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Walk Two Moons · Garden Heights
Part 5
for Walk Two Moons · Part 5 · Chapters 23–28
8 Parts40 min
What Happens in Part 5
In the Badlands, Sal finally faces the buried story of the stillborn baby, while Phoebe turns her suspicion on Mrs. Cadaver.
The Baby TulipIn the Badlands, Gram's breathing raspy and thin, Sal remembers why her mother left: to visit a Lewiston cousin unseen in fifteen years, someone to remind her who Chanhassen Hiddle was before wife and mother. A pregnant stranger's arrival sends Sal away, and out comes everything: Sal fell from a tree three weeks before the due date, Momma carried her home, and that night the baby girl — named Tulip — was born dead, the bleeding ending any chance of more children.
Runaways and RaftsSal has always secretly believed the fall was her fault, whatever her father says. She throws a stone across the gorge, remembering Momma's Blackfoot tale of Napi, whose sinking stone decreed that people must die. Leaving, Gram tells of her own three-day runaway with the egg man — a person can love her family and still need to leave to be sure of it. On a giant motel waterbed near Wall, joked into a raft, Sal dreams of floating with Momma.
Muesli and MigrainesIn the story, another message lands — birds of sadness overhead, hair they must not nest in — and Phoebe declares it a lunatic clue. Ben reports on Prometheus as classmates ask about the invented London trip. Dinner with the loud, affectionate Finneys goes badly: Phoebe lectures on cholesterol, refuses fried chicken, and ends with muesli, while Sal notices the Finneys feel like Bybanks. Phoebe's weekend at Sal's is worse — sacrifices, migraines, kidnapping theories — teaching Sal what her father endured from her.
Pandora's JarReal news: Mrs. Winterbottom has telephoned Margaret Cadaver saying she is fine. Phoebe decides Mrs. Cadaver may have harmed her mother, and her father promises police by Wednesday if nothing more comes. In class Phoebe retells Pandora — a jarful of evils loosed, hope caught beneath the lid — and Sal thinks the unthinkable at last: maybe her mother was simply unhappy, and mothers are people, not possessions. Mount Rushmore proves smaller than hoped, as Sal counts shrinking days to Momma's birthday.
What We Will Learn
Section
What you will practice
Vocabulary
Loss, alarm, and holding on: desolate, frantic, console, rigid, optimistic…
Literary Elements
Parallel plots that let two griefs explain each other, dramatic irony as Sal recognizes her own denial in Phoebe, and symbols — nesting birds of sadness, and hope shut inside Pandora’s jar
Cross-Curricular
The psychology of childhood grief — why a young mind refuses a loss, what magical thinking and misdirected anger are, and what researchers say actually helps
Chapter Summary
Ch.
What happens
Chapter 23
The Badlands — Among the jagged bare hills, with Gram’s breathing gone raspy, Sal’s hardest memories surface: Momma left to visit a cousin in Lewiston who could remind her who she was before wife and mother; a fall from a tree; a baby sister, named Tulip, born dead that night; the bleeding that ended Momma’s hopes of more children — and Sal’s secret belief that all of it was her fault.
Chapter 24
Birds of Sadness — Gram tells of her three days with the egg man, and why leaving can be part of loving. The travelers share a motel waterbed like a raft. In Euclid, a new porch message warns about letting sadness nest in your hair; Phoebe calls it a kidnapper’s clue, and classmates ask about her mother’s invented London trip.
Chapter 25
Cholesterol — Dinner at the warm, chaotic Finney house turns into a disaster of manners: Phoebe lectures the table on cholesterol, refuses dish after dish, and is served muesli instead. Afterward the girls find Mr. Winterbottom washing dishes in a frilly apron, and Phoebe later reports she may have caught him crying.
Chapter 26
Sacrifice — Phoebe’s weekend at Sal’s is a march of sacrifices, migraines, and kidnapping theories, all delivered in her missing mother’s phrases. Watching her, Sal finally understands what her own father endured. At the Finneys’, the sight of two parents kissing on a garage roof reminds Sal of what her family lost.
Chapter 27
Pandora’s Box — Word comes through Margaret Cadaver: Mrs. Winterbottom called to say she is fine. Phoebe, refusing comfort, suspects Mrs. Cadaver herself; her father promises the police by Wednesday if nothing more comes. In class, Phoebe retells Pandora — evils loosed, hope under the lid — and Sal lets herself imagine that Momma was simply unhappy.
Chapter 28
The Black Hills — The trip winds through the Black Hills, where Mount Rushmore proves smaller than the hopes carried to it, and the calendar tightens its grip: whatever happens, Sal and her grandparents must reach Idaho by Momma’s birthday.
Part 1
Vocabulary
Study 10 key words from Chapters 23–28, then answer each question.
📚Knowledge Bank · Words for a House Gone Quiet
Linguistics · Emotion WordsEnglish handles feelings in two different ways, and Part 5 uses both. Some words describe emotion from the outside, by what a body does: a frantic person paces and interrupts; a rigid one goes stiff and refuses to bend; a desolate landscape simply looks the way loneliness feels. Other words name what happens between people — to console someone is an action, something you do with words, food, or company. Psychologists have found that this vocabulary is not decoration. In studies of what they call affect labeling, people who put a precise word to a strong feeling — saying frightened instead of just feeling a roar — show calmer activity in the brain’s alarm centers. Naming a feeling gives the thinking mind a handle on it. That is one reason Phoebe, who will not name what she feels, stays trapped inside it, while Sal slowly loosens her grief by telling a story in which every feeling gets named.
desolateadj.Ch.23
Empty, bare, and bleak; without life or comfort
“The Badlands stretched out desolate under the afternoon sun.”
raspyadj.Ch.23
Rough, harsh, and scratchy-sounding
“Gram’s breathing turned raspy as they crossed the Badlands.”
franticadj.Ch.24
Wild with fear or worry; desperately agitated
“Phoebe grew frantic whenever a new message appeared.”
consolev.Ch.24
To comfort someone who is sad or disappointed
“Nothing Sal said could console her friend for long.”
cholesteroln.Ch.25
A fatty substance in the blood; too much of it can harm the heart
“Phoebe lectured the whole table about cholesterol.”
rigidadj.Ch.26
Stiff and unbending; refusing to change
“Her rules grew more rigid with every passing day.”
sacrificen.Ch.26
The act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else
“Phoebe repeated her mother’s sayings about sacrifice all weekend.”
lunaticn.Ch.24
An old, unkind word for a person who seems dangerously out of his mind
“Phoebe insisted the lunatic had left the message himself.”
optimisticadj.Ch.27
Expecting the best; hopeful about what is coming
“The myth ends on an optimistic note, with hope still in the jar.”
dismaladj.Ch.28
Gloomy and depressing; causing low spirits
“The gray drizzle made the mountain look dismal and small.”
ⓘ 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, a word like console belongs to a different group from frantic and rigid because ___.Ch.23
2A ‘frantic’ person is wild with fear or worry.Ch.24
3To ‘console’ someone is to ___.Ch.24
4Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.26
Word choices:rigidraspydismalconsole- some words will not be used
Phoebe’s rules grew more every day.
Gram’s breathing sounded in the dry air.
5A ‘sacrifice’ is the act of ___.Ch.26
6An ‘optimistic’ person expects the worst to happen.Ch.27
7‘Cholesterol’ is ___.Ch.25
8‘Dismal’ describes something cheerful and bright.Ch.28
9Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.27
Word choices:optimisticsacrificefranticdesolate- some words will not be used
Hope in the jar gives the myth an ending.
Phoebe kept quoting her mother on .
10Calling someone a ‘lunatic’ means you think the person is ___.Ch.24
Part 2
Comprehension
Show you understood what happens in Chapters 23–28.
🏠Knowledge Bank · The Work Nobody Sees
Sociology · Household LaborWatch what happens to the Winterbottom house the moment its mother is gone: dust gathers, meals collapse, small comforts vanish. Sociologists have a name for what disappeared — invisible labor, the unpaid work of cooking, cleaning, remembering birthdays, soothing tempers, and noticing what everyone needs. It is called invisible because a household consumes it without seeing it; the shirts are simply clean, the way a hallway is simply lit. Economists who have tried to price this work estimate that, if every hour of it were paid at ordinary wages, it would add trillions of dollars a year to national economies — a vast industry with no salaries and no titles. Sharon Creech (author) makes the point without a single statistic. Mrs. Winterbottom spent years asking, in small ways, whether anyone saw her at all, and nobody looked up from breakfast. Only the wreckage of the kitchen finally answers her question, because unseen work obeys a hard rule: it becomes visible exactly when it stops.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1According to the Knowledge Bank, economists who priced invisible labor estimate that paying ordinary wages for it would ___.Ch.23
2Why does Phoebe cling to the kidnapping theory?Ch.24
3Mr. Winterbottom calls the police the moment his wife disappears.Ch.24
4What news finally comes about Mrs. Winterbottom?Ch.27
5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events. Number 1 = what happens first.Chapters 23–28
Phoebe lectures the Finney dinner table about cholesterol.
A message about the birds of sadness appears on Phoebe’s porch.
Phoebe delivers her Pandora report in English class.
Phoebe spends a difficult weekend at Sal’s house.
At the Badlands, Sal relives the night her baby sister Tulip was born dead.
6The mysterious porch messages stop arriving once Mrs. Winterbottom is gone.Ch.24
7How does Phoebe behave at the Finneys’ dinner table?Ch.25
8Whom does Phoebe suspect after the reassuring phone call comes?Ch.27
9Near Wall, South Dakota, the travelers share a giant motel waterbed and joke that it is a raft.Ch.24
10What deadline presses on Sal as the trip continues?Ch.28
Part 3
Literary Elements
Understanding HOW and WHY Sharon Creech tells the story across Chapters 23–28.
🎭Knowledge Bank · Two Girls, One Grief
Authorial Craft · Parallel PlotsSharon Creech (author) is running an experiment in this part, and the apparatus is a pair of parallel plots. Phoebe’s story and Sal’s story are the same story at two different stages: a mother leaves to find something she lost, a daughter refuses the plain explanation, anger sprays onto innocent targets. Because Sal is a full year further down this road, she can narrate Phoebe’s denial with an insider’s eye — she recognizes the invented kidnapper because she once invented her own comforts. That gap between what Phoebe believes and what the narrator and reader understand is dramatic irony, and Creech tightens it on purpose: every wild theory of Phoebe’s teaches us to wonder what Sal is still not telling us about Momma. A parallel plot is not a spare story stapled on for variety. It is a controlled comparison, and the reader’s real work is to measure one grief against the other and notice that they rhyme.
Parallel Plots
Two story lines run side by side — Sal’s road trip west and Phoebe’s troubles in Euclid — and each one quietly explains the other.
Dramatic Irony
The reader — and Sal — can see what Phoebe cannot: the calm notes, the reassuring phone call, the truth that no kidnapper was needed.
Symbolism
Birds of sadness that must not be allowed to nest, and hope shut under the lid of Pandora’s jar — images that carry the part’s meaning.
🧠Knowledge Bank question
1The Knowledge Bank explains that a parallel plot works as ___.Ch.23
2Dramatic irony is when the reader understands something a character does not.Ch.24
3Phoebe believing in a kidnapper while the reader sees the truth creates ___.Ch.24
4The birds of sadness that must not nest in your hair function as ___.Ch.24
5Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.23
Word choices:parallelsymbolironypreface- some words will not be used
Two matching story lines are called plots.
Hope caught under the jar’s lid works as a .
6A symbol is an object or image that stands for a larger idea.Ch.27
7Sal recognizing her own past denial while watching Phoebe is possible because ___.Ch.26
8Parallel plots means one plot must be finished before the second one may begin.Ch.23
9Phoebe’s Pandora report, placed while her own house is full of trouble, mainly creates ___.Ch.27
10Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.24
Word choices:ironysymbolismglossaryindex- some words will not be used
The gap between Phoebe’s belief and the truth is dramatic .
Using nesting birds to stand for hosted sorrow is .
Part 4
Think Deeper
Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.
💡Knowledge Bank · The Jar That Held Hope
Mythology · PandoraPhoebe’s class report retells one of the oldest Greek stories, and it is worth getting the details right. In the poet Hesiod’s version, written around 700 BCE, the gods send the first woman, Pandora, to mankind with a great storage jar — not a box; a scholar’s slip centuries later turned the Greek word for jar into a box, and the mistake stuck. When the lid comes off, sorrows, sickness, and toil scatter into the world, and only one thing remains caught under the rim: hope. Readers have argued about that ending for more than two thousand years. Is hope preserved — kept safe where people can always reach it? Or is it trapped — the one comfort locked away from us? The myth refuses to settle the question, which is exactly why it belongs in this part of the novel. Two houses have had their lids pried off, and every character is now deciding, without quite saying so, which reading of the jar to believe.
Picture a kitchen that has quietly stopped working. The mother who ran it walked out the door with a small bag and left neat little notes behind, and now the dust settles, the meals go strange, and a thirteen-year-old girl has decided — decided absolutely — that her mother did not leave. She was taken. A lunatic took her. Any other explanation is unthinkable, so Phoebe refuses to think it. Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles west, the girl telling us Phoebe’s story leans against a car window while the bare hills of South Dakota roll by, and works very hard at not remembering a spring in Kentucky: a mother who felt she had disappeared into being a wife and a mother, a bus headed for Idaho, and a baby sister, named for a flower, who lived less than a day. Part 5 is two griefs running side by side — one loud and furious, inventing kidnappers; one silent, counting the miles to the place where its story ended. Watch how carefully each girl builds a wall, and what keeps leaking through it.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1Claim: “Part 5 shows that Phoebe’s kidnapping theory is a shield against a truth she cannot bear.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence
2Phoebe’s grief, or Sal’s grief? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two
◄ Phoebe’s griefSal’s grief ►
3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect
Mrs. Winterbottom leaves calm notes and goes→
Phoebe cannot let herself blame her mother→
Sal fell from a tree just before the baby came→
Momma felt she had vanished into wife and mother→
🧠Knowledge Bank question
4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument
According to the Knowledge Bank, Hesiod's original Pandora carried , and the famous container became a box through .
Part 5
Standardized Test
The Shapes of Grief · 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
SATInference — a conclusion the passage implies
SATAuthor’s Purpose — what the author wants to achieve
SATWords in Context — a word's meaning in this passage
TOEFLFactual Information — a fact stated in the passage
TOEFLVocabulary — a tested word's meaning here
The Shapes of Grief
Adults expect a grieving child to look like a grieving adult: quiet, tearful, and desolate in one unbroken stretch. Researchers who watch grieving children describe something different. A child's grief arrives in short bursts — ten minutes of tears, then an hour of ordinary play — because a young mind can hold only so much pain at once. Between bursts, many children refuse the loss altogether, inventing a story in which the missing person had no choice; psychologists call this denial and treat it as a shock absorber, not a flaw.
Many children slip into magical thinking, the belief that their own behavior caused the loss or could undo it, so they keep secret bargains — perfect chores, perfect grades — as if goodness could pull someone home. Anger rarely aims at the person who left; it lands on whoever is nearby and safe, often the adult who stayed. A well-known five-part model of grief, drawn decades ago from interviews with dying patients, lists denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — yet mourners wander among these responses in no fixed order, so the model is a map of places grief often visits, never a schedule it must keep.
The same research points to what helps. Children do best with plain, honest language, because a literal young mind may hear that someone was lost and quietly wait for the search party. They do best when routines hold steady, since sameness signals safety, and the most resilient children are rarely the ones who felt the least — they had one calm, truthful adult nearby to console them while they felt it. Grief in childhood has recognizable shapes but no timetable, and pretending otherwise only teaches a child to hide it.
Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.
1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas
2According to the passage, a child’s grief often arrives ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
3How do psychologists in the passage regard denial?TOEFL · Factual Information
4The passage suggests a grieving child’s anger lands on the adult who stayed because ___.SAT · Inference
5According to the passage, the five-part model of grief was originally drawn from ___.TOEFL · Factual Information
6Why does the author compare the five-part model to a map rather than a schedule?SAT · Author’s Purpose
7Based on the passage, telling a literal-minded child that someone was ‘lost’ could ___.SAT · Inference
8In the passage, console most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context
9In the passage, desolate most nearly means ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
10In the passage, resilient most nearly means ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary
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 5 “The Story You Tell Yourself”
Phoebe invents a kidnapper because the plain truth — that her mother chose to go — hurts too much to hold. Write about a time you, or someone you know, preferred a comfortable story to a hard truth. What was the comfortable story? What was it protecting you from? How did the truth finally arrive, and what happened when it did? 6–10 sentences. End with whether the comfortable story helped, harmed, or somehow did both.
You can start with: “At first, I refused to believe what was right in front of me...”
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 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.
