57 pages • 1 hour read
Lois DuncanI Know What You Did Last Summer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1973A 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 15-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Helen gets a call from Ray, who tells her that Barry was robbed after being shot. Once Helen finds out how Ray got into Barry’s hospital room, she decides to go there. Ray tries to talk her out of it but doesn’t tell her about the other women Barry is dating. Ray also convinces her that the shooting is unrelated to the letters, but Helen is still determined to visit Barry. She thinks Ray betrayed Barry by suggesting they dissolve the pact.
Helen goes swimming in her apartment pool and sees Collie talking to a schoolteacher poolside. He asks about Barry, and the other woman notes that Barry is her boyfriend. Helen says Barry is recovering. Collie asks her to race him and jumps in the pool. The teacher is angry that Helen is leading Collie on and tells Helen that Barry is more interested in other women than Collie. Helen jumps in the pool, racing Collie.
As she swims, Helen thinks about how the other woman is jealous and how she doesn’t have female friends. Her friendship with Julie happened because their boyfriends were friends, but she finds Julie less combative than the women in her apartment building. The teachers would have made negative remarks about her buying clothes from thrift shops, but Julie didn’t. Helen reassures herself by remembering that she makes enough money not to be insulted because of her class.
Helen remembers moving into the apartment. Elsa was impressed and asked if she could move in with Helen. Helen refused, saying she was getting a one-bedroom place and their mom needed help with the many children. Elsa envied Helen for being able to afford the expensive apartment. Barry was also impressed with the apartment building and with her getting the Future Star job.
Collie beats Helen to the end of the pool. He jokes about her swimming slowly, and she thinks she is more attractive than the other women at the pool. She says he should watch the news to see her post-swimming hair. Collie says he will be out on a date. Helen is shocked and flustered, awkwardly asking about his date. Collie says his date is someone he knew before Helen and rudely points out that Helen never asks him any questions about himself. She feels like he is calling her self-centered, and he agrees. Then, he tells her that he is worth her time and knows things she would be interested to hear. He also asserts he will become more important to her soon. As Collie leaves, speaking loudly about getting ready for his date, the other women at the pool laugh.
Helen feels embarrassed by Collie’s comments but refuses to run after him. Instead, she plans to swim for a while to make it look like she doesn’t care about him. However, she wonders who his date is.
Chapter 16 Summary
Mrs. James cleans up after dinner and thinks about how the nice weather contrasts her feeling that something bad will happen. She recalls previous premonitions, one of which happened when eight-year-old Julie broke her arm on the playground. The most painful feeling of something going wrong happened about a year later when her husband died in a car accident. Mrs. James also had a premonition about a fire in their house, sending Julie home from a friend’s house to check on things while Mrs. James was at a PTA meeting.
Mrs. James had one premonition that didn’t correlate to an actual event, but that was because Julie didn’t tell her about the accident. Julie’s mother had a bad feeling while Julie was at the picnic spot, but Julie came home without tragic news. Then, Mrs. James thinks about Julie becoming more serious and misses how Julie used to be before that night. However, she thinks these feelings are because Julie is growing up. Regardless, she stays home in the evenings to try and keep an eye on Julie and be near the phone if she needs her. As Julie prepares for her date with Bud, Mrs. James believes something will happen that night.
Meanwhile, Mr. Rivers asks for extra potatoes, and his wife offers him some. She also tells Elsa not to have seconds, and Elsa says she’s not trying to be skinny like Helen. Mr. Rivers argues that Helen’s willpower is admirable, but Elsa calls Helen selfish. Mr. Rivers mentions that Helen sends them money every paycheck, but Elsa argues that Helen could send more money. When Mrs. Rivers says that Elsa will also have nice things and a boyfriend someday, Elsa thinks her mother means someone rich and handsome. Elsa rejects this, saying she’ll marry someone poor, and they’ll have many children. Mr. Rivers asks her to check on the kids in the living room. Elsa says she’s glad Barry was shot as she storms away from the dinner table.
After she leaves, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers wonder why Elsa is so bitter. Mrs. Rivers wonders if they did something wrong in raising her. Mr. Rivers thinks Elsa’s jealousy of Helen is standing in her way, not any parenting decision. He also thinks Helen needs to find someone who loves her rather than just men who desire her sexually. Then, he compliments his wife’s beauty.
In a hospital hall, Mrs. Cox worries about Barry becoming paralyzed, and Mr. Cox notes that he might still walk if he starts moving his feet within the week. Mr. Cox tells his wife that he thinks she wants Barry to be paralyzed so she can keep him at home. She replies that she just wants to care for him in his time of need. Mr. Cox argues that Mrs. Cox has continually tried to interfere in Barry’s life to keep him near her, leading to Barry’s rebellion. Mr. Cox thinks he might be partly at fault for spending more time on work than on paying attention to his wife.
Mr. Cox explains that even if Barry uses a wheelchair, he can still leave home and function as an independent adult. Mrs. Cox still wants to keep Helen away but is interrupted by a doctor who says Barry has moved one of his feet. This means Barry will be able to walk after a lot of physical therapy. When Celia tries to enter Barry’s room, the doctor stops her. He says Barry has requested not to see any visitors, including family, and Barry is making a call to repair a wrong by admitting he lied. When Mrs. Cox insists on seeing Barry, the doctor stops her.
An unnamed “man” (175) enters Helen’s unlocked balcony door and sits in her chair while waiting for her. The phone rings while he waits.
Chapter 17 Summary
Helen hangs out at the pool, drinking and flirting for a while after being upset by Collie’s comments. She hears her phone ringing and heads inside, where Collie is sitting. His presence startles her, and she asks why he isn’t getting ready for his date. He tells her he is going to kill his date, and, at first, Helen thinks it is a joke. Then, Collie mentions a boy on a bike being hit by a car, and Helen realizes he is not joking.
Collie was in Iraq when his little brother, Daniel Gregg, was hit by Barry. His last name is different from Daniel’s because they have different fathers—they are half-brothers. When he returned from the war, he began to track down the group of teens, starting with the yellow roses that Julie sent to the funeral. The flower shop remembered her as a redhead with a cheerleader necklace.
Collie sent Julie the initial letter. Julie’s reaction to the note—coming over to Helen’s apartment and having Barry over—led Collie to the rest of the group. Around this time, he moved into the Four Seasons and started flirting with Helen.
Helen tries to see if there is a way out of the apartment, but Collie is between her and the door. He tells her she won’t be able to get out of the living room window either. Collie then tells Helen he called Barry, luring him to the field with the promise of photographic evidence of the accident and then shooting him. Helen asks why he didn’t involve the police, and Collie says he didn’t have proof and the legal punishments would not fit the magnitude of the crime. Helen notices how terrible his eyes look.
Collie talks about his trauma from the war. He says his life is ruined, unlike the lives of the four teens. Helen is still struggling to reconcile Collie’s past kindness with these confessions. He explains that he took her to the hospital to know what happened to Barry after he shot him.
The phone rings, distracting Collie, and Helen runs into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She looks at the window, which is glass but does not have a mechanism for opening it. Her toiletries and makeup are not good weapons. Helen realizes Barry lied about the call before the shooting, putting all their lives in danger. Collie isn’t banging on the door because that will draw attention from the neighbors. Instead, he is taking the hinges off of the door. Helen smashes the window with a perfume bottle, putting her head out of it to yell for help. When no one notices, she pushes herself out of the second-story window and falls to the ground below.
Chapter 18 Summary
Julie’s mother asks her to cancel her date with Bud because of a premonition. Julie thinks about how her mother’s premonitions have often been true in the past but sometimes were nothing. Julie argues with her mother, saying it is too late to cancel. She looks at her disheveled appearance, comparing it to how she used to look for her dates with Ray.
Julie thinks about how she met Bud at a library and kept agreeing to dates with him even though she didn’t love him. Recalling her past feelings for Ray, she realizes they still exist, which makes her feel guilty about leading Bud on. When Julie goes to answer the door, her mother’s face causes her to decide not to go out on the date. She opens the door, tries to cancel with Bud, and he is upset—his eyes seem to darken. Julie is scared of him and happy she decided to cancel.
She invites him to watch TV inside with her and her mother, but he declines. Bud argues that she is blowing him off because Ray is back in town, and Julie still loves Ray. Bud asks her to walk him to his car, mentioning he had lunch with Ray and needs to talk to her alone. Julie hesitates but agrees. However, when he asks her to get in his car, she refuses, admitting to still having feelings for Ray.
Bud notes how she doesn’t call him Collie, which reveals to the reader that Bud and Collie are the same man. Julie says he told her his family called him Bud, so that’s what she calls him. He explains the nickname came from his little brother, and Julie is confused. Bud mentions the flowers—yellow roses—that Julie sent to Daniel’s funeral. Julie realizes who he is. Bud puts his hands around her neck, and Julie feels he will kill her. Julie doesn’t want to die, leaving her mother and Ray without her, but loses consciousness.
When Julie regains consciousness, she hears Ray’s voice and opens her eyes to see his face. Ray explains that he hit Bud in the back of the head with a flashlight. Julie’s mother comes over to make sure she is ok. Ray tells Julie that Barry called him, dissolving the pact and telling him the truth about the phone call. Ray also noticed that Bud had yellow paint on his hands at lunch—the same yellow that the Gregg house was being painted, which made Ray realize Megan was Bud’s sister.
Mrs. James is confused by this conversation, and the police arrive. They tell Julie, Ray, and Mrs. James that Helen fell out of her window and was knocked unconscious. However, she came to and warned the police that Collie was headed to Julie’s house. Ray begins to tell the police about the accident, and Julie is glad they are finally taking responsibility for it. Julie asks why Bud/Collie didn’t kill Ray, and Ray answers that it would be a worse punishment for him if Julie were to die and he was to live.
Chapters 15-18 Analysis
The novel’s final section includes a chapter that offers the points of view of the teens’ parents. Like Chapter 7, which followed the teens and the antagonist as they became aware of Barry’s shooting, Chapter 16 is the narrator’s limited third-person describing events at dinner time, developing the theme of Family and Identity Formation. The thoughts of Julie’s mother, Mrs. James, include “something is going to happen” (164) and “something is wrong” (168). Her premonitions, which are about her family and home, are often right. In a later chapter, Julie verifies the accuracy of the premonitions: “It was hard to forget the phone call that had seemed so ridiculous, but had sent her home to find a smoke-filled kitchen” (189). Mrs. James warns Julie about Bud without even knowing about the accident, illustrating that Julie comes from a loving, supportive home. This parental support always made her want to reveal the accident to the police.
Other teen characters, such as Helen and Barry, also form their identities in relation to their parents. In Chapter 16, the theme of Family and Identity Formation is foregrounded when the reader learns that Helen’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, seem to like each other much more than Barry’s parents. Mr. Rivers tells his wife, “Helen may be pretty compared to other girls, but she’ll never hold a candle to her mother” (171). Despite having loving parents, Helen wants to escape her family’s class barrier and does not want as many children as her mother. Helen wants to create a different life for herself than her parents through the Channel Five Future Star Job. At the same time, she idealizes romantic relationships based on the model of her parents’ seemingly happy marriage.
On the other hand, Barry’s parents—Mr. and Mrs. Cox—have a troubled home life. In the hospital, Mr. Cox confronts his wife about how she has been overly controlling of Barry’s life: “If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my work, you wouldn’t have had to center your life on Barry” (173). Barry forms his identity—in romance and other areas—in defiance of his mother. He rebels against his mother’s controlling nature by dating Helen, and lacking a model of a happy marriage, he cheats on Helen. This look at Barry’s parents further develops the theme of Family and Identity Formation. Barry’s parents are of a higher class than Helen’s, but his father’s work-centric nature led him to neglect his wife, which led to problems in the family. Despite being poorer, Helen’s parents have a stronger relationship.
The antagonist, Bud/Collie, also embodies the theme of Family and Identity Formation. His nickname, Bud, comes from his half-brother: “My kid brother started it. [...] Danny was a cute little kid. He couldn’t say Collingsworth” (195). In other words, a major part of his identity—his name—was formed by his family. Julie uses his familial nickname, but Helen uses the nickname Collie, hiding the dual identity of the antagonist from them and the reader. Furthermore, the kid brother who gave Bud his nickname was the child the teens killed in the car accident. Like the multiple first names of Bud/Collie/Collingsworth, the little boy and the antagonist have different last names because they do not have the same father. This naming convention—children taking their father’s last name—hides Bud/Collie’s identity as the antagonist.
Other clues to the identity and motivations of the antagonist are related to the colors yellow and red. Julie’s red hair is mentioned early in the novel, and Collie finds Julie by researching the yellow roses she sent without a name to Daniel’s funeral. The flower shop employee tells Bud/Collie about the “cute girl with red hair” (181) who bought the roses. The shade of roses upsets Bud profoundly: “Yellow roses—tons of them! Pa described them to me, all those roses that looked like sunshine!” (196). This choice of color is one reason why Bud seeks revenge on Julie and attempts to kill her. Yellow comes up another time when Ray notices that Bud “had paint on the back of one of his hands. [...] It was yellow paint—the same shade as the trim around the Greggs’ roof” (198). This realization is why Ray comes to Julie’s house that night in time to save her—because the yellow paint helps him realize that Bud is related to the boy they killed in the car accident from the yellow paint.
This section also develops the theme of Gender Roles, specifically, the romantic competition between women. For flirting with Collie while dating Barry seriously, a neighbor of Helen’s calls her “a glutton” (155). This woman’s sense of competition with Helen also causes her to reveal that Barry is probably not faithful. She tells Helen she’s “gotten a lot more of a reaction from Barry than I have from this guy” (156), meaning Collie. Despite being her friend, Julie does not reveal Barry’s infidelity to Helen. Women are characterized as using any information when in competition and withholding information even if they are not in competition with one another. Unlike these women, Collie is fixated on revenge rather than romance. He uses romance to gain access and build trust for his ultimate goal of violent retribution, which is characterized as a male pursuit.
The themes of Gender Roles and The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter intersect when it comes to Helen’s response to Collie convincing her he is interested in someone else. She wonders, “Who was this girl he had known before he met her?” (163). Helen is more interested in a romantic rival than Collie’s identity. He notes that she doesn’t ask him questions about himself and eventually reveals that this self-centered action makes it easy to hide that he is the half-brother of the boy the teens killed in the car accident. Helen not only responds to the competition of other women but also feels The Effects of Guilt About Manslaughter. Not asking questions about Collie’s past is a way to keep the accident from being mentioned. She guides them through conversations about the parts of her life that she chooses to reveal.
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