To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 28 Summary

It’s a warm but windy moonless evening as Jem and Scout walk from their house to the high school, Jem carrying Scout’s ham costume.
The kids joke about haints, which no longer seem scary now that they’re so grown up.
They pass by the Radley Place, and pause to listen for a moment, but all is silent except for a solitary mockingbird.
They turn through a field to reach the school, feeling their way around an oak tree through the pitch-black darkness.
Someone leaps out at them with a light, scaring them half to death, but it turns out to be only Cecil Jacobs.
Cecil tells Scout he’s left his cow costume behind the stage, and Scout can do the same with her ham; Jem is glad that Scout has someone her own age to hang out with and won’t be tagging along with him.
They arrive at the crowded auditorium, and Cecil and Scout go to drop off the ham costume, then see the sights.
Soon the kids gather for the pageant, and Scout wriggles into her ham costume, now slightly mashed.
Mrs. Merriweather reads her pageant narration, which gives in great detail the history of Maycomb County.
Scout, seeing that it’s going to go on for a while, takes a nap inside her ham costume, and misses her cue.
To make matters worse, when Scout finally gets onstage it’s the middle of the finale, and later Mrs. Merriweather scolds her for ruining the pageant.
Jem talks to Scout to make her feel better, and Scout thinks he’s getting as good at it as Atticus.
Scout doesn’t want to face anyone after her mess-up, so she and Jem wait until the audience has gone, and Scout keeps her ham costume on, the better to hide from everyone.
They leave the school to go back the way they came, through the midnight-black field.
Scout realizes she’s forgotten her shoes, but when they turn back to get them the lights at the school go off, and Jem tells her she’ll have to go back tomorrow.
Jem seems nervous about something, and tells Scout to shush for a while.
Scout tells him she’s too old to play these games, but Jem tells her he hears something when they’re walking, but it stops when they do.
Jem says it’s probably just Cecil, and they keep walking.
Scout asks how Cecil can see them in the darkness, and Jem says that the fat streaks in her ham are made with reflective paint.
Scout shouts a teasing comment at Cecil Jacobs, but doesn’t get any response; odd, she thinks, for Cecil to delay the payoff of a prank for so long.
Jem asks Scout if she can take off her costume, and she says she thinks so, but she’s not wearing much under it.
Jem says he has Scout’s dress, but she says she can’t put it on in the dark.
Scout realizes that Jem knows it’s not Cecil, but he’s pretending he thinks it is so as not to scare her.
When they reach the oak tree they pause for a moment, but their stalker doesn’t stop – he runs towards them, and they can tell it’s not a kid who’s been following them.
Jem screams at Scout to run, but she’s off-kilter in her ham costume.
Something knocks into her and she falls to the ground.
Scout hears Jem fighting with someone, but can’t see who it is.
Jem breaks free, grabs Scout, and runs for the road, but something pulls him back.
Scout hears more fighting, then a crunch and a scream from Jem.
Scout runs back towards Jem and crashes into a man’s stomach.
The man squeezes her until she can barely breathe, but suddenly falls backwards; Scout thinks Jem must have gotten up.
The night is quiet again, except for the sound of a man wheezing.
Scout calls out Jem’s name, but he doesn’t answer.
Eventually Scout realizes that there’s two men under the tree besides her and Jem.
She says Atticus’s name hesitatingly, but still gets no answer.
The man walks towards the road, and Scout goes to where he had been, looking for Jem.
Instead she finds a man lying on the ground smelling of booze.
Scout finally makes her way over the road, and in the light of the street lamp Scout sees a man carrying Jem, whose arm is hanging at an unnatural angle.
The man goes to the Finch house, where Atticus lets him in.
Scout catches up and sees Aunt Alexandra running at her calling for the doctor, and hears her father in the next room asking where she is.
Aunt Alexandra calls back to Atticus that Scout is there, and goes to the phone to call Doctor Reynolds.
As she’s hanging up Atticus comes into the room and calls the sheriff, telling him someone has attacked his kids and he should retrace their steps to see if he’s still around.
Aunt Alexandra de-hams Scout and asks her what happened, but Scout says she doesn’t know.
Dr. Reynolds arrives and tends to Jem first, who has a broken arm and a concussion, and then Scout, who’s also gotten knocked around the head.
Scout asks Dr. Reynolds if Jem is dead (more than once), but the doctor reassures her he’ll be fine.
After the doctor leaves Scout looks in on Jem, who’s unconscious.
Scout looks around Jem’s room and sees Atticus, Aunt Alexandra, and a man she doesn’t know; at that moment Mr. Tate arrives.
They all sit down, except for the stranger.
Mr. Tate says he’s found a pink dress, some pieces of ham-colored cloth – and the corpse of Bob Ewell, who’s been stabbed to death.

Chapter 29

Chapter 27