The next day, the kids head out to reach Riverwood cemetery (capitalized as such), to search for the Sofield headstone mentioned in the piece of paper attached to the box with the combination lock. The book takes the time to tell us that the cemetery is ten blocks away from where the boys live, so they ride their bikes, taking ten minutes to get there.
If you do the math, that means it took then one minute per block to reach the cemetery. I don't know if that's realistic or not, but it just shows the author's obsession with numbers and describing exact things, when simply saying that they rode their bikes through town and reached the cemetery would have done just fine.
But they see a sign telling that the cemetery is closed for construction and will reopen on October 1st.
Actually, Archie has a point. It's only a cemetery. Wait, if it's closed for construction, then wouldn't people be there working on construction?
Of course they did. They always do. That's their sole purpose in life.
The kids ride their bikes around the perimeter of the cemetery and look for another way in. They soon realize that the cemetery is enclosed by a fence with barbed wire on three sides, with the final, uncovered side, facing a river.
What.
Okay, barbed wire for a frigging small town cemetery? Why? Is this a military cemetery or something? Is there a secret base with nukes hidden underground?
A quick Google search for "cemetery fence" found me quite a few pictures of cemeteries with fences, none of which had barbed wire. Also, why cover only three sides with a fence? What, do they think people who want to break into the cemetery won't think to swim across or even just walk around the border and then swing around to the unfenced side?
That picture on the right is one of many "cemetery fence" pictures, and it shows a cemetery with a fence. Right next to a river. And notice the lack of barbed wire. See, real cemeteries are bordered with fences on all sides, not just three.
So they decide the one way into the cemetery is to cross the river.
Hey author, was it ten feet deep on the shallow end also, or only ten feet deep at its deepest? Details, details! They decide that swimming across is too risky, so Archie (who else?) comes up with a more dignified solution.
Take a rubber boat all the way up to the river, inflate it, ride it across the river, and into the cemetery? Sure! Why not. And of course it's Archie's idea, as well as Archie's tools. Billy and Hank aren't allowed to really be useful.
You know what I'm noticing? That the story has a small number of actual characters. Even going by the flattest personalities imaginable, when it comes to being distinct or sticking out in any way, the book's characters thus far have only been Archie, Amanda, and Ziggy. Everyone else is simply a proxy for one of those three. And Janet and Cindy (remember them?) have no lines of dialog ever. They exist only so that Amanda has two proxies to do whatever she does. They don't even talk together, not even to agree on everything.
"Sounds great," both Billy and Hank answered. "Good," Archie said, "it's agreed then. We'll use it."
The Billyhank hive mind dialog counter increases by one. Good thing everyone agrees so quickly, and there are never any arguments or conflict. For a second, I was afraid this book was going to have character interaction or something.
They reach Archie's house and take the rubber fishing boat, two plastic paddles, and an air pump to inflate the boat. They then walk the ten blocks down to the river carrying all three items - boat, paddles, and pump - and inflate the boat near the edge of the river.
A couple things though.
For one, did anyone see them carrying the inflatable boat, paddles, and air pump, when they were walking through town? The book never says, but I imagine at least a few people must have seen them walking along the blocks. Why didn't they take the "secret passage" through people's backyards? Is it to avoid Ziggy and Huie? (Remember them?) Well, those two are gone now for good, remembered only by readers, but certainly not by the book itself. Here's another thing. Didn't the book just say that the cemetery was bordered by a fence on three sides, with the unfenced side facing the river? Isn't the unfenced side the opposite from the front side? (It is.) So, if they walked ten blocks to the cemetery, and are about to cross the river, then how?! Isn't the river on the other side? For someone who seems obsessed with the most minute of details such as the exact size or shape of things, the author seems to have utterly forgotten a pretty major detail. I'm trying to picture this scene in my head (as I imagine the author wants us to), and I can't parse it.
Okay, so the kids are magically on the side of the river opposite the graveyard. I don't know how, which is strange considering the book would normally give us these details, but somehow they are.
I'm starting to regret not having made a "Archie, then Billy, then Hank" counter. I'd say this consistent order of doing things shows the importance of the characters, but that's saying that Billy and Hank are separate characters. They make their way across the river uneventfully, by which I mean they complete it in one sentence. Once at the graveyard, they start looking for Avenues D and E, as mentioned on the note. And I again wonder what kind of graveyard has paved roads (the book calls them that), crossroads, and street markers.
"Told you," Archie said nonchalantly. "Otherwise, people would get lost in here."
Yeah, they'd get lost in a small town cemetery; therefore it needs street signs. Those small town cemeteries are massive, ya know.
Once they reach Avenues D and E, they start looking for the Sofield headstone.
Vital information, I'm sure. I imagine there will be a test asking us which grave the Sofield grave is. So remember, it's the sixth one from the road, in the row nearest to the corner.
It says: "Katherine B. Sofield 1917-1999". There was nothing else on it, though, no combination written on it that they could see.
Billyhank and their unifrown. The hive mind stares into Archie's soul.
They look for any other headstones labeled "Sofield" that are in this area, but find none. They get frustrated at the instructions apparently being wrong. Then Hank says the only smart thing any character has ever said in the entire book:
Ho. Ly. Shit. Did he just say that? Did one of the characters in the story acknowledge how monumentally stupid the whole thing is? Or even just a part of it? And furthermore, this surprising insight came from Hank of all people!! Hank! One of Archie's braindead yes men with no opinions of his own 99% of the time. Hank actually acknowledged that the story doesn't make sense. I can't believe it.
Bask in that bit of self-awareness while it lasts, people, because it's the only one we're gonna get. So naturally, Archie has to set things straight:
Yeah, it's such a challenging code to figure out. In case you forgot, here's the code:
C - SOFIELD HEADSTONE - CORNER AVE. D & E
I wonder what that could possibly refer to?
If only they'd thought to look six inches up from the grass in the lower right-hand corner of the back of the Sofield headstone in the first place. How they missed this in the first place is anyone's guess. Oh wait, it's because everyone in the story is an idiot.
Scratched into the headstone are the numbers: 5-31-18
It sounds like a date. May 31, 1918. How much do you want to bet that turns out to be the case, but the main characters are too stupid to realize it? And later in the story, it will be some big revelation what the combination numbers stand for? (And btw, the gravestone says Sofield died on 1917, not 1918, so it doesn't likely refer to Katherine Sofield's birth, unless the author has a terrible memory)
Hank's doubts now instantly disappeared, and the three boys began slapping each other and dancing jubilantly. Their celebration lasted a couple of minutes.
So they spend the next few minutes dancing and slapping each other on the back. I'd love to see what that looked like. And it lasted a couple of minutes? Even if it was just two minutes, that's still really dumb. Would they really dance and slap each other on the back for two whole minutes? Why would they even dance and slap each other on the back in the first place? Who does that?
Also, it's a bad idea to dance and celebrate in a graveyard that I thought was under construction? How come they never encountered any construction workers? Hold that thought.
If the weather was overcast and threatening all day (which the book didn't tell us until just now), why did they ride the inflatable boat across the river in the first place? If it started raining heavily, it could make it hard for them to go across. Hold that thought; I think that will become important later.
"Uh oh!" said Archie, "it's trouble."
Oh, there's the construction workers. I was wondering about the zero construction workers the kids encountered while wandering through this under-construction cemetery.
Wait, did the story honestly say that all three kids hid behind a single headstone? HOW? And they weren't seen? Like not a single part of them stuck out from behind it? I find that to be impossible. How big is a headstone? How big are even the biggest ones? How do not one, but three kids hide behind a single headstone?
For that matter, how come the construction people never saw them, and they never saw the construction people, until just now? Were they gone the whole time?
And what a coincidence that of all the places to put sacks of grass seed, they chose the very headstone that three kids are hiding behind.
They get out from behind the headstone and start running back to the boat, as the cloud cover got darker and it started raining more. There's even a rumble of thunder.
Well, what do you know. The ominous sky that had been there the whole time, but only told to the reader a couple pages ago, finally plays a role in the plot. Gifford Bailey is the master of foreshadowing. Which reminds me of another thing. These kids walked through town for ten blocks, carrying a rubber raft, pump, and paddles, while the sky was overcast and I'm willing to bet that heavy rain had been predicted for that day. They must have looked incredibly stupid to anyone who spotted them.
Anyway, they pull the rubber boat out and get in and begin to paddle across the river now. Thanks to rain, the current is very strong. After fifteen minutes, they make it "well across the river", with only twenty yards to go. But a rolling white crest suddenly appears fifty yards away, and closes in rapidly.
This is the book's attempt at creating exciting action. It describes everything in exact, clinical detail, then explains why it happened, just so you understand. It really slows things down and makes the action not exciting at all, kind of like the difference between the way a police officer might describe a crime scene to a court, instead of how a person might tell a story about something that happened to them. One is about simply describing all the important facts. The other is about actually being exciting.
The wave slams into the boat with a moderate thrust, so I guess it doesn't really "slam" into it. But the "moderate thrust" is enough to push it forward.
Thanks for stopping the action to explain what the kids thought the wave would do, and why the wave didn't do it.
But hey, it still put a good deal of water in the boat anyway, and carried the boat forty yards downriver. And how long did that take? Forty yards is a long way to go. Did that happen in the span of a second? A minute? When?
The "action" scenes in this story are busted.
Someone please tell this author that Charlie Brown was not a documentary.
Archie and Billy looked at the amount of water already rolling around on the floor of the boat, and how hard the rain was falling, and realized Hank was right.
Good to know they have time to stop and assess the situation. This action scene is sure taking its sweet time. It's so slow even the heroes can stop and take it all in and plan their next move.
Really, here is literally what happens and how it's described:
Wow. Compelling.
Archie ends the chapter by saying "Looks like we're darn near trapped out here!" In a book published in 2003.
So, my thoughts so far.
Every character is an idiot. This is shaping up to be a major Idiot Plot and we're just over halfway done. So far, the plot is progressing because whoever hid things in that box in the tunnel was too stupid to convincingly cover up the tunnel (the entrance is plainly visible in a backyard), and then put the info on how to find the combination to the lock on a piece of paper on the back of the box. Now this bit of excitement is occurring only because the kids are too stupid to care that it's overcast and about to rain on the day they plan to take their boat out. Not that we the audience even knew until after the kids had arrived in the cemetery, so the author didn't even provide the proper foreshadowing.
There is more stupid to come. You will be amazed at what will happen later in the story.
So stick around, and leave any comments ya got down below!
Billyhank hive mind dialog count: 8
Crushing something on someone's head count: 4½
Total victory celebration length: 32 minutes
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