- "A great debut...In addition to the suspense-filled plot, Bailey deals carefully with sensitive issues of boy-girl maturity, issues that most children's authors shy away from."
Lorraine Thomas, M. Ed, Veteran Elementary School Teacher, Florham Park, NJ
Remember that review quote, because by the end of this book, you're gonna question that reviewer's sanity.
Now, onto chapter 5.
The kids wonder what this mysterious square could be. Billy guesses that it might be a water wall, and Hank surprisingly show independent thought and disagrees with him, pointing out that wells are not four foot by four foot.
Well, considering this book's genre, I find that more likely.
It at least makes sense that Hank's choice of reading material would influence where his thoughts are going. Even though I find it unlikely that someone would bury a skeleton under a stone slate in their backyard, and that if they did, no-one would notice this four foot by four foot square in their backyard and open it out of curiosity, I'd have also found it unlikely that a pair of bullies would pretend to be Spanish naval captains and attack people with snowballs in the summertime while pretending their victims are pirates. So hey, Hank's guess is as good as any.
Yeah, Hank, it's not Halloween! Don't you know people only bury skeletons in their backyard on Halloween, then remove them once the holiday is over? It's just common sense.
Archie says that maybe whatever's buried is instead something valuable, and Billy agrees.
They lift the stone slate a bit, and see that the hole goes down about fifteen feet, and there's a narrow metal ladder leaning up against one of its dirt walls.
I would have guessed to climb in and out of the hole, but that's just me. Also, that wasn't a question, and didn't deserve a question mark?
No it isn't.
They open the stone slate completely, and with more sunlight pouring in, they can now see an opening at the bottom of the hole, along one of the dirt walls. In other words, there's a tunnel in the hole.
"Yeah! I see it," Archie said.
"Me too!" Hank said.
"Now we know what the ladder's there for," Archie said. "It's for climbing up or down."
"Yeah, it must be," Billy said.
Was this dialog even necessary? 3/5s of it was literally "me too!" "yeah, I agree" type stuff. The rest was stuff that's totally obvious to the reader. What else would the ladder be for? Of course it's for climbing up or down. Why else would a ladder be put inside a hole? I really hope this is just filler to create suspense and not the author genuinely making the characters this stupid.
Archie decides to check it out.
"Good idea!" Billy said enthusiastically. "I'm coming down after you, if it's more than just a hole."
Didn't they just see the frigging tunnel down there? Like, a couple paragraphs ago? Do they have goldfish memory?
Anyway, Archie climbs down the ladder, sees the tunnel entrance, and discovers it's six feet by five feet.
He stayed down there for a couple of minutes, fascinated.
Archie is easily amused.
"Yup, it's a tunnel alright. I could tell after staring at it for a good three minutes or so. Here, lemme climb back up so you can come down and stare at it for yourself, just to prove it's a tunnel and I wasn't lying about this tunnel that we could all easily see from outside."
Once out of the hole, the three speculate as to where the tunnel leads. The tunnel points in the direction of a nearby house, which is apparently abandoned, with boarded up windows and paint peeling from all sides. In other words, a neighborhood eyesore.
With this very obvious abandoned house in the neighborhood that has a big totally non-suspicious stone slate covering a hole leading to a tunnel in its backyard, it's a miracle no other kids discovered it before. I guess Archie, Billy and Hank are just that good.
They consider that maybe the tunnel leads to the garage, which is separate from the house.
"Yeah," both Billy and Hank said.
The return of Billyhank hive mind dialog! Really, did they say "Yeah" at the same time, or take turns saying it? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Wait, they're still calling their trip through people's backyards the "secret passage"? They just discovered an actual secret passage! One that's actually secret, hidden (depending on how hidden you consider that stone slate out in the backyard to be, but presumably no-one would think to look under it out of curiosity, so yeah, it's hidden), and is actually a passage. Seriously, it's like the unexpected answer on a multiple choice quiz:
- Which of the following is referred to as the "secret passage" by a group of twelve year old boys?
• Running randomly through people's backyards and climbing fences.
• A covered-up hole in a backyard that leads underground to a tunnel.
Bzzt! Wrong answer! The correct answer is "running randomly through people's backyards and climbing fences". Duh! Can't you tell that that's a passage because it involves passing through backyards, and it's secret because no-one knows about it? You fail the quiz.
Also, if they get the flashlights from their parents, won't their parents ask questions about where they're going? I'd like to know what kind of story they make up for that one. Why not take flashlights out of the closet or something so their parents never find out?
The kids soon arrive at Archie's house, and begin playing a game of "tackleball". What is tackleball? It's like football (the American version), except not. Here are the rules:
So basically it's tag except you get tagged by being tackled and you have to drop the ball? That's all it looks like to me.
Let's see the game in action:
Exciting. Why isn't this a national sport?
Thirty minutes and they never got bored with tackleball. Must be one hell of a game.
The book tells us that the three girls that interrupt them are attractive, so whatever. I'll take its word for it. Does that mean that they're "flowering", as the back cover described them?
Amanda tells the boys that the game looks like fun, and asks to join.
Dun dun dunnn! True motivations? What are those? The conspiracy thickens...
Archie insists tackleball is a rough game for boys only, not girls, and Amanda insists on being allowed to join.
"Nothing doing!" Archie replied, emphatically now. "We don't want to tackle any girls! That's not fun!"
"Yeah!" Bill and Hank shouted.
Archiebillyhank and their unifrown! The Creepy Twins suddenly merge with Archie to create a Creepy Trio hive mind!
And what are the girls' true motivations anyway? Sure sucks that these boys are undiplomatic. Damn undiplomatic middle schoolers!
Who says "nothing doing!" in the 21st century? And not wanting to tackle any girls? This kid's twelve, right?
Billyhank even agree with him in unison. How many independent thoughts are there between these three anyway? Isn't conflict and disagreement supposed to be a big part of storytelling and character development?
Amanda asks to at least look at the football before the boys play, and Archie agrees. So naturally she steals it and runs off. The boys chase her to her house.
Aha! I see Amanda's true intentions after all! She wanted Archie to tackle her. If only the boys had known that ahead of time, they would have been more diplomatic.
"We're not going to tackle you!" Archie shouted back. "You're a girl!"
Or maybe not.
Also, at that age, I'd assume that if a girl asks a boy to tackle her, assuming both are straight, he'd be totally up for it. But this story doesn't imply that Archie is being gentlemanly by refusing to tackle her, but rather, that he's all like "ewwww girrrrls!" and wants nothing to do with her. Maybe I'm just from a different time period than the author, but in my elementary school, there was "dating" when I was in third grade, which was when I had my first crush. But Archie is of middle school age (elementary ended in sixth grade when I was a kid, but still). Presumably he'd been exposed to dating by the cool older kids? Or Billy had? Or Hank? But then, they're not allowed to have meaningfully different opinions from Archie, so they naturally have to think the same way as him.
Soooo many things wrong with that single sentence! Where do I start?
Okay, so what is and isn't "permissible"? Are they too gentlemanly to tackle, but not to put dirt down their backs? Also, how did they all agree to grab that cluster of dirt anyway? Where is the dialog (since the author loves to have dialog for even the most minor of things) where they agree to do this? Did they all read each other's minds? Do they have a hive mind, and somehow all knew exactly that they were going to put dirt down the girls' backs?
How did they put the dirt down all three girls' backs? Did the girls not even try to run away? Did they not even try to fight back? It said that Archie was holding Amanda in place, but what about the other two girls? Do they just stand there and do nothing? How did Archie grab that cluster of dirt while holding Amanda in place? Did Amanda just stand there and do nothing?
And by putting the cluster of dirt down the girls' backs, does that mean they put the dirt on the back of their shirts, or they put the dirt in their shirts so it reached their backs? If so, that's kind of ungentlemanly from the same kids who refused to tackle a girl.
On a note more related to this liveblog, does putting dirt down their backs count as crushing something on someone's head in a humiliating manner? I'll half-count it.
Amanda and the other two girls then grabbed a cluster of dirt, but this time, believe it or not, the boys actually ran away. Holy crap. They then head home.
And you have just seen a "sensitive issue of boy-girl maturity, an issue that most children's authors shy away from". (reread the quote at the top of this entry)
Billyhank hive mind dialog count: 5
Crushing something on someone's head count: 4½
Comments
