What Happened to Cass McBride

Gail Giles
Little, Brown Young Readers (2007)
ISBN 9780316166393
Reviewed by Ian McCurley (age 13) for Reader Views (6/07)

Cass McBride is an ordinary, popular teenaged girl with a sometimes cruel sense of humor and a conniving mind that will do anything to become better than the other girls, from becoming the first junior homecoming queen, to leaving notes under her desk for her friends to find, read and laugh.  One of these notes got her into BIG trouble.  That day, she had been asked out by David Kirby, a nerdy guy who normally she wouldn’t give the time of day to.  Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she said “Some other time,” and then left the hurtful note that pointed out how much of a dork he was and other unsavory things.  Not expecting him to find the note, she set it under her desk for her friend to find.  But David found it.  The next day, David Kirby’s body was found hanging by a rope from a tree in his front yard with a note pinned to his body.  Not his shirt, but his body.  The note said, “Words are teeth, and they eat me alive.  Feed on my corpse instead.”

Seeking revenge, David’s brother, Kyle Kirby, takes Cass from her suburban home and puts her in a box, or rather a crate.  He places this crate in a greenhouse several feet underground.  No one but him, because he is the gardener for the estate on which the greenhouse is situated, would stumble upon her.  Kyle, however, left her with a tube of air and a walkie-talkie.  The reason he leaves her alive, for now at least, is so that she can understand what she had done to his brother.  And now, using the persuasive skills learned from her conniving salesman of a father, Cass must make him see that it wasn’t her fault; that he should release her.  Though at first she thinks she is powerless, Cass discovers that she has one weapon:  words.  So the questions are:  Was it Cass who “killed” David Kirby?  Or was it David and Kyle’s mother who blamed David for her less-than-perfect life?  And an even bigger, more important question, will Cass survive being buried alive?

Gail Giles writes wonderfully in that she shows the way words affect us using the story of a tragic suicide and a kidnapped young girl.  She also shows that when people have no solution, they blame others only for the sake of themselves.  “What Happened to Cass McBride” is for readers 15 and up. 

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