Wednesday Hickey of the Beast Post

(I need some sort of a banner or clicky box or something that I can toss into my sidebar for this book, so that people can get to the subscription page quickly and easily. Making that sort of thing is somewhat beyond my meager html skills. Until someone with madder skillz than I have makes one for me, here's a link to the subscription page.)

Chapter Six

Very interesting! We get some movement on two separate plots - a potential romance plot and the horror plot - and a suggestion that they might be related. Is Edward Tinsley a love interest? Is Edward Tinsley some sort of evil hell beast? Regardless, what is Connie going to do about the whole situation, assuming that there is a situation?

The chapter opens on the Wednesday following the previous chapter's formal dinner. Connie sees her potential love interest possibly flirting with a potential rival who she does not like. Connie continues to deny any affection for Edward, but is clearly distracted.

In the middle of the plot points, we get a little more description, as Connie describes the situation of sports at Springden Academy - and, indeed, throughout the Western Hemisphere. Boys sports (of which there are few) gets the attention and the funding by the alum. Girls sports (of which there are more) get less attention and less funding, regardless of the quality of the team:

Mom's been Title Nineing it up for about as long as I can remember, and what team still gets the donations and the crowds and the sophomore groupies? Boys' varsity ice hockey. Duh. 

Duh indeed. A sad bit of realism before we go into the next nightmare, which is just brimming with good stuff. Connie is ready this time; ready, and annoyed:

You get used to things like that. It's bizarre, but you do. The first time I'd gone to sleep and ended up in some not-really-right version of my living room, I hadn't really had time to react before Julio started breaking stuff. The second time, I'd been freaked out: moron kid brother, creepy bugs, and why exactly was I back there, anyhow? This time, though, I was starting to get annoyed.

More realism. It's been years since I've had recurring nightmares, but, yeah, they get almost boring eventually. But there's every evidence that this nightmare is not of the usual sort - Connie looks out a window and the terrain outside is familiar to her (creepy? you betcha. foreshadowing? Almost certainly.), and then she recognizes the victim of the giant bugs, and we are left wondering what role Connie is playing in the book - is she a witness, or is she somehow causing events? If she is a witness, is she expected to alter the events somehow - is she a heroine, or just a protagonist? If she is somehow causing events, having her narrate is a tricky thing. You know that I have a love for unreliable narrators - is Connie an unreliable narrator? We'll have to see in the next chapter - I can't wait!