The Body of Christopher Creed Chapter 19 Summary

  • Back at home, Mrs. Adams tries to cheer them up by saying that the disk is going to be analyzed to see if Bo wrote that note or only moved in onto a disk. Unfortunately, though, this is going to take a while and he has to stay locked up until then.
  • Ali starts crying and blurts out that she's afraid of Police Chief Bowen.
  • Unable to stand much more stress, Torey retreats to his room to think.
  • He remembers a biblical story Leandra told him once about this selfish rich guy who treated all the poor and beggars badly. When he died, he asked God to send him back as a ghost to tell his family to treat them well, but God said they wouldn't believe him.
  • Torey never understood that story until now.
  • The next day at school, Torey gets through it without talking to anyone and he doesn't see Leandra all day, so somebody must have told her that he was breaking up with her; he doesn't care, though.
  • At home after school, he checks a message left for him from Isabella and she invites him to drop by.
  • He decides that getting out of this small town is exactly what he wants to do, and Ali is in, too.
  • When she notices that he's kind of feeling better, she mentions that he's been looking depressed lately and that he gets too emotional about stuff.
  • Um, Torey doesn't agree. Ali reminds him about the time he got sick over seeing bloody bodies in a wax museum, and how even though it was only wax it still totally grossed him out.
  • In fact, it bothered him so much that he wrote a poem about it for his class.
  • Anyway, there is hope that they might find Chris and save Bo.
  • In Margate, walking toward Isabella's house, Torey thinks about the stuff he's heard about this city. It is bigger, has more people, there are older houses and lots of money around, plus more drugs and parents taking off so good parties, too.
  • Torey thinks that Isabella must be a girl from a family like his because Chris describes her as shy and good-girlish in his diary.
  • When they get to her house, they find it dirty, old, and broken down. Isabella is not who they expected. She is "so unshy and so artsy" (19.38) with long braids and smoking (she's older than them, too) that Torey is shocked.
  • They learn that Chris glommed onto her and she felt badly for him so she kind of humored him a bit, but then he got way too annoying and needy so she ditched him.
  • Whoa… so Chris made the whole relationship up in his mind.
  • Torey wants to see the psychic, who is also Isabella's aunt, so she takes them there.
  • The lady is also not what Torey expected and he is doubtful that she is the real deal.
  • But she seems to be really focused in on him when he asks about Chris Creed, and she says he will find the body, dead, shot in the head, in the woods under three rocks. Torey knows she is referring to the burial ground behind his house.
  • She also says that he will find the body alone.
  • Torey doesn't think it's funny and gets mad that the woman is joking.
  • When he and Ali leave, he says that he will never go into the woods again, and also that he does not want to find Chris's body.