OK, so, Henry likes making little cardboard models, and he’s just finishing a flying pig model.
Oh, fun. This specific model flying pig has a little mechanism inside that makes it actually fly.
Henry’s super happy he got the pig to work, and his mom’s too out of it to care.
Henry’s dad apparently had a late night at work the night before, and now he’s supposed to be taking Henry to… do some sort of volunteer thing where he’s helping an older guy called Mr. Fogarty with gardening or household work or something.
And Mrs. Atherton’s still… super uncharacteristically spacey.
OK… Mr. Atherton apparently stayed in the spare bedroom the night before. That’s totally not suspicious.
Yep. The parents are definitely fighting. Because probably an affair with the dad’s secretary.
Apparently, Henry’s got a sister called Aisling.
Ah, yes, here’s one of those cases of “the kid confronting the parent about Something Huge Obviously Going On and the parent beating around the bush.”
And now Henry’s dropped the bomb and asked if there’s something between dad and Anaïs the Secretary.
Well, that’s a plot twist already if I ever heard of one. It’s not the dad having an affair with the secretary, it’s the mom.
So, they’re going shopping with their friend Hornet, and they’ve got a friend Mosca.
Also, she’s only been there for less than two pages, but I’m pretty sure Prosper’s got a crush on Hornet already. (Pfft, fake cousins.)
OK, I’ve gotta get this out of the way. Bo keeps getting described as looking angelic. I remember when I started reading this my senior year of high school, and my friend Katherine had read it a few years before. She kept complaining about how she thought in the movie, “angelic Bo” looked like “girly Bo,” so when I started reading Inkheart a couple years after graduation, I kept imagining Meggie looking like Bo the whole time instead of… whatsherface who actually ended up playing her in the movie.
Oof. Bo and Prosper have tattered clothes, and it’s getting too close to winter.
Prosper’s paranoid that Esther and Max are trying to look for him and Bo. I mean, he’s not wrong, but seriously, they can’t check the photos of every single tourist in Venice.
Oh, fun. Bo’s already learning how to steal. Ah, yes, the first reference to Scipio the Thief Lord himself.
So, Bo got sick pretty soon after they got to Venice, and it was enough for Prop to want to turn themselves in so they could get medicine. And then Hornet showed up to the rescue.
And all the kids (minus Scipio, apparently) live in an abandoned movie theater.
Oh, right. The Winter King did just ditch Magwich with the Indigo Dragon after ordering the ship destroyed, didn’t he?
Fun. The Indigo Dragon sank, John started drowning because he didn’t want to give up his coat (and everyone thinks it’s another case of PTSD shock), Magwich is knocked out, and the eagles cranes are coming to save everyone.
Fuck. This chapter and the next are some of those “Very Important Exposition” chapters that bore the hell out of me, even though they’re packed with Backstory.
Oh, yay. Here’s the beginning of the “calling him Maggot” joke.
This dude from the Black Cauldron movie is who Magwich reminds me of. Because of reasons.
I’m just facepalming over here at Bug saying he likes Aven in wet clothes when she says she hates sleeping in them.
OK, yep. It was Magwich who followed John from London to Oxford.
Lovely. John didn’t want to lose his coat because he had the Imaginarium Geographica in it, and he’d actually given the Winter King the copy of Tummeler’s cookbook.
Speaking of which, can I finish this chapter before dinner? Probably not.
Magwich is… good for one thing? He totally just revealed that the Winter King wants the Geographica to find the royal ring and use the dragon summoning spell to completely take over the Archipelago.
So, a lion just showed up. OK.
OK, this lion kinda reminds me of Llyan from the Prydain books, and… something about the gang staying with Ordo Maas reminds me of… something else in the Prydain books, but I forget what.
Yay Tummeler reference!
Also, Ordo Maas is a friend of all animals.
Oh, whoops. I was closer to the end of the chapter than I thought when I stopped for dinner.
This dude from the Black Cauldron movie is who Magwich reminds me of. Because of reasons.
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