Prologue-Chapter 1.5

Reading Check

1. An apology (Chapter 1.5)

2. Multiple answers are acceptable: your [the reader’s] hometown, your school, your street (Chapter 1.5)

Short Answer

1. The narrator states that this story is dangerous because it contains a secret. (Prologue)

2. The narrator ultimately decides to continue the story because he can’t keep a secret. (Chapter 1.5)

Chapters 2-7

Reading Check

1. The Symphony of Smells (Chapter 2)

2. The magician’s notebook (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1. Max-Ernest’s “condition” is that he seems to never stop talking. (Chapter 3)

2. Cass and Max-Ernest match the instruments to their smell in the Symphony of Smells to reveal that the magician’s coded message is “HELP.” (Chapter 4)

Chapters 8-14

Reading Check

1. Anagrams (Chapter 8)

2. A crescent-shaped birth mark (Chapter 12)

3. Synesthesia (Chapter 14)

4. Ms. Mauvais (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. Cass realizes that the clue “UNDERNEATH” refers to the fact that Pietro double-folded all the pages in his notebook; his writings are “underneath” the seemingly blank pages. (Chapter 11)

2. Pietro defines synesthesia as “confusion of the senses,” wherein sensory input from one sense evokes a response or association from an unrelated sense: “[T]he sounds and the colors and even the smells are all mixed up in our heads.” (Chapter 14)

3. The sound of the Golden Lady’s voice makes Pietro feel as though he is “drowning in the coldest lake on Earth.” (Chapter 14)

Chapters 15-17

Reading Check

1. Amber Skelton/the secret third Skelton sister (Chapter 16)

Short Answer

1. When Cass and Max-Ernest return to class after reading the magician’s notebook, they learn that Benjamin Blake has been kidnapped from the school. (Chapter 15)

2. Cass ends her collaboration with Max-Ernest because she is hurt that he told his doctor about Cass’s father. (Chapter 15)

3. The narrator accepts a “bribe” from the reader in the form of allowing himself to eat a piece of very expensive chocolate. (Chapter 17)

Chapters 18-25

Reading Check

1. An Egyptian pyramid (Chapter 19)

2. Max-Ernest (Chapter 23)

3. The Secret/a secret formula (Chapter 25)

Short Answer

1. Owen explains that the Midnight Sun is a sensorium because all of its treatments target one of the five senses, with the goal of bringing the senses back into harmony with one another. (Chapter 21)

2. Ms. Mauvais offers plastic surgery to Cass to fix her large ears; she offers a lobotomy to Max-Ernest to “cure” his “condition.” (Chapters 22-23)

3. Ms. Mauvais’s gloves hide the fact that she is extremely old; her hands are clearly those of a much older woman. (Chapter 24)

4. Dr. L becomes emotional at the smell of cotton candy, revealing that his real identity is Luciano Bergamo; the smell reminds him of his past. (Chapter 25)

Chapters 26-0

Reading Check

1. Mint-chip ice cream (Chapter 26)

2. Gloves (Chapter 27)

3. The Symphony of Smells (Chapter 30)

Short Answer

1. The Masters of the Midnight Sun are members of a secret cult whose goal is to discover the Secret—a formula for the Philosopher’s Stone, the essential alchemical element that will unlock the key to achieving immortality. (Chapter 27)

2. According to Dr. L, the “real real world” is one in which all the senses are interconnected, as they are before one is born; this is why synesthesia is the key to uncovering the Secret. (Chapter 29)

3. Multiple answers are acceptable: Cass and Max-Ernest receive new items from the magician; they are invited to join the Terces Society to protect the Secret. (Chapter 0)