The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane (Part 3)

 Okay, I really need to finish this book. I've had it for a while. In the last post I mentioned that the fact that Jocelyn was crying was not important to the story but it actually was. Because she was crying Meline wanted to get her to do something rather than going into the muddy wet forest to cry. She came up with building a plane from the destroyed planes that crashed when the Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane was taking place a long time ago. The parts weren't obvious and out in the open so for four days they looked but found nothing. They woke up everyday at 2:00 in the morning to go out and find some pieces from planes but found none. Until, one day Jocelyn though she saw the glaring red eyes of an animal but when closely investigating found out that it was a part of a plane. They struggled to carry it to a nearby barn behind their house but when they got it there they left it and went to sleep. Because it always rains on the island Ms. Mendlebaum and Meline were caught with a fever. This meant that she couldn't go outside to find plane parts for a while. Ms. Mendlebaum did eventually hire a butler named Humdinger (Hum-dinjer) so he was able to cook and clean while everyone else was doing their own thing either being sick in bed or studying god knows what. Christmas was coming up so the house was a little more festive putting everyone in a happier mood than normal. There was a lot of fuss over who would cook but only because Ms. Mendlebaum was unaware of Humdinger's doings. After a while everything calmed down, a doctor met with Meline, and Jocelyn got some time to herself for once.

 The conflict in the story is different for each character. Meline and Jocelyn are mostly Person vs Self conflict. Trying to beat their grief after their parents had died and bored out of their minds on the island until they found something to do. Jocelyn is also under Person vs Society being the only one there that was raised with the thought of always having manners. Mr Martin is also under Person vs Society because he's normally by himself then in a matter of days, his house is full of people. He once locked himself in his room by putting a drawer in front of the door to be away from everyone, but forgot he put it there and thought his door suddenly disappeared. 

The Testing

 I only just began The Testing for a group called Battle of the Books. The story starts out in the main character's graduation day, in her home, as she's getting ready. Her name is Cia and she's sixteen. She's putting on a red dress to resemble her step into adulthood rather than the pink clothes she would usually wear. "Red. I'm wearing red. No more pink. I am an adult." She is graduating from whatever education she had, they don't really explain that, and has to make a really good impression because only a very few get to go to the testing. Only one person gets chosen into adulthood and not have to continue working or studying. Before she actually goes into the testing she hangs around with her friend Daileen. She is a very close friend to Cia and is the only person Cia talks to when it comes to things like fears of the future. Because she is kind of afraid they go to get ice cream and because they're in a hurry, so not to be late to the testing, they run to the ice cream. By the time they get back from getting and eating ice cream, Cia's hair is a mess and causes trouble to be re-combed. Cia doesn't live with a very rich family. Her home is a far distance from the center of their district which means it costs less. This also means they need to leave their house early to get to the center in time. That is as all I read in the book The Testing.

 Now, I didn't read much of The Testing but I did notice some sort of connection from the book to real life. Me being an eighth grader, I am about to graduate from Middle School and go into High School like Cia graduating whatever it is she is graduating from and going into adulthood. Students going into High School are expected to act more mature and expected to be somewhat prepared to deal with whatever the change throws at them but most of the time the students are still immature and afraid. Of course over time they will get used to it but at first they will be childish and afraid of the change. Like with Cia, she was nervous but acted as if she wasn't. People expected her to just suddenly adjust to adulthood immediately after her graduation. All she accomplished so far was running around, eating ice cream with her friend, and talking about how afraid she was.

Greek Mythology

 I've started a book on the Greek Gods because I am really interested in Greek Mythology and it was free. I've read about Zeus so far. The story goes that Cronos, the god of time and father of all gods, married his sister. He became the leader of the world by killing his father with a scythe, not before being told that one of his sons would better him and kill him too. So he was very careful so not to have one of his children better him. Once they were born he would immediately swallow them. One by one he ate all of his children until his wife became mad. The next child she had she took him to a cave to keep for a little while, put him in a golden cradle hanging by a tree, named him Zeus, went back to Mt. Olympus, took a rock, and covered it in sheets to look like a baby. Cronos, being careful as always, swallowed the rock. When this was done his wife went back to Zeus and gave him to a family that raised sheep and promised them their sheep would not be attacked by wolves. After Zeus grew up he was visited by his mother and was told about what had happened when he was a baby. With this knowledge they both planned on poisoning Cronos's drink making him throw up all the gods and a stone. Due to anger, Cronos released giant creatures as tall as trees from a prison called Titans and made them attack Zeus and the other gods. Of course, they weren't going down without a fight so the gods came together and fought the giant Titans. Eventually winning the fight, Zeus kills Cronos using the very scythe Cronos used against his father.

 At the end of every story there is a sentence that ties the story back to reality and uses the story to explain things from the real world. In the story about Zeus it says that maybe this story is the reason we see, on New Years, an old man with a scythe representing the old and a baby representing the new. The old person would be Cronos and the baby would be Zeus. Zeus ended up becoming the new leader of the gods, thus being the new. Out with the old (Cronos) in with the new (Zeus). Although in my opinion the new was probably not the best choice. Zeus did tend to cause troubles.

The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane (continued)

 Continuing from where I left off. The cook who Marten Knockers hired is having trouble doing all the work by herself in a really big house including taking care of the children, Jocelyn and Meline. Marten doesn't do a very good job at taking care of his nieces since he's never cared for children before. It seems like Mrs. Mendelbaum, the cook, is the only one worrying about the kids. In the book, Mendelbaum and Marten have an argument about this. After Marten says that what they do is none of their business, Mendelbaum states, "Not out business? Whose business should it be, I'd like to know?" This eventually led to Mendelbaum asking to hire a butler for the house. Hesitant, Marten agreed but only if she did the advertising and interviewing, he wanted no part in it. She agreed and got right to it. After a lot of interviewing she still never was satisfied, mainly because she was terrible at interviewing. She is an old german lady and, according to Meline, when she gets nervous her german accent gets stronger. At one point one of the people got her irritated and when asking for help from the girls she yelled, "Don't talk to ZEM. Zey are just silly gells." This made the man confused thinking she just called them seagulls.

 One thing that I noticed in the book is a change in one of the character's actions. As a signpost this would be called Contrast and Contradiction. This doesn't change the story all that much as far as I know so I didn't include it in the summary. Meline begins to notice Jocelyn leaving the house at around 8:00 PM every night to the woods. Her being bored and curious follows her into the woods and sees her sit on a rock and sob. Jocelyn, when first met, wasn't showing much emotion towards her parents' death, but as we see here she clearly does feel sad for what happened. After all, she was there when the train crashed. Jocelyn tries to cheer her up by suggesting something to do but nothing comes to mind. That's where I stopped reading so I don't know much more.