There are many interesting characters in this book. Bobby Marks, the main character, is an overweight teenager living on Rumson Lake for the summer. Bobby is very self conscious about his weight. In fact, he only goes out in public if it is cool enough to wear a long sleeve shirt and sweatpants. So, as you can imagine, he hates summer. Bobby is also …show more content…
The author uses action and suspense in many exciting scenes. When Bobby and his parents get home after shopping in the city one night, they see the Marino family truck in the driveway. The Marino’s son, Pete, and Bobby’s sister, Michelle, had been dating for a while but sort of in secret. This time Pete had come over to Bobby’s house and then the dad caught them there together. When Bobby’s dad confronted Mr. Marino about it, Mr. Marino insulted Michelle and blamed her. Bobby’s dad then became furious and charged at Mr. Marino and they got into a huge fight, wrestling on the ground, bumping into cars. Another example of suspense is one day at work Bobby was cleaning the gutters on the roof. He was minding his own business until the Smith brothers came along. The Smith brothers worked for Mr. Kahn as well, doing the heavier duty jobs. The Smith’s were friends of Willie Rumson, so as you can imagine they didn’t really like Bobby too much. They thought it would be a funny prank to throw the ladder onto the ground. When Bobby realized what they had done, he became very scared, because he had never been up that high in his whole life. Bobby was stuck up there for a couple hours until Dr. Kahn realized that he was up there. Lucky for Bobby he didn’t charge him for the damaged plants and flowers because Dr. Kahn knew it was the Smiths who did it, not Bobby. Probably the most dramatic thing that happened in the whole book was when Bobby, Joanie, and Pete were all in the shack on the Marino’s beach, and they turned around to see Willie Rumson standing there, pointing a .22 rifle to their faces. He then escorted them out onto the dock, and said he was going to shoot Bobby in the knee. Then Jim arrived. Jim tried to talk Willie out of shooting Bobby but nothing worked until he brought up Willie’s mom and how Willie had done nothing in his life and this would only make it worse. Willie then realized that Jim was right.