Monday, June 19, 2017

Sixth Grade Secrets by Louis Sachar (Chapters 11-20)

Welcome back to Sixth Grade Secrets. Let's not dawdle anymore, yes?

Laura gets home and Tiffany, Allison and Debbie are waiting for her, eating pizza, licorice sticks and having grape juice to drink. They greet Laura, but Tiff and Ali don't salute in front of Debbie. Allison walks out to the Dog House to get a tape recorder and Tiffany goes to get more licorice. I cringe at the thought of licorice.The girls walk to Laura's room, and Laura's mother greets them asking why Laura is home late.

"I had some work to do for Mr. Doyle. I needed to use the dictionary." While not technically a lie, Laura omits the part where her "work" was punishment for passing notes in class.

The girls all settle into Laura's room, where they tell Debs the bidness. She has to call up a boy from their class and tell him she's secretly in love with him.

"Passionately." Tiffany the Horny One keeps reminding us.

Allison suggests Gabriel, but Laura yells no, which earns her weird looks from the others. She then suggests Howard, the boy no one likes, which makes the others laugh.

Since Laura has her own phone with a private number, her parents can't try to eavesdrop, nor will Howard know who's calling him. Debbie dials the number and Allison sets up the recording.

"Hello. May I talk to Howard, please? (I think that was his mother.)"
[Laughter]
"Howard? Oh, Howard is it really you? This is...your secret admirer. I love you, Howard. You're so handsome."
(Passionately.) Tiffany, shaddup,
"I love you passionately!"
Howard is on the other line like "Who dis is?"
"I can't tell you, I'm afraid you'll break my heart!"
[Laughter]
"That was Debbie. She just called up Howard and told him she loved him passionately, didn't you, Debbie?"
"Yes, that was me. I'm Debbie. I disguised my voice because I love Howard so much, and I'm afraid he won't love me back!"
[Laughter]

Allison turns off the tape recorder and Laura raises her fist to her nose.

"Welcome to Pig City."

Later that evening, Laura is eating pot roast with her parents. Laura's mother asks if anything special happened that day and Laura panics, nearly choking on her dinner. She passively mentions the math test and makes the mistake of saying it doesn't matter, prompting a lecture from her parents. She then asks to be excused, which prompts her mother to say "don't come back here in an hour and expect me to feed you."

Guess what the fuck she does later.

So Gabriel calls her and tells her he can't come over because he's grounded all weekend for copying a dictionary page again. Then Laura thinks on it, and asks Gabriel if he wants to join Pig City, to which he excitedly says yes. After he hangs up, Laura goes into the kitchen and asks for food, which her parents give her.

The next day, the class laughs at the "pigs fly high" message. Mr. Doyle just erases it and writes a number 3 next to the word "Dictionary". Laura begins to have a crisis about how to convince Tiffany and Allison to let Gabriel join Pig City. During said crisis, Mr. Doyle hands Laura her math test back, which is a big fat D+. Laura insists to Mr. Doyle that she'd just had a bad day and to not worry about it.

Later at recess, the girls try to decide on a new club member. Allison suggests a girl named Karen, but Tiffany says she talks too much. The girls end up choosing her best friend Yolanda, who has long black hair and tan skin and is very shy.

Yolanda agrees to meet them at Laura's house that night, and Laura goes back to panicking about the Gabriel crisis.

Here's how obsessive Laura is about not lying. She sees Gabriel doing the Pig City salute. She then tells her friends she has to go to the bathroom. She then goes to the bathroom, walks in, turns around, walks out, and then goes to scold Gabriel.

Later that night, Yolanda shows up at Laura's house, and the leaders of Pig City tell her she has to write a love letter to one of the boys in the class. She quickly picks Jonathan, which surprises the girls. Jonathan is the best athlete and best looking boy in their class. Laura doesn't like him because she thinks he's conceited.

Dearest Darling Jonathan,
I'm madly in love with you. I dream about kissing you all the time. You're so handsome. I'd love to run my fingers through your hair. 
Love, Yolanda

And the award for worst written love letter goes to: The Citizens of Pig City!

Over the weekend, Laura is able to convince the girls to let three boys join Pig City. They have to provide "insurance" just like everyone else. Laura obviously picks Gabriel, Tiffany picks a dork named Nathan who likes to say "okee-dokey-do!" and Allison picks a dork named Aaron who's grandmother dresses him.

Laura obviously still doesn't like Gabriel, but asserts that he'd be a loyal member because he never tattles. Tiffany and Allison gush about their dorks, then begin planning insurance for them.

After a bunch of ridiculous ideas (i.e: painting their toenails, making them buy baby dolls, mismatching socks, fake poison/love potion, making them cut onions until they cry and saving the tears, making a fake pizza order) Aaron's insurance is that he has to record himself singing a stupid song, Nathan has to write a nasty letter to Mr. Doyle and Gabriel has to wear one of Laura's elder sister's hideous dresses and have his picture taken.

The next day at school, Laura writes PIGMENTATION on the board. Apparently, she had to go looking in the dictionary for a large word with 'pig' in it. I appreciate her thought, but pigmentation has nothing to do with oinkers, Laura.

She then erases the number '3' on the board and very kindly changes it to '4' for Mr. Doyle. How nice, Laura! In fact, Mr. Doyle is so surprised that he drops the chalk into his coffee.

"How do you take your coffee? Cream and chalk." Haha.

After class the girls go looking for their victims. They meet up, with Tiffany claiming that boys are dumb and they'll do anything you tell them. Allison told Aaron that she'd teach him what pigmentation means, to which he said was color. She then told him she'd teach him the real meaning. Should I be concerned?

Tiffany said she asked Nathan "Yes or no?" and he said "Okee-dokee-do!" Dork.

Laura tells them Gabriel is grounded and she'd probably talk to him the next day, which as the book reminds us, isn't a lie.

At Laura's house, the girls wait for Aaron and Nathan to arrive. They're so nervous, they laugh at everything people say. When Laura's mother asks if they'd like a frozen pizza, they laugh.

"Of course, I'll heat it up first."

They laugh more, then say no to the pizza. They boys then arrive, everyone awkwardly says hi to each other, then Nathan's up first to provide his insurance. Laura tells him what it is, and he says it's clever. They get to work on the note, and it goes like this:

Dear Mr. Doyle,
You stink. You are the most ugliest teacher in the school! Your too stupid to be a teacher! And you have bad breath. I hate you.
Sincerely, 
Nathan
Yes, the spelling and grammar are messed up on purpose. Apparently both Tiffany and Nathan are dumbos.

The letter is put into the treasure chest and Nathan is officially welcomed into Pig City. Aaron is up next. His song is to the tune of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', and it goes like this:

I am such a stupid jerk
stupid jerk, stupid jerk
I am such a stupid jerk
I don't have a brain

I just love to pick my nose
pick my nose, pick my nose
I just love to pick my nose
It is so much fun

I'm in love with every girl
every girl, every girl
I'm in love with every girl
In Mr. Doyle's class.

I'm pretty sure Louis Sachar asked actual sixth grade girls to write that fuckery.

At dinner, Laura vacuums her food into her mouth and asks to be excused. She then goes to her sister's old room and finds a vomiticious pink muumuu for Gabriel to wear, then runs to her room to get her instant camera. I really wish I had one of those. She sneaks the stuff into the Dog House and waits for Gabriel in the living room with baited breath.

When he arrives, Laura turns intot the Road Runner and zooms past her mother to get the door, then rushes him to the Dog House. She tells him that even though he knows all about Pig City (which he doesn't) he still has to give insurance, to which he says he left his at home, making Laura suspicious. She tells him only she can pick his insurance, and Gabriel tries to pass his blunder off as a bad joke.

This is where shit officially starts to hit the fan.

Instead of telling Gabriel he has to wear the muumuu and have his picture taken, Laura tells him he has to kiss her.

Why does the start the fan-hitting-shitting? Because once Laura mentions the kiss being Gabriel's idea (again, thems was Sheila's shenanigans) they get into an argument, and Gabriel makes the mistake of calling Laura a liar.

Laura officially bans him from Pig City and tears her sister's muumuu up.

Alright, that's the end of part two!

Exit, Twisted Sister