BTBBN CH3!

I think this is about where we were. Since I've been working more on Oraphan for the past week (did I actually manage to get 5000 words written?) I haven't spent as much time on BTBBN, so I'll just ration this out in little bits to you guys...like healthcare from death panels. And because I think a post without a picture lacks flare...LAID OUT!!


Chapter 3
Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother

The Smith family happily sat about the dinner table making insignificant conversation. Mrs. Smith asked the boys about their days. The boys each said, “Nothing.” But Mrs. Smith pressed them and eventually they each gave a thorough debriefing of their day, which was, in truth, rather uneventful. Then Mr. Smith railed against the government and gave his nightly political speechifying; this was when the boys and Mrs. Smith learned everything they needed to know about politics. They were all pleased to have him back in town after his two weeks away, for he seemed so much wiser regarding the ways of the world than they were, and his sumonizing meant they did not need to think as much for themselves.
“Jacob,” said Mrs. Smith when there was a lull in the conversation, “why don’t you tell your father about what you’re doing for summer?”
Jacob shrugged, wondering what his mom was talking about. “I-unno,” he said shrugging with his mouth half full.
“Oh sure you do, tell him about that camp.”
The camp? He had thought she’d given up on the camp! “I said I wasn’t going to that!” he protested.
“What camp?” asked his father.
“It is the neatest looking camp ever. I’ll have to show you the informational brochure.”
“I’m not going, mom. It looks weird. I just want to stay around here with my friends.”
“You can’t just lollygag around here playing videogames all summer, Jacob. Now, what is this camp?”
“I don’t even know. There’s no brochure.”
“Oh not that again,” said his mother. “He’s exaggerating. It’s folksy, but very professionally done.”
“You can’t even read it! And it’s all hand written.”
“Oh, honey, that’s just the font.”
“Well, let me see this brochure.”
“No!” shouted Jacob, fearing the same effect would take his fathers senses over the matter. What was wrong with them?
“Clay, go get the flier for your dad.”
Clay got up and left.
“Dad! I don’t want to go!”
“Well if you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but you need to find something to do this summer. Maybe we can find you a job.”
“Oh, dear, just look at the flier. I think you’ll see we really should send him.”
“I’m not going to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do, Emily.”
“Just look at the flier; you’ll see.”
At this time Clay came back with the sheet of paper with the scrawled script. Mr. Smith took it from him, said “What’s this?” while giving it a suspicious looking over. “What is this?” said Mr. Smith, perplexed and sounding a little angry, much to Jacob’s relief. At last, somebody else saw that it was just a crummy rolled up paper with scribbles on it. “What is this, and how come they didn’t have it when I was a boy? Look, rafting!”
“I know!” cooed his mother. “Doesn’t it look great!”
“No!” shouted Jacob.
“Jacob, don’t shout!” shouted his dad. “What’s wrong with you? This looks like a fantastic camp. It beats the pants off that crummy acting camp you go to every year.”
“But I like acting camp.”
“Look at all the manly things they have you do! You’ll be rock climbing, and building furniture, and learning finances…”
“Building furniture? That’s not a camp, that’s a sweatshop!” Jacob didn’t know why he was arguing the point. Where on earth were they getting all this information from? Was it some sort of joke they were all playing on him? That had to be it. “Okay, guys. Jokes over. I get it now. You got me good.”
But they just ignored him and continued to speculate about all the different fun things he could do at camp that weren’t listed on the flier that wasn’t a flier.