"Killing Mr. Griffin"...The Book Quiz

Answer: Susan

Susan is the awkward, geeky sort of character in the story. Mark, Jeff, and Betsy aren't really friends with her and have never actually talked to her up to the point of the murder plot, but they need someone who is not a trouble-maker or an object of suspicion to lure Mr. Griffin out into the parking lot after everyone else has left campus. Susan agrees to follow this plot because of Griffin's harsh grades and criticisms.

Answer: David

This fact that Susan really likes David is what the gang uses to draw Susan into the plot. Betsy, Jeff and Mark have David call Susan on the phone for a picnic so that they have an afternoon to get her feeling like she belongs with them, and they slowly introduce their plan to her. She feels flattered that David asked her to come along which overshadows her conscience a bit.

Answer: Jeff

Although Mark is the one who puts the plan in action and really compels the others to do the prank, it is Jeff who first makes the statement: "That Griffin's the kind of guy you'd like to kill."

Answer: Three

Betsy is the one responsible for establishing alibis for the others. The day of the murder, Betsy is home alone while her mother is out playing bridge with friends. She plays a loud record and calls her mother so that it sounds like she has all her friends over, and she dirties up 3 plates and forks and puts 3 slices of cake down the disposal to look like hungry teenagers had been at the house.

It worked.

Answer: Green

Griffin's car is in fact green, and actually, the car plays as big a role as some of the characters in the story. The murder takes place, and the car is up in the mountains with them since they use it to drive Mr. Griffin up there. From then on the kids have to find a way to dispose of the car without being detected by watchful police officers. Eventually the car is painted and intended to be driven to a hiding place after being retrieved from the first drop off at the airport.

Answer: Student of the Year

Mark is extremely vigilant about detail and thinks scenarios out to the end, and this segment in the story really shows his wit. The rest of the gang really would have been caught way before they were if not for Mark's criminal genius.

Answer: Lime

Mrs. Ruggles makes a big fuss to David about how they always buy the wrong flavor Jell-O when lime has the most flavor. David uses lime Jell-O later in the book to mix a sedative in and feed his grandmother so he can sneak away from the house and go back to the mountains.

Answer: Mark's

We find out some very interesting yet horrific details toward the end of the book about the "accident" that killed Mark's father. Supposedly the curtains caught fire in the night and Mark's dad died in bed; but Mark shows up at Susan's house, binds her feet and hands, and sets the curtains in her house ablaze, telling her the story of how his dad was going to send him to juvenile detention and so he set the fire himself. Susan begins to worry the others about possibly turning them all in, and that is the reason Mark tries to silence her.

Answer: The creep

This really displays cruel high school behavior as far as using someone for personal benefit and being totally fake to someone's face, and when the person's absent talking about them as if they were nobody. Betsy spouts this insult off out of anger that Susan whined her way out of having to go and bury the body of Griffin. "She was just as much a part of this as we were, why do you baby her!"

Answer: a psychopath

Mrs. McConnell reads about a type of person that is charming and very charismatic, who uses those traits to persuade people to do things they wouldn't normally do. These types of people are somehow immune to feelings of guilt or conscience and are cold-blooded in doing whatever it takes to get what they want.

It is a perfect description of Mark. This really just puts a bang to the ending of the book, and shows the mastery of Duncan's skills to thrill the reader to the last page.

Answer: Gray

The idea is to paint the car so that when they drive it to an Indian land reserve to be hidden, nobody will pull them over. However, when Mrs. Griffin sees the car, it's dark outside and the color isn't distinguishable. She recognizes it immediately and it blows the cover on the whole plot, leading to all four teens being caught.

Answer: Mark set it deliberately

Mark did set fire to the house one night when he was very young because his father planned to send him to Juvenile Detention. Mark tries to do the same thing to Susan because she became a threat to the rest of the gang. Luckily he does not succeed the second time.

In his youth he set fire to a cat, and has killed more than once. Lois Duncan really puts in her study time to create such a believable and even likable character that is suffering from psychopathic personality.

Answer: Mark

Susan tells Mark about David taking Griffin's ring for himself. David's grandmother finds the ring in David's drawer while searching for candy money, and keeps the ring because she is convinced it belonged to her son, (David's father). When Mark finds out that Mrs. Ruggles is keeping a part of the murder that could jeopardize everything, he takes it into his own hands and "takes care" of the situation.

Answer: brown sweater

The brown sweater is what the next-door neighbor identifies when peering out the window into Mrs. Ruggle's bedroom window. She doesn't identify Mark personally, but the sweater is clearly visible. This is how Susan confirms it is Mark who killed Ruggles, because the night he shows up to kill Susan, he is wearing the same brown sweater.

Answer: Susan

Since Susan is not directly involved with the murder (being that she did not go to the mountain with the others to harass Griffin) and she does not witness or partake in the burial, she has really no dirt on her hands that leads to prison time. Mark would be sentenced with 1st degree murder, and Jeff and Betsy 2nd degree.