- Charlotte reaches for the dirk which, thankfully, she has on her. She calls out into the darkness around her, but no one answers.
- Charlotte moves closer to the ladder, and she realizes that the grotesque grinning head is actually a face carved into a large, brown nut.
- A little rattled, Charlotte begins to climb the ladder to get out of there, but realizes she has forgotten her books and clothes. She boldly returns, fetches them, and finally climbs out of the hatch.
- Charlotte suspects Barlow of planting the head but, then again, Barlow seems too submissive to do something like that. That's when Charlotte realizes that there must have been a second person hiding down there. She thinks that she did, in fact, see two faces. The first one was a human's.
- The mystery proves too confusing for Charlotte, so she decides the candle must have been blown out by a draft and that the fake head was probably sitting there all along. (Denial, Charlotte, denial!)
- Charlotte decides not to tell Captain Jaggery about the nut head since she doesn't want to seem like a silly schoolgirl.
- Charlotte then begins comparing and contrasting the captain and Zachariah in her mind. She decides the two are "courting" her – well, at least courting her friendship (7.31). Weird, right? What's up with that, Charlotte? She resolves to stay on the good side of both men, but to be nicer to the captain.
- Charlotte wraps the knife (dirk) in her handkerchief and puts it under her mattress.