Why Crooks Be Caught Yo, Part 2?

We now conclude my second grade tome of 8 pages. For a brief recap of the first half of the story, click here. (This is actually the entire first half plus my attempt at writing funny commentary, so it's not that brief.)

When we last left, Peter had earned fame and "can-" by saving the day. It was a hell of a cliff hanger.

Page 5 (Click to enlarge)

It turns out that Peter went trick-or-treating and got lots of candy--not lots of canopies or canapes or canballies (<-- not a real word, but I bet you were thinking of looking it up). The story resumes with the author again demonstrating his prophetic insight by addressing the theme of bullies. Who knew this would be a major social issue in the second decade of the twenty-first century? Well, it appears that I did. The author also demonstrates how to deal with bullies, providing children everywhere a role model for standing up to the people who seek to oppress: run to a building with a phone. Sure, the author missed the fact that nobody would need a land line any more, but only so much fortune telling ability can be contained in a single second grader. Orwell didn't get it all right either.

Page 6 (Click to enlarge)

On this page, the author's inexperience again shows. Keeper of the house? Do you think you're Shakespeare? So pretentious. Just say "housekeeper" or "home owner" or "dweller of the abode". Then the author writes, "Good I need to," ending a pointless sentence in a preposition. Learn to edit, second grade, Andrew. The author also omits a word in the sentence, "Now people were inviting to spend the night." Sloppy. So sloppy. The author also fails to veil the events that he pulled directly from his life. It's so obvious that "His dad and mom thought they had the best son" is simply a mere statement of fact from his own life that I am guessing remains true today. So Mom, if you're reading this--I'm actually sure my mom is not reading this. She has better things to do.

Page 7 (Click to enlarge)

Here, the author is really trying to engage the audience by directly asking them questions? Apparently, the author thinks that adding a question mark to the ends of sentences is all that it takes to make a query? To be honest, all I can think when reading the first half of this page is that this is horrible--like Dan Brown horrible, but not quite that horrendously offensive to any unpublished writer or reader with a brain (too harsh?). The first four complete sentences are laughably bad though.

But let's delve into what the author was trying to say with the story line. He was at a friend's house, which simultaneously represents him being truly accepted and being in a foreign place. This house is being robbed, which obviously means the protagonist cannot escape his past and his destiny of being a bad ass hero. The entire house is sleeping, referring to society's complacency and failure to realize the true suffering in the world. Pretty heady stuff.

The robber had a gun, and this is obviously an attempt by the author to use the literary technique called Checkov's gun, which says that if you show a gun in the first act, it must go off by the third act. Of course, since the author is introducing it when the story is almost over, it's hard to believe that he knows what he's doing. And we'll see if it goes off.

Page 8 (Click to enlarge)

Ah yes, we finally learn that critical point of the story that Peter's friend is named Jack. I also have to be honest that the ending left me wanting a little more--a lot more, actually. It's almost as if the writer decided eight action packed pages was all that any well-educated audience could handle. Or maybe the kid's hand was cramping from writing so much. Either way, everything seems to end in a hurry. What happens with his relationship with his friends and parents? How does his early childhood fame affect the rest of his life? Does he turn to drugs? Does he treat other people as if they are not his equals? Does he continue to strike fear into the hearts of would-be criminals and dress up in spandex to scare them? Does he inspire a social movement to be awesome? What the hell happened to the gun?

If you stuck with reading the entirety of this Tolstoy-length story by a second grader, I apologize for the lackluster conclusion. But just to show you how much I have improved as a writer since 1987, I will end with some pithy commentary on . . .

THE END