Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- connie
- La Vernia, Texas, United States
- I am a single mom, of two pre-teens (1 boy/1 girl). I'm a university education major and substitute teacher. I enjoy an active life with my kids. We roller skate, hike, swim, watch movies, read, and play with our pets. We are collectively working to help save our wildlife and our planet. My kids are my world.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8 opens with Louis having gone missing! He stays gone for 1 & 1/2 years and when he returns, he has learned to communicate by writing with chalk on a piece of slate that he has tied around his neck. Unfortunately his parents and family can't read! Louis settles back in with his family and is glad to be home - even if he still can't communicate with them. His mother calls him "defective". In the Spring he discovers a female swan named Serena who he thinks is one hot chick (or swan)!! but Louis can't honk to get her attention and she pretends that he doesn't exist. He even tries to write out "I love you" - but alas the empty headed female (that what his mother calls her!) swims away and "considers him a bust". Louis' parents attempt to help him with the cob grandly committed to fly the ends of the earth to find a trumpet for Louis - his mother suggest Billings, Montana instead - it's closer!!
ReplyDeleteMoving this summary along now, in chapter 9 the cob ends up flying to Billings instead of the ends of the earth, finds a music store, sees a trumpet, crashes through the window, grabs the trumpet and flies away!! I know, its too incredible - but the book shows a copy of the headlines from the paper that reported the event - so it must be true...Back at the Red Rock Lake, the cob returns with the trumpet. After a grand speech he gives it to Louis who is thankful to the point of shaking his head, tail and wings in appreciation!
In chapter 10 Louis begins learning to play the trumpet. But he has issue with the fact that the trumpet is stolen. Also Serena, his love, is playing hard to get and has left for another lake with a group of teenage swans (not good news any way you look at it!) and he has no one to teach him to play the trumpet. So he decides to return to the Bar Nothing Ranch to see Sam. In inspiration, Sam says that he going to a boy's camp as a counselor and suggest that Louis come along as the camp bugler. The camp is called Camp Kookooskoos and is in Ontario Canada.
Summary continued...
ReplyDeleteChapter 11 has Louis and Sam arriving at Camp Kookooskoos and settling in for the summer. Here we meet Mr. Brickle the camp director and also Applegate Skinner. Applegate lets Mr. Brickle know that he doesn’t like birds! At the end of the day, Louis plays “Taps” where all fells asleep, serenely and happy - except for Applegate. He sleeps, just not happily, and he snores which the book points out, is because he doesn’t like birds!
In chapter 12 the camp is invaded by a skunk wearing a tin can on its head which it accidentally picked up at the dump. Sam removes the can and the surprised skunk sprays Mr. Brickle and then runs away. That is the skunk runs away - not Brickle, unfortunately. Later that afternoon, Applegate (no relation to Christina) after being teased about his name by some of his tent mates (they obviously never met Christina), decides to take a canoe across the lake to get to the other side, no really it was just get away from everyone. In short order, he tips the canoe in rough water, abandons the canoe and attempts to swim to shore. He nearly drowns but is rescued by Louis, the bird he doesn’t like. After being rescued, he thanks Louis but declares that he still doesn’t like birds (he obviously isn’t a Rhodes Scholar!). Louis ends up being commended and awarded the Lifesaving Medal - which he wears around his neck along with the slate, chalk and trumpet.
The summer ends at the lake for Louis in chapter 13. He receives his salary of $100 which he carries in a moneybag that hangs around, you guessed it, his neck. Louis is starting to look like a hippie - his words not mine. Louis still doesn’t have enough to pay off the debt of the trumpet and Sam suggest that Louis get a job in Boston playing for the Swan Boats. Before Sam leaves Louis ask him to cut the webbing on his right foot so that he can use the three valves of the trumpet and develop into a better trumpet player. Before leaving the camp, Louis applies himself and improves his trumpet skills. Then he leaves for Boston, Mass.
Arriving in Boston in chapter 14, he arrives at the Public Garden which has a lake, in which is a boat shaped like a swan. He gets a tryout from the Boatman and is given the task of swimming in front of the boat and playing his trumpet. As you would guess, Louis is a hit and the Boatman agrees to pay him $100 per week proving once again that a good trumpet playing swan can make more money in the States than in Canada. After the first big day on the lake playing his trumpet, the Boatman is uncomfortable for Louis’ safety if he should sleeping on the lake, so he gets him a room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel - seriously, the Ritz, its in the book so it must be true.