Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Robbie Forester and the Outlaws of Sherwood St.’

Beginnings (More)

On Sundays we’ve been doing beginnings – all the Peter Abrahams books in chronological order, including those written under the Spencer Quinn pen name. Here from 2012 – #28, THE OUTLAWS OF SHERWOOD STREET: STEALING FROM THE RICH. For middle-grade readers, but adults with fake ID can take their chances. My first foray to the edge of the supernatural.

At first I thought it all began with a foul – if an elbow to the head’s not a foul, then what is? – but I figured out, maybe not as soon as I should have, that the beginning had come a little earlier.

Robbie Forester #2

Tut-Tut and Silas: From Robbie Forester and the Outlaws of Sherwood Street

Then came a big surprise. Tut-Tut opened his mouth and sang, “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play; Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.”

Tut-Tut could sing? Sing without the slightest hint of stuttering? And hit every note, besides? “You can sing?” I said. “You’ve been able to sing all this time?”

“Y-y-y-ye-ye-,” he said.

Silas snapped his fingers—a snap, since he was wearing gloves, that made no sound. “Wait a minute,” he said. “All you’ve got to do is sing whatever it is you want to say.”

Tut-Tut shook his head.

“Like if you want to say, ‘Another chocolate chip cookie for me,’ all you’d have to do is sing it.”

Tut-Tut kept shaking his head, but Silas didn’t seem to notice. “Like this,” he said, and sang, “Another chocolate chip cookie for me,” in a grating voice, hitting none of the notes.

Welcome Donna.

History Class: From Robbie Forester and the Outlaws of Sherwood Street

“The robber barons,” said Mr. Stinecki in history class the next day, “is the name given to a group of industrialists and financiers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Can we name some of them?”

“Rockefeller.”

“Carnegie.”

“Morgan.”

“Vanderbilt.”

“Duke.”

“Gould.”

“Flagler.”

“Flagler?” said Signe Stone. “I think I’m related to him.”

“Does the development office know?” said Mr. Stinecki.

Maybe that was a joke; if so, no one laughed. Mr. Stinecki was in his second year at Thatcher. There were rumors that he wasn’t being asked back for a third.

We spent the rest of the period on the robber barons. We learned that Morgan swatted photographers with his gold-tipped cane, that Gould tried to kidnap a Scottish lord named Gordon-Gordon, almost starting a war between the U.S. and Canada, and that Rockefeller once said, “God gave me the money.”

“Any questions?” said Mr. Stinecki.

Welcome happy dude, dude and human companion, Alicia, Blue.

Congratulations to AJ and the Snowhook team on yesterday’s victory up in Alaska! Is there a picture we can post tomorrow? Probably a good time to post a whole reminder about Snowhook, the Iditarod, sled dog racing, everything.