Sympathy (2)

            “Charlie Pondicherry ain’t got no mum!”

            Charlie ducked, trying not to get hit by the rock this time.  There would be a rock.  There was always a rock.

            “What are you talking about, Skip?  Charlie Pondicherry ain’t even got a dad!  Charlie Pondicherry’s a toenail fungus, that’s why he’s always got that goop smeared on him!  Who ever heard of a fungus with a mum and dad?”

            Skip, Mickey and the Bruiser were their names.  Or maybe not their names, but that’s how Charlie knew them, anyway.  They followed Charlie down the Gullet like a bad smell.  Charlie was sure the three boys just hung around the alley, waiting for him to pass so they could get him.  At least that meant that the fact that he didn’t get out into the Gullet very much had a plus side to it.

            He hunched down lower over the basket of dirty laundry he was carrying.  Sooner or later, there would be a rock.

            “A fungus… ha, ha!  A fungus!”

            Whack!

            Ouch.  There was the rock.

*   *   *

The answer to yesterday's question is: as much as I can squeeze in.


Charlie suffers a big loss in chapter three of the book, and sets about actively trying to recover his loss (he's active).  He's a good kid, who chafes at being good and is a little bit naughty at the edges.  He doesn't show particular specialness in early chapters (he will in later chapters -- soon, but not before the inciting incident).  He's in danger early and often.  The story is told in the third person, but it's limited omniscient, and 100% close on Charlie at all times.  And, as we see in the new chapter one, Charlie's life is rough in some ways before the adventure even begins.


Above is the current draft page 1.  Charlie gets picked on.  To forecast the subject of future blogs, this scene (only part of which is excerpted above) is built around several uses of the Rule of Three.