“There was a memorial service for my parents but I wouldn’t go. I knew that my parents hadn’t drowned. I suspected that they had washed up on an island somewhere and were waiting to be rescued. Every morning I went down to the docks to watch boats come in, sure that I would see my parents towed in, perhaps on the back of a whale.”

With both parents lost in separate boats in a Pacific storm, readers assume that they died at sea and that Primrose is in denial. The irony is that Primrose is exactly correct. Her parents do survive the storm on an island. At the novel’s end, it is while Primrose stands at the harbor, looking out at sea, that she spies a pleasure craft with her parents standing on deck coming home. Their reappearance attests to The Power of Intuition.

“Miss Honeycut went on to say how there were many excellent foster homes for children like me and people did, despite what you heard, frequently adopt the older child, and that’s when Uncle Jack put his arm around me and said he had decided to take care of me himself. It was a nice warm hug and the first real human contact I had had since this whole business began. And it was comforting, even though I knew he had only done it to spite Miss Honeycut.”

As the narrator, Primrose continually demonstrates the ability to grasp the motives of those around her without judging them; she understands that Everyone Has an Agenda. Here, she reveals Miss Honeycut’s desire for Uncle Jack to send Primrose to a foster home or put her up for adoption so that he might focus his attention and affection on her. Primrose also understands her uncle’s motives. He will not allow others to manipulate him or interfere with his plans and promotions. He senses that Miss Honeycut desires to possess him and resists her efforts.