Childs Play by Alice Munro

The climax of this story occurs when the girls drown Verna. That's what changes the reader. That the characters change remains to be seen, we know (or rather we infer) that Marlene is repentant. We have no such insight into Charlene, although her determination to find the priest indicates that 1) she knows what's in the envelope and 2) that she feels some moral imperative to help Marlene. The reader is left wondering if Charlene too will confess when she meets with the priest. But closure is left to the reader to create.

What worked for me in this story was that I knew that the girls were going to something horrible to Verna, and yet after only one reading I can remember each and every turn of the plot. It is the proverbial bear in the close (to quote Clint McCowen), you know pretty much from the early pages of the story that Verna is going to have something bad happen to her. What I didn't "like" as a reader was being denied the answer, but as a critical reader as I think back on it more deeply Munro has provided her reader with a richer experience. The read then must use their own imagination and life experience to examine the possibilities.