IMPORTANT: Comprehension questions will be in chronological order as you read through the story. Page numbers are approximate, and will vary with different editions of the book.
Section 1: An Important Warning-Chapter 6
Vocabulary
- Ardent: enthusiastic or passionate
- Dexterous: showing or having skill, especially with the hands
- Hangdog: having a dejected or guilty appearance; shamefaced
- Pallor: an unhealthy pale appearance
- Punctilious: showing great attention to detail or correct behavior
- Trepidation: a feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen
Comprehension Questions
- While walking on the dock Charlotte stares at the chaos of ships, goods and animals at the port. (pg. 8)
- Mr. Grammage thinks that only the Creator should be making judgments. (pg. 14)
- Charlotte has trained and educated her whole life to obey and accept. (pg. 17)
- The old sailor offers to put Charlotte’s trunk in the top cargo. (pg. 18)
- A final friend is the person who sews up the hammock of a sailor who has died at sea. (pg. 23)
- After waking up and going on deck, Charlotte realizes that the Seahawk is already at sea and has left Liverpool. (pg. 26)
- Captain Jaggery’s confident tone when talking to the crew gives Charlotte strength. (pg. 28)
- Charlotte wants to get to her trunk to get some fresh clothes and something to read. (pg. 35)
- The men who signed up for the voyage are Captain Jaggery’s former crew and only signed up because they wanted revenge for his actions on an earlier voyage. (pg. 38)
- During tea Captain Jaggery offers Charlotte, Scottish thins a type of biscuit. (pg. 42)
- Captain Jaggery asks Charlotte to look out for drawings of a round robin as this means dangerous trouble is brewing. (pg. 46)
- Charlotte feels proud while walking on deck as she is arm in arm with the captain. (pg. 49)
- Mr. Barlow says that the captain while he was on deck with Charlotte was putting the men on display, mocking them as the orders he gave them accomplished nothing. (pg. 54)
- Charlotte shrieks while getting her clothes because she sees a grinning head in the dark. (pg. 55)
Section 2: Chapters 7-12
Vocabulary
- Becalm: unable to move through lack of wind
- Derision: contemptuous ridicule or mockery
- Malicious: intending to do harm
- Perpetual: never ending or changing
- Putrid: decaying or rotting matter emitting a fetid smell
- Tranquility: the quality or state of being calm
Comprehension Questions
- The “head” turns out to be a grotesque carved into a brown nut. (pg. 57)
- Charlotte doesn’t tell Captain Jaggery what she see while going through her trunk as see believes he will think her a sorry, troublesome child. (pg. 60)
- There are thirty minutes between each bell toll. (pg. 64)
- Zachariah gives Charlotte a pair of canvas trousers and a blouse so that she move freely and safely. (pg. 66)
- After striking Morgan, Captain Jaggery threatens punishments of confinement to the brig, salary docking, no meals, lashings and even keelhauling. (pg. 69)
- The two objects that Charlotte finds while getting Ewing a needle are a pistol in Ewing’s chest and a piece of paper on another chest with two round robins drawn on it. (pg. 74-75)
- Charlotte realizes the fourth man in the hammock is a stowaway and the person she had seen in the top cargo. (pg. 76-77)
- After Captain Jaggery finds out about the round robin he intends to crush the mutiny before it starts. pg. 81)
- The tenth man who stands on deck with the crew is Mr. Cranick the seaman who lost his arm because of Captain Jaggery. (pg. 84)
- Even though the captain told him to stop, Mr. Zachariah steps forward to check on Mr. Cranick. (pg. 86)
- The captain orders that Zachariah receive 50 lashes and Charlotte stops the order from being carried out. (pg. 94)
- When Captain Jaggery tries to take the whip from Charlotte’s hand she defends herself and in the process lashes the captain’s face with the whip. (pg. 94)
- When Charlotte visits the captain’s cabin he announces that he is withdrawing his protection of her. (pg. 98)
- In order to right her wrong, Charlotte offers to become a crew member. (pg. 106)
Section 3: Chapters 13-17
Vocabulary
- Aloft: up in or into the air; overhead
- Caucused: a meeting of members of a legislative body
- Endeavor: try hard to do or achieve something
- Mealy: of, like or containing meal
- Restitution: the return of something lost or stolen to its proper owner
- Skitter: move lightly and quickly or hurriedly
Comprehension Questions
- The difference between Charlotte’s hands and Foley’s is that Charlotte’s hands are smooth as cream and Foley’s are as tough as leather. (pg. 110)
- The four sails that the main mast support are the main yard, topsail, topg.allant and the royal yard. (pg. 113)
- Climbing up the main mast is different from climbing down in that it is harder to go down as you cannot see where you are going and have to grope for a footing. (pg. 117)
- When Charlotte reaches the bottom of the mast she is surprised to see Captain Jaggery. (pg. 119)
- Some of Charlotte’s responsibilities as a crew member are: to pound oakum, scrape the hull, swab the deck, tar the rigging, splice ropes and keep watch. (pg. 122)
- Foley says that when Captain Jaggery watches Charlotte he has nothing but hatred in his eye. (pg. 125)
- Charlotte threatens to go to the courts and tell what a despot Captain Jaggery is once the ship reaches Providence. (pg. 129)
- During the hurricane Captain Jaggery orders Charlotte to go up the rigging and cut away the foreyard with the knife he gives her. (pg. 132)
- Charlotte decides to make her climb easier by carrying the knife between her teeth so that she can use two hands to climb. She also cuts off her hair so it doesn’t get in the way. (pg. 133)
- As Charlotte is about to fall from the mast Zachariah comes to her aid. When she sees him she thinks she has died and that he is an angel. (pg. 136)
- When the crew moves the last torn sail they find Mr. Hollybrass dead with Charlotte’s knife in his back and her handkerchief in his hand. (pg. 138)
- Keech and Ewing are afraid of Charlotte when she arrives on deck as they have been told by Captain Jaggery that she killed Mr. Hollybrass. (pg. 144)
- Charlotte thinks that Zachary’s case would not do well in Providence because he would be a black man testifying against a white officer. (pg. 151)
- The people who know where Charlotte kept the dirk are Captain Jaggery, Dillingham and Zachariah. (pg. 156)
Section 4: Chapters 18-22
Vocabulary
- Beset: to trouble or threaten persistently; surround or harass
- Copiously: (to do, have) in large quantities
- Enormity: the great or extreme scale or seriousness of something
- Memento: an object kept as a reminder or souvenir of a person or event
- Rasping: harsh-sounding and unpleasant; grating
- Roused: to bring out of sleep; to startle out of inactivity
Comprehension Questions
- Charlotte and the rest of the crew believe Zachariah has killed Mr. Hollybrass. (pg. 160)
- After Jaggery asks if anyone will defend Charlotte, she looks to the crew and no one looks at her. (pg. 162)
- Grimes says that Charlotte’s knife skills are uncommon good. (pg. 166)
- The word that Captain Jaggery continually uses to describe Charlotte as one of the crew is unnatural. (pg. 166-169)
- After Captain Jaggery declares Charlotte guilty she is given the sentence of death by hanging. (pg. 170)
- Zachariah reveals to Charlotte that when he was on deck during the storm he was seen by Captain Jaggery. (pg. 175)
- Charlotte and Zachariah decide that Captain Jaggery actually killed Mr. Hollybrass because they had argued during the storm. (pg. 177)
- Mr. Keetch’s opinion of Charlotte has changed since she came aboard in that at first he didn’t want her aboard the ship. Now, she had proved him wrong on many occasions and he now supports her. (pg. 182)
- When Charlotte gives Zachariah the key, the plan is for Zachariah and Keetch to lead another uprising. (pg. 183-184)
- Since the beginning of the voyage, Keetch has been informing the Captain of everything that goes on in the ship. (pg. 187)
- The three choices that Captain Jaggery gives Charlotte are to take the key and arm the men; put on her proper dress, beg forgiveness from the crew and become a passenger again; accept the guilty verdict and be hanged. (pg. 190-191)
- When Captain Jaggery lunges for Charlotte on the bowspirit he looses his balance and falls into the sea never to be seen again. (pg. 194-195)
- Zachariah became a sailor because his home was small and he wanted to see the wide world. (pg. 197)
- Charlotte’s father thinks her journals are full of outlandish and unnatural tales. (pg. 209)