78 pages • 2 hours read
The Dollhouse Murders
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Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary: “Something Little Will Turn Out to Be Big”
After Amy calms down, she comes downstairs to help make pizza for the party. Louann will stay overnight at Aunt Clare’s. Amy apologizes to Aunt Clare for getting so upset, and then her friends arrive.
Amy has fun at the party despite Louann’s being there. Kathy Sells, one of Amy’s friends, is kind to Louann, and Louann takes a liking to her. Louann stays by Kathy’s side, and Amy wishes her relationship with Louann were so simple. One of the girls tells fortunes, and Amy’s fortune says that she will “make an important discovery” (95). Ellen connects Amy’s fortune to the dollhouse.
The girls, including Louann, go upstairs to see the dollhouse. Amy’s friends love it, and Louann is entranced by the detail of the house. The dolls are in the places where the murders took place. The house remains quiet and inactive. Still, Amy knows the light and moving dolls are “as real as the house itself” (99), and she resolves to find out what it all means.
Chapter 14 Summary: “The Poor Dolly Is Crying”
After the party, Amy, Ellen, Louann, and Aunt Clare go to bed. Amy and Louann are in the same room. Later that night, Amy wakes to find Louann gone. When Louann doesn’t come back soon, Amy goes to look for her. She finds Louann in the attic, where the dollhouse parlor is lit. Louann sits in front of the glowing dollhouse, “staring with rapt attention into the lighted room” (103).
The Grandma Treloar doll is in the parlor crying, and books fall off the dollhouse parlor shelves. Amy panics, but Louann remains strangely calm. Louann asks why the dolly is crying. Amy doesn’t know and coaxes Louann away from the house and downstairs. Amy covers the house and follows, but not before she hears “the tiniest of sighs” from the house (105).
Chapter 15 Summary: “A Ghostly Secret!”
The next day is sunny and warm. Louann, Amy, and Ellen go for a hike. Louann mentions the crying dolly, and Amy tells Ellen about the lights in the dollhouse and how the dolls move around. Ellen encourages Amy to tell Aunt Clare. Amy doesn’t want to because she knows Aunt Clare won’t believe her. Amy thinks the house is “trying to tell us something” about the murders (109).
After a nice day of fun at the park, the girls return to find Aunt Clare upset. She thinks Amy put “the dolls in the rooms where they were murdered” again (113). Amy says she didn’t. Aunt Clare doesn’t believe her, and Louann argues that Amy doesn’t lie. Louann mentions the crying dolly again, which inspires Amy to tell Aunt Clare about the moving dolls and strange lights. Aunt Clare doesn’t want to believe Amy is telling the truth because if she is, it means there’s “a restless, unhappy spirit” in the house (116).
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
Again, food represents emotional growth. In Chapter 13, Amy helps prepare the pizza for the party. She begins the process still upset about Louann’s presence. By the time she finishes, she has realized how irrational she acted and is aware of the guilty feelings behind her reaction. She finishes her preparations just as her friends arrive, and her mood improves.
Despite her fears about having Louann at the party, Amy enjoys herself. Amy grows up a lot in these chapters. With Aunt Clare’s help, Amy has a normal evening with friends, during which her sister doesn’t take over everything that’s happening. Louann attaches to Kathy after Kathy treats Louann like anyone else at the party. Amy feels jealous and, deeper down, guilty that she isn’t so patient with Louann. Like in Chapter 10 when Amy gets upset about Louann being independent, Amy confronts the idea of Louann being her own person. Amy still doesn’t realize it, but her guilt about Louann being disabled clouds her judgment of her sister.
When Amy finds Louann with the dollhouse in the middle of the night, the moving dolls don’t scare Louann like they do Amy. Louann’s reaction foreshadows her bravery regarding the dollhouse in future chapters. Louann has her own strengths and abilities, which are seen in this chapter. Amy doesn’t realize it here, but she and Louann have different strengths and can work as a team. Amy still views Louann as someone who needs constant care rather than someone who can function independently and even take care of Amy.
At the park, Amy makes note of the beautiful weather—sunshine and a warm breeze. The weather matches this moment in which everything seems perfect for Amy. The party went well. She feels confident about her relationship with Louann, and she decides to forget about the dollhouse for a little while. This perfect day is the literal and figurative calm before the storm. It precedes both Aunt Clare’s storm of emotions when the girls return to the house and an actual thunderstorm in Chapters 17-18. The books falling off the shelves in Chapter 14 also foreshadow the truth about the murders being discovered in the real house’s parlor during the thunderstorm.
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