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Derek Bell
Alexander Sholt, a skinny man with glasses, is the heir of a rich family in a rural Australian town. Alexander’s grandfather was obsessed with the apocalypse and built a secret bunker in the woods west of a house the Sholts owned. As teenagers, Alexander and his classmate Derek Bell began kidnapping teenage girls, holding them captive in the bunker, abusing them (probably in a sexual manner, though the novel never makes this explicit), and murdering them. Later, Alexander turns the home near the bunker into a children’s home and bribes the home’s employees, Director Cavanagh and Nurse Flint, to procure victims for them from among the home’s residents. Alexander’s first victim, 14-year-old Sarah Blue, becomes a ghost called Crow. When their last victim, supernaturally powerful teenage girl Isobel Catching, befriends Crow and enables her to interact with the physical world, the girls confront Alexander, chase him to the children’s home, and free the children. Then Crow kills Alexander and burns down the home. The mystery of Alexander’s burned, unidentified corpse brings detective Michael Teller and his 15-year-old daughter, ghost Beth Teller, to the town, triggering the main events of the novel. When Isobel Catching narrates her captivity to Michael and Beth as a fantastical allegory, she describes Alexander as a “Feed,” a monster with mirrors for eyes that devours all the colors inside girls until they turn entirely gray and die.
Alexander Sholt Quotes in Catching Teller Crow
The Catching Teller Crow quotes below are all either spoken by Alexander Sholt or refer to Alexander Sholt. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1. Beth: The Town Quotes
Dad said his old man thought the law was there to protect some people and punish others. And Aboriginal people were the ‘others.’
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Chapter 2. Beth: The Home Quotes
My science teacher said that just because two things happened together didn’t mean one was because of the other, or as she put it: ‘correlation does not imply causation.’
But Dad said that was scientist-talk not police-talk, and if two things happened together you’d suspect the first thing caused the second until it could provide you with an alibi.
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Chapter 3. Beth: The Witness Quotes
“Maybe I didn’t see anything. Or maybe I did. Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
She looked at me—or, no, she didn’t, she looked into the space I was standing in for a second, then away again. “On if you’ll believe me.”
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Chapter 4. Catching: The Sunset Quotes
When your Nanna was little the government took her away from her mum. They had a law back then that let them take Aboriginal kids just because they were Aboriginal . . .
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Chapter 8. Beth: The Station Quotes
“It seems to me he might be a little like my father—the kind of cop who thinks the rules don’t apply to everyone equally. He could’ve been too deferential to the Sholt family, given them special treatment . . . maybe let a few things slide about that home that he now sees he should have looked into.”
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Chapter 9. Beth: The Missing Quotes
“We’re police officers,” he said, and I heard the pride in his voice. “We never stop looking for the missing.”
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Chapter 11. Catching: The Prisoner Quotes
“He eats what’s inside our insides. The colours that live in our spirits. Do you think I was always a grey girl?”
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Chapter 13. Catching: The Grey Quotes
“It is your grey. Like mine, but not. Everyone’s grey is their own.”
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I can endure.
As long as I remember where I come from.
Who I come from.
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Chapter 17. Catching: The Two Quotes
People can time travel inside their heads.
Remember into the past.
Imagine into the future.
But sometimes you can’t escape the now.
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If I’m dead inside, I’m free.
No.
If I’m dead inside I’m dead inside.
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Chapter 18. Catching: The Dream Quotes
“If you can name it, you can catch it,” she calls. “If you can catch it, you can fight it. Everything has its opposite. Remember!”
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Chapter 19. Catching: The Catching Quotes
No ticking clocks.
Just choices.
They measure the distance between who we are and who we’re turning into.
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Chapter 20. Catching: The Escape Quotes
“This gray’s yours,” I say. “My colours are mine. I’m not carrying your shame for what you did. Only my pride. For surviving you.”
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Chapter 22. Beth: The Beginning Quotes
And wherever we went, we went together.
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Alexander Sholt Character Timeline in Catching Teller Crow
The timeline below shows where the character Alexander Sholt appears in Catching Teller Crow. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2. Beth: The Home
...and pallid with glasses—was the children’s home’s nurse. Beth’s dad says that the man is Alexander Sholt, who donated the house and a lot of money for the children’s home.
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Chapter 8. Beth: The Station
...with a “curved blade” before it burned. He also explains that he’s supposed to find Alexander Sholt’s address, since Sholt was financially involved with the home: after a closer look at...
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Michael asks Derek for Alexander Sholt’s address. When Derek says, “Alex?”, Michael asks whether he and Alexander are friends. Derek...
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Derek says that he’ll get Alexander Sholt’s address but that Alexander’s probably at his city apartment. When Michael says that they’ve...
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...attention from Catching. Michael explains that he doesn’t trust Derek not to repeat things to Alexander Sholt—and if Catching witnessed anything the night of the fire, Michael wants her to tell...
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Chapter 9. Beth: The Missing
...the car. As Allie drives, Michael asks whether she went to school with Derek and Alexander Sholt. She says she did, though they were a little older. Alexander went to boarding...
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Allie praises Alexander Sholt’s charity, mentioning that some townspeople didn’t want him to set up the home. Others...
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Allie praises Alexander Sholt’s decision to stay in town and suggests that, if she had money, she’d leave—but...
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The car reaches Alexander Sholt’s house, a large brick building. Beth notes that it wasn’t hard to locate the...
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...the Sholt house’s door. A sickly, unfriendly old man opens it. When Michael asks for Alexander Sholt, the old man—who identifies himself as Alexander’s father, Charles Sholt—claims that Alexander departed for...
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...she saw. Michael tells Charles Sholt he needs to go but leaves his card for Alexander. As he and Beth return to the car, he explains that he can’t search the...
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Chapter 14. Beth: The Colours
...connected. Michael says he isn’t sure, but he needs to determine whether anyone has seen Alexander Sholt since the fire. Beth asks whether Michael thinks Alexander is the unidentified body—and, if...
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Chapter 21. Beth: The End
...Catching captive in the bunker, the caged birds were the kids in the home, and Alexander Sholt was one of the Feeds. She also realizes who killed Alexander, whose body is...
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...that Derek must have been the second Feed. Michael suggests to Allie that Derek and Alexander were running the bunker, while Cavanagh and Flint were being paid to keep quiet about...
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When Allie says that they should immediately put out a warrant for Alexander’s arrest, Michael says that he believes Alexander is the corpse that was found in the...
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...confusing. Michael says that the same weapon likely killed all three. He spins a hypothesis: Alexander and Derek fight, Derek kills Alexander, and an accidental fire burns the house down, causing...
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...story wrong, but regardless, they’ll have to work hard to get justice for Derek and Alexander’s victims. He asks whether she can do that. Allie, with determination, says she can. Beth...
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Chapter 22. Beth: The Beginning
...and Catching exchange glances. Then Beth explains to Michael that Catching didn’t commit the murders. Alexander’s window broke when something pulled Cavanagh and Flint out of it—and then dropped them onto...
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