The Westing Game Chapter 17 Summary

Some Solutions

  • That Monday, the stock goes down even further. Everyone's nervous—the bomb squad gets called a few extra times because of a vacuum cleaner bag, a box of chocolates, and because Turtle yells for Flora, "Mrs. Baumbach," which sounds like "bomb."
  • Grace doesn't seem to trust Jake because he's sending her flowers and candy.
  • Flora's only learned two stock market words: "bullish" and "bearish."
  • Madame Hoo's learning many English words from Jake, who teaches her before having lunch at Shin Hoo's.
  • Today, he helps Mr. Hoo and Grace with their clues. He puts "purple fruited" in order, which makes Grace think of plums, and the lawyer Ed Plum. Mr. Hoo tears "fruited" in half and gets "Ed Purple-fruit." They think they've solved it, ignoring Jake's question about their other three clues.
  • Meanwhile, Sandy's keeping a notebook with all the information he and Judge Ford gather on the other players. They're finished up with the Westings and are moving on to the heirs.
  • Sandy shares what he knows about the Hoos: Mr. Hoo has been married twice, Madame Hoo recently immigrated, and Doug is great at running track. Their connection is that Mr. Hoo took Westing to court over the disposable paper diaper, which was settled, and now he's working on paper insoles.
  • Sandy says he asked Mr. Hoo to come up with those insoles, and they really work.
  • Theo's downstairs working on his chemistry homework, which makes him think of solutions for the will. He puts his clues into a solution and comes up with "NH4NO3," which he thinks is an explosive, with "Otis" left over. He runs out to tell Doug, but he's so excited he grabs what turns out to be the wrong bathrobe. He knocks on Crow's door by mistake, and she drags him into her place so they can both pray for being sinners. He thinks she gave him something but can't find it later.