Colin Craven Timeline and Summary

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• Colin Craven first appears in Chapter 13, when Mary follows the sound of his crying voice to his rooms.
• We find out that he doesn't like people to look at him because he is so worried that his back is going to be "crooked" like his father's.
• Speaking of his father, Colin has essentially never met him: Archibald only ever comes in to see him when he's asleep.
• And Archibald spends as much time as possible out of the house and avoiding his son.
• Colin takes to Mary right away, and she thinks he's fine—but really spoiled. Mary is right.
• When Colin tries to throw a tantrum to bully Mary into spending more time with him and less time with Dickon, she fights right back.
• She also proves to Colin that he's always talking about "the lump" (17.23) on his back to make people sorry for him—it doesn't actually exist.
• When Colin shakes out of his fears and realizes that he is actually physically fine, he begins to work hard to learn how to walk.
• He gets a lot of help from Dickon (who comes to meet him in his rooms before Colin first visits the Secret Garden) and even Ben Weatherstaff (who joins their little group in the Secret Garden by accident in Chapter 22).
• As Colin spends more time in the Secret Garden, he begins to feel closer to his dead mother.
• He also begins to make theories about the Magic that connects all living things together, which he wants to investigate when he gets older.
• By the end of the book, Colin is as happy and healthy as it's possible to be.
• Just as he's won a race against Mary in the garden, he physically runs into his father, who has come back from his travels unexpectedly and returned to the garden he long since abandoned.
• When Archibald sees what a fine boy Colin has grown into, the two reunite happily.
• Colin offers to walk with his father back to the house to show the whole world that he can walk now.