Killing Mr. Griffin

by Lois Duncan

  I really loved teaching and the original teacher never came back, and so I stayed on. Tony stopped chairing the department to become a famous novelist, and I kept on teaching year after year, and I thought, Somebody will eventually find out. So I started sneakily taking classes on either side of the one I was teaching. I was teaching under my professional name, Lois Duncan. I was married to Don Arquette, so my married name was Arquette, and Lois Arquette started taking classes. I would see my own students in some of them. They thought this was howlingly funny. In one class I would be Professor Duncan and in the other class it would be, “Hey, Lois, can you loan me your notes?”

  In my juvenile literature class, we were studying Lois Duncan books, and I wrote some very insightful papers for the teacher who didn’t know my double identity. And then I wanted to accelerate the process, so “Lois Arquette” took Lois Duncan’s writing class and aced it!

  I eventually graduated with honors and a degree in English. When I start out to do something, I really work at it. I had five children at home, too, at that point, so I was teaching and writing and going to college and raising my family all at the same time. And enjoying every minute of it.

  Barry: I love the moment in KILLING MR. GRIFFIN where Betsy equates Mr. Griffin with the police officer that pulls her over for speeding. They become one and the same in her mind. I had seen her as spoiled, but this went beyond being spoiled. It gave an insight into her own psychological issues. So how much did you want Betsy to be seen as bad? She’s definitely under Mark’s control, as they all are in the book, but it seems to me that she was a little closer to being under his control from the get-go.

  Lois: I see Betsy as absolutely shallow, with no real value system. She’s used to getting her way, and she doesn’t want to be told not to do things. So here’s this police officer trying to tell her not to do something, just like Mr. Griffin did. Nobody gets to pull rank like that on cute little Betsy. She wants to get up to the mountains to be with the others and this darned police officer is in her way, and she’s not going to stand for that. So she tries to pull rank on him.

  Barry: I just love how that moment ties in later to the scene in the airport parking lot when they pull in and it’s the same police officer, and he says, “Afternoon, Miss Cline.”

  Lois: I loved that, too. Now, that’s one of those things that just happen when you’re writing a novel. I didn’t plan that scene. I didn’t know it was going to be there until I got her into the parking lot, and then suddenly I thought, Oh, I’ve got a great idea! And I reached back and grabbed my police officer, a character I never expected to use again, and brought him forward and stuck him into a new slot. Once in a while, as you know from your own writing, you’re taken by surprise by the process itself. Something is meant to be, and suddenly, there it is! It’s almost like being given a present.

  Barry: And it wasn’t just something that just got dropped in. I mean, it spun out and had an impact on the rest of the story, so it changed what you were writing, and to me, it’s just terrific when something like that happens.

  Lois: Yes, I generally get the basic plot nailed down. It’s like you’re taking a trip, and you know your destination, and you have a map to get you there. You know ahead of time that you’re going to be spending the night in this town, then in this town, and then in this third town, and then you’re going to end up where you want to be. So I have that sort of loosely constructed outline in my mind, but there’s still room for side trips, and sometimes those side trips will get you into terrain you didn’t expect.

  Barry: That’s great. One place we knew you had to hit, of course, is the ending, which in some ways almost seems to absolve Susan of guilt. Do you think she bears any guilt for what happened to Mr. Griffin?

  Lois: I think that she’s been punished in a way that is the ultimate kind of punishment for someone like Susan. She has lost her innocence and has lost the person in her life who would have become her mentor and might have been the person who would challenge and inspire her to become a successful professional writer. She has created her own punishment that way. She is guilty, because she let something happen that she should have stopped, and she didn’t have the guts to speak out and prevent it from occurring. But she’s not, in my mind, as guilty as the others.

  Barry Lyga is the author of several novels for teens, including the acclaimed The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl, its sequel, Goth Girl Rising, and the award-winning Boy Toy. He is also the author of the upcoming thriller series I Hunt Killers, about the son of a notorious serial killer who must use the skills taught to him by his father to track down a murderer.

  READER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  By Lois Duncan

  Prepared by Jeremy Cesarec

  1. At the beginning of the book Susan spends a lot of time daydreaming about her future alone in a faraway place, but later she comes to realize how much her family means to her. Why does it sometimes take a serious event to make you realize the good things around you?

  2. David is one of the most popular boys in school, but his home life is much different from what others would expect. Would your classmates be surprised to know what your home life is like? What sort of mysterious things do you think your classmates do at home?

  3. In Chapter 5, the reader gets to see Mr. Griffin’s wife. Does he seem more human after you’ve read about her? Do you sometimes forget that your teachers are people, too, with families and problems just like you? Why do you think that happens?

  4. Did you see any flaws as the kidnapping plan unfolded? What mistakes did you notice?

  5. Betsy is used to everyone noticing and liking her, but Mark “did not seem to notice her cuteness” (p. 82), which drew her to him even more. Was Betsy influenced by Mark even more than the other kids because of this? Have you ever gone out of your way to attract attention from someone who doesn’t seem to notice you? Explain.

  6. Susan seems to really care about what Mr. Griffin must be going through. Why is it important to put yourself in the other person’s shoes before deciding how to act? Should Susan have thought of this before deciding to join in on the plan?

  7. Although Susan cries on the way to the cabin, once they find Mr. Griffin’s body she turns off emotionally. Have you ever seen someone shut themselves off when things got really rough? Why do you think people tend to do that?

  8. Susan thinks, “There was a strength in Mark, an ability to know exactly what to do in any emergency, and when Mark said something, you had to believe it” (p. 142). Is Mark actually strong, or is he just confident? Explain.

  9. Jeff’s mother seems to sense that there’s something strange about Mark, and she thinks he’s a bad influence on her son. Have your parents ever realized that someone is a bad influence on you before you did? What tipped them off?

  10. Why do you think Mark’s mom never wanted to see him again?

  11. Do you think there is something clinically wrong with Mark? Do you recognize any emotion in him? Does he seem to have the same morals as his friends?

  For a complete Reader’s Guide, visit www.lb-teens.com.

  LOIS DUNCAN

  Lois Duncan is the author of over fifty books, from children’s picture books to poetry to adult non-fiction, but is best known for her young adult suspense novels, which have received awards in sixteen states and three foreign countries. In 1992, Lois was presented the Margaret A. Edwards Award by the School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for “a distinguished body of adolescent literature.” In 2009, she received the St. Katharine Drexel Award, given by the Catholic Library Association “to recognize an outstanding contribution by an individual to the growth of high school and young adult librarianship and literature.”

  Lois was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida. She submitted her first story to a magazine at age ten and became published at thirteen. She wrote throughout her high school years, particularly for Seventeen.

  As an adu
lt, Lois moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she taught magazine writing for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico. Over three hundred of her articles and stories appeared in such publications as Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, and Reader’s Digest.

  Some readers know her as the author of WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER?, the heartbreaking true story of the murder of Kaitlyn Arquette, the youngest of Lois’ children. A full account of the family’s ongoing investigation of this still-unsolved homicide can be found at http://kaitarquette.arquettes.com.

  Lois and her husband, Don Arquette, currently live in Sarasota, Florida. They are the parents of five children.

  You can visit Lois at http://loisduncan.arquettes.com.

  Table of Contents

  Front Cover Page

  Welcome Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Q&A with the Author

  Reader Discussion Question

  Lois Duncan

  Copyright

  Copyright

  Also by Lois Duncan:

  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

  DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU

  Copyright © 1978 by Lois Duncan

  Reader Discussion Questions and Author Q&A copyright © 2010 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  Visit our website at www.lb-teens.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: September 2010

  First published in hardcover in April 1978 by Little, Brown and Company

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-18264-5