54 pages • 1 hour read
Airborn
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Nest”
Secure in the knowledge that the Aurora is inflating, Matt sleeps soundly for the first time since being grounded. The next morning, Baz bursts in and announces that Kate has disappeared. He tells a shocked Matt that Kate was gone when Miss Simpkins woke. Matt reports to Kate’s room where Walken is likewise relieved to find him present. When Matt admits that he might know where Kate has gone, he and Bruce are dispatched to fetch her. Miss Simpkins protests this is not suitable chaperonage, but Walken puts his foot down.
As he leaves to meet Bruce, Matt realizes Kate still has his compass. Matt, annoyed that Bruce has been made his partner, initially tells Bruce there are tiny, jumping, poisonous snakes; he quickly feels guilty and confesses the snakes are harmless. Bruce takes this in good spirits and confides his envy of Matt’s purposefulness aboard the Aurora. Matt contends that Bruce does not need to find his own trajectory since he is rich. Bruce, however, cites the pressure from his father to take over the family business and apologizes for taking Matt’s place as junior sailmaker. He must endure two years on the ship before his father will let him try a career of his own choosing.
Matt struggles to understand why Bruce does not chart his own path, even if it means losing his father’s financial support, but he recognizes that it is easier to advise than to act. Bruce offers to help Matt transfer to another ship, but Matt refuses; the Aurora is home. He feels guilty for snapping in response to Bruce’s attempts at kindness but does not apologize.
They reach the tree where the skeleton was found, then follow the path to where Matt and Kate last saw the living creature. They descend a tall bluff, Matt torn between worry for Kate and confidence in her resourcefulness. They begin shouting for Kate, and Matt finds himself glad Bruce is with him. They find Kate perched happily in a tree. Matt, impatient, urges Kate to return to the ship. His annoyance deepens at the easy rapport between Bruce and Kate.
The cloud cat—a name Kate reveals she, too, mentally assigned the creature—appears. Kate relays her discoveries: the creature has built a nest and is an omnivore. Bruce praises this find, annoying Matt when he calls the cloud cat an “oddity.” Bruce enthusiastically discusses the possibility of having his father fund a research expedition to learn more about them. Matt feels that Bruce is, once again, usurping his position. He grows increasingly incensed that Bruce is not emphasizing the urgency of returning to the Aurora.
Kate refuses to leave before getting a photograph. Matt accuses her of shifting her priorities from confirming her grandfather’s sighting to seeking fame. Kate claims that Matt is shortsighted to think that her wealth affords her freedom, as she is a girl and therefore lacks choices. She and Bruce both ignore Matt’s point that disobeying orders means something different for him than it does for them. Kate outlines her plan to lure out the cloud cats with a dead fish, then hide and snap a photograph. Matt reluctantly agrees to give her a little time to try this plan, though he worries the cloud cat may be dangerous.
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Cloud Cat”
The trio waits for the cloud cat as the day grows hotter, causing Kate’s fish to grow ever more malodorous. Matt thinks he hears propellers, but Kate hushes him when he asks if the others heard it, as well. The cloud cat suddenly drops into view. Matt marvels at her beauty as she awkwardly approaches the dead fish. When the cloud cat ravenously rips into the fish, Matt is struck by the danger of her enormous teeth and powerful jaws. Kate clicks the viewfinder, drawing the cloud cat’s attention. Bruce, terrified, bolts. The cloud cat chases him.
Matt, frantic, remembers Molloy’s claim that the cloud cats scattered at seeing his spyglass glint in the night. He waves the spyglass at the cloud cat, distracting her enough that an injured Bruce can run. Kate and Matt flee in the other direction, losing the spyglass and camera in the process. They head for an open field, hoping the cloud cat will not pursue them beyond the safety of the trees.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Rescue”
They enter the clearing just as an airship passes overhead. Kate, thinking this a rescue, hails them. Matt, realizing the ship holds pirates, is too late to stop her from drawing their attention. He quickly concocts a story that frames him and Kate as the only survivors of a sunken airship so that the pirates will not search for the Aurora. He abandons his belt, which bears the Lunardi Line insignia, to support his narrative and hopes Szpirglas’s crew does not recognize them.
Matt pretends to believe the pirates are from the Sky Guard, which Szpirglas confirms, calling himself “Captain Anglesea.” He instructs his first mate, Mr. Crumlin, to take Matt and Kate to “the village,” promising them a good meal. Matt mentally plots to spend a day with the pirates, faking gratitude, before escaping the next morning, just in time for the Aurora to depart. They arrive at the village Szpirglas referenced. Matt is surprised to find it is bustling with people, including women and children. His hopes of escape diminish as he realizes this is the pirates’ home, which they will doubtlessly take great pains to keep secret. Pinned to the wall of a large lodge are the mounted head and wings of a cloud cat. Crumlin cheerfully discusses shooting at the cloud cats for sport. Matt realizes this is why the cloud cats fear spyglasses, which resemble guns.
Szpirglas arrives to quiz Matt and Kate about their story. Matt watches him carefully, unsure if the pirate believes his story. Matt is impressed with Kate’s acting skills. They keep the details of their story vague, feigning a lack of a sense of direction. A woman delivers a small boy whom Szpirglas introduces as his son, Theodore. Szpirglas tells the boy fanciful stories, causing Matt to recollect the stories he once heard from his own father. Szpirglas gives Theodore a golden astrolabe that Matt recognizes as having been pilfered from the Aurora.
They eat a feast and drink mango juice, which Matt belatedly realizes has been spiked with alcohol. He struggles to clear his mind as Szpirglas quizzes them on the details of their story. To his dismay, he realizes Kate is still wearing a jeweled wristwatch. Kate and Matt are given paper and ink, supposedly to write assurances to their families, though Matt fears this is a ploy to check Kate’s identity. Kate is overeager in embellishing her story about her (fictionalized) father and his money. When Matt warns her, however, Kate is unconcerned, blithely insisting they will easily escape in the night, even though Matt is set to bunk with Szpirglas and Crumlin. They retire separately.
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Pit”
Szpirglas, feigning courtesy, urges Matt to sleep in a hammock with the crew, to Matt’s dismay. He listens to Crumlin snore and thinks ungraciously that Kate likely finds their ordeal an exciting adventure. He struggles to stay awake, wondering why the pirates have not killed him, as he, unlike Kate, cannot be ransomed. When he finally determines that Szpirglas is asleep, he creeps out the window, lamenting that he cannot reach his boots. He flees into the trees, feeling confident and strong. He finds his way back to the field and fretfully waits for Kate. When she does not arrive, he returns to the pirate’s village, despite the instinct that urges him not to.
He finds Kate asleep in a hut. He wakes her and opens the door to leave only to find Szpirglas, who claims their attempted escape confirms his suspicions that the Aurora is on the island. He strikes Matt and threatens Kate with torture if they do not reveal the Aurora’s location. He drags them to a stone mound covered with a metal hatch. Hydrium seeps from the opening. If Matt does not tell the truth about the Aurora, Szpirglas will throw them both down, where they will suffocate. Kate reveals her true name and address, but Matt resolutely lies that the Aurora is lost.
Szpirglas acts sympathetic as he claims he cannot allow Matt and Kate to live, revealing, in the process, that he killed Molloy to stop him from disclosing the island’s location. He and Crumlin shove Matt and Kate down the hydrium shaft. Matt realizes there is air close to the ground and drags Kate down. He realizes that Kate’s voluminous silk trousers can be fashioned into a makeshift balloon. They float up through the shaft until Matt can kick open the hatch, freeing them to the night air.
They stagger into the trees, Matt’s weariness a contrast to his previous confidence. Kate weeps over being the cause of this trouble. Matt kisses her despite knowing it is not the best time to dally. They continue through the forest until they come to the hydrium cave that refueled the Aurora. Matt frets when a pirate scout sees the rubber tubing that leads straight to the ship. They race to the beach, where the Aurora is poised to fly again. Through the windows, Matt sees that Szpirglas is already aboard.
Chapters 14-17 Analysis
This portion of the novel develops the theme of Exploration, Adventure, and Storytelling by connecting the power of storytelling with family, in particular paternal figures. Though Matt routinely mentally disparages Kate for finding their reality too much like a story (offering a note of ironic humor to readers who know this is, in fact, a story), he too is invested in the role of storytelling as a means to find wonder and meaning in the world. Kate and Matt initially bond over their love of stories, but as the novel progresses, adventure stories prove to have different meanings for them. Matt thinks of adventure stories as a connection to his departed father, and though Kate feels the same about Molloy, she also laments that her grandfather was not her father, arguing that the delightful stories Molloy shared were lost upon her mother. Kate’s reflection on her mother points to the fact that while her class gives her many advantages over Matt, many of those advantages are curtailed by her gender. Adventure and exploration—like storytelling—are gendered male; women like Kate must defy convention and social expectations to pursue the dreams that stories awaken in them. Moreover, as the Zoological Society’s rejection of her letters shows, her gender also makes it more difficult for her to find sympathetic listeners for her stories—since storytelling itself is also associated with men, rather than women.
The novel gives the connection between storytelling and paternal love additional nuance in Chapter 16, when Matt listens to Szpirglas tell his four-year-old son, Theodore, stories about his travels. As Szpirglas speaks to his son, Matt recognizes the transformational power of storytelling: “I listened, momentarily swept up in the beauty of his tales. Szpirglas’s face and voice were completely altered as he talked to his son […] His eyes were as guileless as those of his boy. Theodore listened, rapt. My father had once told me such stories” (278). In this moment, storytelling has the power to reconcile enemies, transcending Matt’s enmity and humanizing Szpirglas. Though his empathy is quickly overpowered by anger that Szpirglas is here to tell stories to his son while Matt’s own father is gone, there is a moment of identity between them. The story allows Matt to recognize that he and Szpirglas have some qualities in common, particularly those connected to their love of adventure and the air. His identification is quickly disrupted by Szpirglas’s continued acts of villainy and violence, but Matt’s concern for Theodore remains, leading him to ask after the boy after Szpirglas falls to his death in the novel’s conclusion.
Finally, these chapters demonstrate the value of Matt’s hands-on ingenuity in dangerous situations, which contributes to the theme of Class Divides. Matt displays the qualities of the “jack of all trades” trope, wherein a character can do anything he sets his mind to, with the caveat that his ability is restricted to air travel and airships. His abilities are a combination of innate talent and the skills he has developed through direct experience gained by spending his life working on an airship. Matt is consistently capable of escaping situations that others believe to be inescapable and accomplishing feats that others believe to be impossible. He can orient himself without a compass, and he acrobatically escapes Szpirglas’s noisy hammock by vaulting to a window without waking the pirates. His escape from the hydrium vault is the most ingenious of all: he fashions Kate’s silk pants into a makeshift air balloon that lifts them from their certain demise at the bottom of a hydrium shaft, then floats effortlessly out of the trap Szpirglas has set for them. Bruce represents the upper-class foil to Matt’s hands-on experience and skill: though Bruce displays more refinement in his sailmaker tasks, he lacks Matt’s efficiency and creativity. While Matt’s working-class status has given him years of direct experience that Bruce will struggle to replicate, it has denied him the formal learning that would allow him to develop certain skills—or to advance through the ranks. Ironically, Bruce’s class lands him a prominent position in a profession he does not want, whereas Matt’s class has given him outstanding abilities in the profession he loves that go unrecognized due to his lack of status. Together, Matt and Bruce exemplify the absurdities created by systems that privilege class hierarchy over personal passion and skill.
Unlock all 54 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Kenneth Oppel
