow — to build a factory, hire workers, or launch an invention — needs money, and one way to raise it is to divide ownership into thousands of identical pieces and sell them. The money raised this way becomes the company’s capital, and every buyer of a piece becomes a shareholder, an actual part-owner of the business. If the company later divides some of its profit among the owners, each shareholder’s payment is called a dividend.
Shares change hands at a stock exchange, which works like a nonstop auction. Most people never bid there in person; instead they call a broker, a licensed trader who buys or sells on a customer’s behalf for a fee. No official sets the price of a share. It is settled minute by minute by supply and demand — when more people want to buy than to sell, the price climbs, and when sellers outnumber buyers, it falls.
Because prices answer to news, rumor, and mood, they can be volatile, jumping or sinking in a single afternoon. Buying a stock only because it might leap by Friday is speculation, a gamble dressed up as a plan. Careful investors protect themselves by spreading money across different companies and by judging each one on its record rather than on a hot tip. Anyone can follow the results, because newspapers print tables listing each company under a short code of letters, with the day’s price beside it. A reader who studies those columns every morning — even a thirteen-year-old with braids — is watching thousands of anonymous strangers, all nameless to her, vote on what her choices are worth.
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 3 “The Hot Tip”
In these chapters, clues, rumors, and flattery all get traded like money — and Turtle bets ten thousand dollars on stocks she picked from the letters of her clues. Write about a time you made a decision based on a tip, a rumor, or a hunch instead of checked facts. What did it cost or win you, and what would you check first next time? 6–10 sentences.
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 3 Complete!
You finished Chapters 9–12 of The Westing Game.
Here are your auto-graded results:
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Ellen Raskin. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Ellen Raskin’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.