So Archie finished his paper route by 8:45, and greets Billy and Hank. The story then tells us that they're slender and brown-haired. That's all the description we're gonna get, but it's probably all we need, as presumably, they're on the cover anyway.
Archie then explains to them in detail about how they're going to run through all the backyards along the "secret passage". Yes, this so-called "secret" passage, that they have to keep totally secret from everyone, is nothing more than a series of backyards to run through. We then get told that the kids aren't concerned about property owners stopping them, since no-one cares about letting neighborhood kids play in their yards. Which just raises the question, why is this a big secret, if literally no-one cares anyway?
The book then describes in thrilling detail how the kids run through the backyards:
The boys walked through the Hendricks's yard, following a path between a garage and a row of trees, until they came to a five-foot-high chain-link fence. They hopped this fence without much trouble and continued forward. Then, in a short while, the boys came upon a seven-foot-high cement wall, dividing one property from another. This obstacle presented a problem for Billy and Hank.
"How do we get over that?" they both asked Archie.
Wait... they BOTH asked Archie the same question? At the same time? Are Billy and Hank even two separate people? Are they identical twins who think alike? The story never tells us if they have any relationship with each other, only telling us that they're Archie's friends.
Anyway, Archie solves his friends' problem by taking some trash cans and turning them upside down against the wall. Apparently neighbors don't care about that either, I assume. Or maybe they do. After all, this is a secret passage.
After all three kids climb the trash can and hop the wall into the next yard, they talk about how awesome the experience was.
"Yeah! I like it too," Hank said. "Let's not tell anybody about it, though. Let's keep it a secret. What do you say, Archie?"
"Yeah! That's a good idea." Archie said. "It's a secret now. Let's keep it that way. And if anybody asks us what we're doing, we'll just tell them we're looking for Puskers. We won't tell them that we're really traveling the secret passage."
"Good thinking," both Billy and Hank said.
Amazing dialog. First we're told it's "something like hiking", and then Billy and Hank both say "I like it." But Hank then adds that this running through backyards while homeowners don't care should be kept a secret. Archie agrees, recycling pretty much exactly what Hank said, and brilliantly says that they'll cover up their backyard fence hopping and trash can climbing by saying that if they get caught doing it (remember, by homeowners who have been established not to care in the slightest), they'll just claim they're looking for Archie's lost cat. Presumably no-one in the neighborhood will wonder why Archie's cat keeps going missing. Good thing they won't care, thus it's vital this secret be kept.
Billy and Hank follow up with unified dialog.
Soon afterwards, they encounter the neighborhood bullies, Huie, and Horace Ziggs, better known as Ziggy. Ziggy is known in the neighborhood for storing snowballs in his mother's basement refrigerator during the winter, and taking them outside in the summer to throw at people. I was about to make a snide remark about this unusual hobby, but a quick Google search shows that actual human beings do this. Apparently Gifford Bailey is indeed an expert in pre-adolescent behavior after all. Maybe he does deserve those accolades on the back cover.
We then get some more unified thoughts from Billy and Hank.
"What do you mean?" Billy asked.
"This is Ziggy's backyard!" Archie replied.
"Oh! I didn't realize it from back here," Billy said.
"Me neither!" Hank said.
Billy and Hank. What are they? Do they have different personalities? Are they different people? I'm starting to think of them as a single person. A single person named Billyhank. Billyhank, Archie's unifriend. I'm thinking that any time Billy and Hank say the same thing at the same time, I'll just claim "Billyhank" said it. Because that would be true.
Just then, a snowball hits Billy's right shoulder from the rear. The kids look around, and Ziggy and Huie pop up. And we get this:
"Pirates on board! Pirates on board!" Ziggy shouted. He was pretending to be a seventeenth-century Spanish naval captain, fending off English pirates. "All hands, rid the ship of pirates on board!"
Yes, a 12-year-old bully who is playing pretend. Pretending to be a Spanish naval captain (specifically from the 17th century, just so you know), fending off pirates from England. That's quite the elaborate fantasy Ziggy's playing out, and totally not just an excuse to throw snowballs and beat up random kids who walk by. Gifford Bailey is down with the kids.
Archie, Billy and Hank run in separate directions, and the two bullies catch Billy.
According to our author, pirates were executed by being forced to walk the plank. All those fictional portrayals of pirates making other people walk the plank is apparently just propaganda - in real life, it was the other way around!
And just how elaborate does this bully's stupid fantasy have to be?
It's not just humiliating that Huie crushed a snowball on top of Billy's head, but he had to do it in a humiliating manner, no less! No wonder Archie and Hank were incensed!
They charge and knock the wind out of Ziggy, giving Archie a chance to take the snowballs from his pouch and stomp them to pieces. Billyhank then chases after Huie and does the same, breaking all his snowballs.
For someone who just got the wind knocked out of him and had his snowballs crushed, Ziggy sure is dedicated to staying in character as this 17th century Spanish ship captain. Damn those English pirates, knocking him to the ground and crushing his snowballs like that. He and Huie then go inside to get more snowballs.
It's like even the book is making fun of them. Sitting on the fence right next to where the bullies were for three whole minutes and presumably doing nothing produces the expected result.
Also, how come it takes three minutes for the bullies to get snowballs from the fridge? I'm wondering if the author has any sense of time.
The three run away as the bullies throw snowballs at them, and soon end up cornered by a fence. They hop the fence via a bicycle. That is, leaning the bicycle up against the fence and using that to hop it.
They get their big break when reaching a ten-foot-high chain-link fence (this book loves describing exact numbers of things), with a hole in the far right corner, just large enough for Archie, Billy and Hank, but too small for Ziggy to fit through. Ziggy tries anyway, and gets stuck because he is a dumbass.
"Pirate raid! Pirate raid!" Archie shouted.
Yeah, watch the threat for a few minutes - MINUTES, not seconds - that sounds safe. Archie follows that idiocy up with hijacking the bullies' own language and using it against them, pretending to be a 17th century Spanish naval captain, rather than the pirate that they pretended he was.
"Alright, first mate!" Archie said. "Now it's time for you to walk the plank. Your captain can't help you now."
So now Archie's pretending to be a pirate? Make up your mind, what are you? And why play into their pretend anyway?
Lol irony. See, it's funny because Billy had a snowball humiliatingly crushed slowly on top of his head, and now- oh, never mind.
Archie then teases Ziggy with more pirate puns, and even crushes a snowball "slowly, humiliatingly, on top of Ziggy's head." So far, this is three times in the story something has been crushed on top of someone's head, in a humiliating manner. Guess what? There's more coming later in the story.
Ziggy threatens to pound Archie later on, and Archie taunts him.
The trio pretended not to be rattled by the threat.
"We're not worried!" Archie shouted.
"Yeah!" both Billy and Hank hollered. "We're not afraid!"
Just in case you missed that the three were pretending not to be rattled by the threat, we then get to see examples of just that. Tell, Then Show. And we get another example of Billy and Hank saying the exact same thing simultaneously. Believe me when I say that you are going to see more and more of this throughout the story. I should be keeping track. I think I'll do that. I'll call it the "Billyhank hive mind dialog count".
The kids then sit and watch Ziggy to see if he escapes on his own, because if he doesn't, they'd have to get help. It would be morally wrong to leave him trapped there forever. After ten minutes of the three kids just standing there watching him (well, the book doesn't explain what else they did during those ten minutes), Ziggy frees himself, and then our protagonists decide to run for it.
After hopping more fences and climbing more walls, presumably while being chased (the book doesn't say), Archie falls into fertilizer.
Dead accurate dialog. I must comment Gifford Baily for his uncanny ability to write convincing elderly women. Wait, these are supposed to be 12-year-old boys?
They agree to stop running through the "secret passage" through people's backyards and head home, but agree to meet again to do it the next day. And our chapter ends.
Yes, all that was one chapter. So much stupid packed only into chapter 2, and I'm only 10% of the way through the book. You guys are in for one hell of a treat later on, believe me.
Billyhank hive mind dialog count: 3
Crushing something on someone's head count: 3
Comments
- Two words: Siamese twins.
- Been trying to slog through Sword of Shannara (I've read most of the rest of the series, but never the first trilogy); I mean, don't get me wrong, it's interesting stuff and decent writing and all, but something I've noticed in it is Brooks's fondness for measuring time in minutes where seconds might've made more sense. F'rinstance, short fights that don't even warrant blow-by-blow are often described as taking "several minutes," as are short pauses in conversation where somebody suddenly trails off and zones out thinking about something else.
I'm starting to think some people just think minutes and seconds are as interchangeable in prose as they are in casual speech (which they obviously aren't).