The bombing of Miss Peregrine’s home marks the collapse of the children’s protected routine: the bomb that had repeatedly fallen harmlessly on Adam’s finger instead strikes the house, and the expected changeover does not occur. The damaged building and Miss Peregrine’s inability to change back make the loop’s failure visible, turning a familiar refuge into a place the children may have to leave.

Background and the Loop’s Expected Pattern

The children return to the house after crossing the ridge, tired and worried about what awaits them. The path and surrounding ground have been marked by the bombing, but their immediate expectation is still shaped by the loop’s customary repetition. Previously, the falling bomb would come to rest on Adam’s finger, and the changeover would reset the day. This time, the familiar sequence has broken.

That contrast connects the new destruction to the island’s earlier wartime history. When Jacob first hears about the ruined home, the island curator explains that a German air raid destroyed the orphanage during the Second World War. The island had an anti-aircraft gun battery, making it a military target, and one bomb went astray. An elderly islander later recalls that the bombing killed no one in town, though gun crew members and the children at the orphanage died; he dates the raid to September 3, 1940. The disaster now unfolding in the loop echoes that historical destruction, but the children encounter it as a rupture in their own repeating day.

The Bombing and Its Visible Damage

As the group approaches the house, a half-charred brick draws attention to what has happened. The children panic and run down the path. Smoke covers the grounds, and the bomb has not landed on Adam’s finger: it has split the statue and exploded. The back corner of the house lies in a smoking ruin, with small fires still burning in the remains of two rooms. In the lawn, the blast has left a crater deep enough to bury a person upright.

The damage gives the children a view of the future condition Jacob encountered before he entered the loop. The home that had been their living shelter now resembles the deserted, devastated building he first found weeks earlier. That likeness collapses the distance between the children’s present and the island’s ruined past: what was once a safe home within a repeated day is becoming the wreck that survives outside it.

Miss Peregrine and the Failed Changeover

Miss Peregrine, who had been riding in a nestlike arrangement in Fiona’s hair, leaps down and moves across the scorched grass, calling out in alarm. Olive asks why the changeover has not come, but Miss Peregrine can answer only with cries. She appears as confused and frightened as the children.

Claire kneels and begs Miss Peregrine to turn back. Miss Peregrine flaps and strains, yet cannot change shape. Emma recognizes the significance of this failure: if Miss Peregrine could return to human form, she would have done so. The children’s concern therefore centers on more than the damaged house. Their headmistress, whose ability to keep the loop is central to their lives there, is herself unable to recover her usual form.

Enoch proposes that Miss Peregrine’s condition may explain why the loop slipped. He recalls a story about Miss Kestrel, who remained a kestrel for a week after a bicycle accident and experienced a loop slip. The comparison gives the children a possible precedent, but it does not resolve what has happened to Miss Peregrine or establish that she can restore the loop.

Consequences and the Decision to Leave

The destruction changes the practical question facing the children from how to endure another day in the house to whether they can remain there at all. When the possibility of staying is raised, Emma points to the damaged home and Miss Peregrine’s state: their long run in this refuge may be over. The house is no longer intact, and the person responsible for maintaining their protection cannot turn human.

The group divides over what to do. Enoch and those who agree with him argue that the children have been away from the outside world too long, and fear that leaving will expose them to the war or to hollows. They would rather stay where they know the territory. The opposing argument is that these dangers have already reached them, that the hollows and wights may return for Miss Peregrine in greater numbers, and that the children must consider her condition as well as their own safety. Emma proposes finding another ymbryne who might know how to help.

The event thus makes the loop’s malfunction a turning point rather than an isolated failure of routine. The bombing damages the children’s home, Miss Peregrine remains trapped in bird form, and the day does not reset as expected. Their debate about staying or leaving follows directly from this convergence: the place that protected them is becoming a ruin, while the guardian who sustained that protection cannot yet resume her human role.