{"id":5858,"date":"2019-06-09T17:54:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5858"},"modified":"2019-06-09T17:54:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T07:54:27","slug":"the-thuggery-affair-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/the-thuggery-affair-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019, Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Chapter Seven: The Costume for the Part<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lawrie and Peter walk home to have \u201cdinner\u201d (wouldn\u2019t the Marlows be posh enough to call it \u201clunch\u201d?) and the children again fail to inform Rowan, Ann or Mrs Marlow about all the criminal activity going on. Lawrie then dawdles about, re-doing her make-up, in the hope she\u2019ll miss the train to Colebridge. She probably looks a bit like this (the Before, not the After):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6zA5nLp8AS4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mrs Marlow is not impressed and tells Lawrie she\u2019s not going anywhere until she scrubs off all that face paint and puts on her nice skirt and coat:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI won\u2019t have people supposing I\u2019d let a child of mine run around looking as you do at this moment. Now do as I say.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Mrs Marlow is in a very grumpy mood in this book. Perhaps she\u2019s fed up with being left in the country to raise half-a-dozen children while her husband\u2019s sailing around the world. (Maybe she\u2019s afraid he has \u201ca half-hitch in every port\u201d?)<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Ann has discovered Peter has packed the wrong library books to take to Colebridge Library (which is their cover story) and is fussing about repacking the books in Karen\u2019s old music case. (Which also contains a dead and decaying pigeon, which isn\u2019t even in a waterproof bag, ugh.) But Peter and Lawrie manage to escape, complete with pigeon and scandalous make-up, and talk loudly about their fake plans all the way to the station, for the benefit of the spying Thuggery. Lawrie <em>just<\/em> makes it onto the train, looking, she hopes, like a \u201cJames Bond kookie\u201d and Peter goes off to be a decoy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter Eight: Old Man Kangaroo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wasn\u2019t familiar with <em>Old Man Kangaroo<\/em>, but it\u2019s one of Kipling\u2019s <em>Just So<\/em> stories, about how <a href=\"https:\/\/ebooks.adelaide.edu.au\/k\/kipling\/rudyard\/justso\/chapter6.html\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a kangaroo was chased by a dingo for a whole day<\/a>. Anyway, Peter plans to ride his bike around the countryside, leading the Thuggery on a merry dance, but they\u2019ve stolen his bike. Without much thought, he takes Ann\u2019s magnificent new bike. He soon finds that three of the Thugs have accidentally-on-purpose thrown his bike into a newly-tarred road in front of a steamroller. Matt Carter, leader of the road gang, makes the Thugs try to extract the bike from the tar, ruining their fancy Ted clothes. The Thugs are temporarily powerless because \u201cMatt Carter and his gang were nine, all larger and stronger than the Thuggery and all armed with pickaxes, spades and sledge-hammers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Peter then loudly announces to Matt that he\u2019s found something, which he\u2019s taking to Miss Culver. This is the start of a genuinely exciting, if somewhat implausible, chase scene. Soon the Thugs are shooting at Peter (\u201cAnyone\u2019d think they wanted to kill him!\u201d), so he abandons Ann\u2019s bike and hides in a ditch. The wimpiest Thug, Mr Luke, aka Yeller Feller, actually finds Peter but lets him escape. <\/p>\n<p>Then Peter overhears a disquieting conversation between Kinky, Siberia and Mr Luke while Kinky destroys poor Ann\u2019s bike. Kinky is planning to kill Peter by drowning him in the gravel pit pool, which will help Kinky&#8217;s campaign to overthrow Jukie as Number One Boy. Mr Luke is not happy about this, but is battered into submission by the others. Peter climbs through a disgusting drain into a stream and wades all the way to the sea, where he left his canoe. He plans to paddle back home, but he\u2019s overturned by that pesky hidden tree root and then the Thuggery re-appear, still shooting at him. (Are they carrying about some sort of automatic rifle? Wouldn\u2019t that be a bit conspicuous? They don\u2019t seem to need to stop to reload their ammunition. Also, no one else seems to notice all the gunfire. Rural Dorset is a lot more like the Wild West than I ever imagined.)<\/p>\n<p>Peter manages to dive underwater and swim to the opposite bank but the Thugs catch up. The Thugs are still firing what is now called \u201cthe air gun\u201d (which apparently <em>can<\/em> kill people: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/adc.bmj.com\/content\/86\/4\/234.full\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Air weapon injuries commonly involve teenage boys<\/a>\u201d). Then Kinky has the great idea of climbing along the top of the lock gate to reach Peter \u2013 but Peter opens the gate! And Kinky and his gun fall into the water! And Kinky can\u2019t swim! And then Siberia falls in, trying to rescue him! Ha ha ha.<\/p>\n<p>The Thuggery are indignant that Peter isn\u2019t being more helpful (\u201cIt\u2019s yore fault \u2019e\u2019s there!\u201d) but he does give them a few hints before sauntering off towards Trennels, wondering how he\u2019ll ever be able to afford to buy Ann a new bike. Unfortunately, he\u2019s not home yet and oh no, the Thuggery have dragged themselves out of the river and they want revenge. <\/p>\n<p>Peter is being really brave here. He\u2019s also too exhausted to run away, but when he sees the Thugs with their flick knives in the lane, he prepares to sacrifice himself to save Patrick, \u201cin the traditions of the service\u201d. But just as he prepares to go down fighting, Matt Carter and his steamroller Sarah come to the rescue:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThey an\u2019 their knives an\u2019 their three to one! Nuthin\u2019 but dirty Teds, the pack of \u2019em! Sarah an\u2019 you an\u2019 me\u2019ll show \u2019em! An\u2019 they don\u2019t jump out of the way we\u2019ll flatten \u2019em!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hooray for Peter! Peter wins! Yeller Feller, \u201cmade bold by the passing of danger\u201d, yells a vague threat about \u201ctomorrow\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cBut of course, once in every lifetime, tomorrow never comes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Next: Character Part<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter Seven: The Costume for the Part Lawrie and Peter walk home to have \u201cdinner\u201d (wouldn\u2019t the Marlows be posh enough to call it \u201clunch\u201d?) and the children again fail to inform Rowan, Ann or Mrs Marlow about all the criminal activity going on. Lawrie then dawdles about, re-doing her make-up, in the hope she\u2019ll &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/the-thuggery-affair-part-four\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019, Part Four<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,11],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1950s-and-1960s","category-books","category-young-adult","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5858"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5861,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions\/5861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}