Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Chapter 10 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Jacob ponders a big question: should he stay or should he go?
  • He starts avoiding his dad and spending more time at the Home.
  • All the kids there are restless, even Horace, who has prophetic nightmares. This one is about "seas boiling and ash raining from the sky and an endless blanket of smoke smothering the earth" (10.21). That's either a nightmare or a Nic Cage movie.
  • Back in Cairnholm, Martin, the museum curator, is missing; his body is fished out of the ocean. Chances are, it wasn't one of the punk teens who did this.
  • Dad says he bumped into the ornithologist the other night—literally.
  • Jacob asked if he noticed anything weird about the man's face, and Dad says he was wearing his sunglasses. At night. That seals it: He's either a wight or Corey Hart.
  • Jacob sneaks away to report this strange occurrence to Miss Peregrine.
  • Miss Peregrine announces that no one may leave the house… including Jacob.
  • He says he needs to leave, because he's worried about his dad. She says he may leave… but if he does, he may never return.
  • Emma says she'll help Jacob escape and investigate the wight. She says you have to be out of the loop for "hours and hours" (10.89) before turning into a grizzled old prune, so she'll be fine.
  • Bronwyn and Enoch decide to come with them, and Olive the floating girl helps them jump out of a high window and escape.
  • They run to the fishmonger's shop, where Martin's body is being kept on ice until the storm passes and he can be shipped to the mainland.
  • Enoch uses his supply of animal hearts to bring Martin back to life, Pushing Daisies-style, so he can tell them who killed him.
  • Martin tells him that his "old man" (10.181) killed him, saying, "He got big. And strong, so strong" (10.181).
  • Jacob realizes that Martin is talking about the bog boy, and somehow makes the connection that this means Martin was attacked by a hollowgast, which is conveniently visible to anyone when it's eating.
  • The interrogation is interrupted when the ornithologist shows up.
  • He knows who everyone is, even Jacob, and he's been tracking Jacob for a long time.
  • It turns out he's been following Jacob in disguise—he was his middle-school bus driver, his Grandpa's blind neighbor and his psychiatrist, Dr. Golan. Eek.
  • He pulled this feat off by wearing contact lenses. Plus, he was already a licensed therapist. Convenient.
  • Golan introduces Malthus, the tentacle-mouthed hollowgast who also ate Grandpa, then Golan leaves so Malthus can be alone with his meal.
  • Emma tries to fry it with her fireball, but the tentacles avoid her flame.
  • Bronwyn, the strong girl, whacks it with the entire ice trough, then kicks a Bronwyn-shaped hole in the wooden wall so everyone can escape.
  • They run like heck, and Emma and Jacob split up from the rest to draw the hollowgast away from the others.
  • They hide in the sheep-poop coop, and Emma flings a flaming stone into the distance, hoping to distract the creature.
  • It doesn't work. The creature finds them, even in the sheep poo, and starts chomping through sheep like Pac-Man through power pellets to get to them.
  • Jacob grabs some sheep shears for defense, and the two kids run again; Jacob tries to hide in the cairn tunnel.
  • A tentacle grabs him and drags him outside, but Jacob manages to jab it in the eye with the shears and it dies. That was easy.
  • Unfortunately, as its corpse starts sinking into the bog, it drags Jacob down with it.
  • Emma shows up with a tree branch and fishes Jacob out. They smooch.
  • They find Bronwyn, Enoch, and Hugh in the loop, but someone has been left out of the loop: Miss Peregrine. Golan came in, made her turn into a bird, stuffed her in a cage, and took her.
  • They think Golan must still be in the loop, and will try to get Peregrine off the island.
  • Fiona runs up and says they're right: He went to the harbor, and Millard followed him.
  • They all give chase and meet Millard and the other kids at the cliff near the lighthouse.
  • Golan is on the lighthouse rock, and Millard, Bronwyn, Emma, and Jacob decide they have to go after him.
  • They swim for the shipwreck and catch their breath before continuing to the lighthouse.
  • Golan shoots at them, so they hide behind the hull.
  • Millard decides he can go after him, because he's invisible and everything—but invisible people aren't that invisible in the water, and Millard gets shot.
  • Afraid Millard will die if they head for the shore, they decide to make a run for it.
  • Bronwyn tears a steel door off the shipwreck, and they use it as a shield to charge Golan.
  • It works, and the gunshots ricochet off the makeshift shield until Bronwyn gets close enough to just whack Golan with it.
  • He flees up the stairs.
  • Bronwyn stays behind to tie a tourniquet around Millard's gunshot wound, and Emma and Jacob pursue Golan up the lighthouse.
  • Golan still has bullets, so Jacob and Emma shake the lighthouse's rickety staircase until Golan loses his balance and drops the gun.
  • Jacob and Emma climb the stairs and find Golan at the top. He's bleeding, and the birdcage is at his feet with a little red tracking device blinking on it.
  • Golan does the super-villain thing and explains his entire plot: They're kidnapping ymbrynes to try the whole eternal-youth time-loop again.
  • After he's done with his diabolical monologue, he flings the birdcage off the lighthouse balcony and then leaps on top of Jacob.
  • Emma wrestles Golan off, her flaming hands sizzling his skin—but Golan is stronger, and he starts choking Emma.
  • Jacob fires the gun, right into Golan's throat; he dies and falls over the edge.
  • Emma and Jacob search frantically for the birdcage, and they see the red light blinking on the waves.
  • They run out of the lighthouse and charge into the water.
  • They make it to the birdcage just as a giant object surfaces from the water: a German U-boat.
  • A wight emerges from a hatch and takes the birdcage, and the sub goes back underwater.
  • Emma and Jacob start to swim away, but they see that Miss Peregrine somehow escaped the cage.
  • She's bobbing in the water, bird-shaped, her wing broken.
  • They grab her and take her to shore. Unfortunately, though, Miss Peregrine is unable to turn back into her human form.