Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler (illustrated by Fritz Wegner).
Title: Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang.
Author: Mordecai Richler (illustrated by Fritz Wegner).
Genre: Literature, fiction, children's lit.
Country: Canada.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1975.
Summary: Poor Jacob Two-Two-only two plus two plus two years old and a prisoner of The Hooded Fang. What had he done to deserve such terrible punishment? The worst crime of all-insulting a grownup. Jacob's future seems bleak indeed. But though he is small and young he is far from helpless, and when the Infamous Two come to his aid, Child Power triumphs.
My rating: 9/10.
My review:
♥
Once there was a boy called Jacob Two-Two. He was two plus two plus two years old. He had two ears and two eyes and two arms and two feet and two shoes. He also had two older sisters, Emma and Marfa, and two older brothers, Daniel and Noah. And they all lived in a rambling old house on Kingston Hill in England.
♥ Mind you, life was becoming more tolerable. Once, Jacob Two-Two couldn’t even reach the front doorbell. Only two years ago, when he was a mere two times two years old, Jacob Two-Two didn’t even know what a day was, where yesterday had gone, and when tomorrow would come. Waking up one morning, he had asked his mother, "Is this tomorrow? Is this tomorrow?"
"No, darling, it’s today."
"But when you tucked me in at night, you said when I got up this day would be tomorrow. You promised! You promised!"
"That was yesterday."
"You said it was today."
"It was, and then this was going to be tomorrow."
"But you just said this day is today too. You just said..."
"Oh, Jacob," his mother had said, kissing him, "sometimes you’re too much."
♥
In the garden, under the shelter of the copper beech tree, he found his brother Noah and his sister Emma were at it again. Dressed up, disguised, they were playing their game of pretend. Noah was dangling from the tree. He had a plastic dagger between his teeth and a big towel draped over his shoulders like a cape. "Okay, Shapiro," he shouted, "come out and fight!"
Emma raced out of her tent waving a wooden sword. "Say your prayers, O’Toole," she snarled, "because here I come!"
♥
He saw that the greengrocer was pear-shaped, his brown hair cut short, like a coconut.His eyes were small as orange seeds, but his ears big as cauliflower leaves. His nose was red and veined as a beet, and his stomach stuck out like a sack of potatoes.
"What do you want?" asked Mr. Cooper.
"I want two pounds of firm, red tomatoes. I want two pounds of firm, red tomatoes."
Mr. Cooper frowned. He was insulted. For he had no way of knowing that Jacob Two-Two said everything two times, because what with so many people in his house, two parents, two older brothers and two older sisters, nobody ever heard him the first time.
♥
♥ The visitor who had come tumbling into the cell was quite the scruffiest, skinniest, and most untidy man Jacob Two-Two had ever seen. With tangled gray hair and weepy blue eyes. His shirt collar was frayed, and his tie soup-stained. His suit was rumpled. His shoes were scuffed, the laces broken. Beaming at Jacob Two-Two, he declared: "Meet your barrister, Louis Loser."
"Oh, I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Loser," said Jacob Two-Two two times.
"Are you, really?" replied Louis Loser, astonished.
"Yes. But what’s a barrister? What’s a barrister?"
"Your protector in court."
"Oh, but I haven’t got any money, Mr. Loser. I couldn’t afford to pay you."
"Of course not," said Louis Loser impatiently. "If you could afford it, you’d pay me to stay home in bed."
"Do people pay you not to protect them in court?" asked Jacob Two-Two twice.
"Only if they can afford it."
"Oooo," groaned Jacob Two-Two. "Oooo."
"You mustn’t worry, my boy. The truth is, I’ve never won a case in my life, and that can’t go on forever," pleaded Louis Loser, tears rolling down his cheeks, "can it?"
♥
"I’ve got it!" exclaimed Louis Loser triumphantly. "I’ll cry."
"But that won’t help."
"Of course not. But, in my cases, nothing does," said Louis Loser with immense pride.
♥ The children’s judge, Mr. Justice Rough, wore a white powdered wig and a long black gown. "I see here," he growled, "that you are charged with insulting behavior, not to another brat-I mean, child-but, good heavens, to a big person. This is serious. Extremely serious. If you got away with it, it could only lead to more monstrous crimes, like hiding comics under your pillow or peeing without lifting the seat." Here Mr. Justice Rough paused and knit his fierce brows. "Once and for all, children must be taught-"
"-THAT BIG PEOPLE ARE NEVER, NEVER WRONG," all the big people in the court shouted back.
"If they punish you," Mr. Justice Rough called out, "it’s-"
"-FOR YOUR OWN GOOD," the big people called back.
"And it hurts them-" Mr. Justice Rough continued.
"-MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU," the big people replied.
.."Now, then," said Mr. Justice Rough, banging his gavel, demanding silence. "I must remind all of you that we are here to see that this lad gets a fair trial. Jacob Two-Two," he continued, turning to the accused, "I should warn you that in this court, as in life, little people are considered guilty, unless they can prove themselves innocent, which is just short of impossible."
The big people in court whistled. They roared with laughter. They stamped their feet and shouted, "Hear! Hear!"
..So taking a deep breath, Jacob Two-Two said, "Why with all respect, sir, I plead innocent. Why, with all respect, sir, I plead innocent."
"That’s abominable! It’s most inconsiderate," said Mr. Justice Rough, "for I am the busiest of busy judges. In an average day here I deal with desperadoes, swindlers, bubblegum smugglers, chocolate bar addicts, boys who want a bigger allowance, and girls who grow out of their shoes too soon-the lot!-all of whom have one thing in common. They are rude to big people. Why, you wouldn’t even exist-” sang out Mr. Justice Rough, enraged.
“-IF NOT FOR YOUR PARENTS,” the big people shouted back.
“Everything you have-” continued Mr. Justice Rough.
“-YOU OWE TO US,” chimed in the big people.
♥
"Jacob Two-Two, because you are an unredeemed scoundrel, a charlatan, an ingrate, and a smart aleck to boot, I hearby sentence you to two years, two months, two weeks, two days, two hours and two minutes in the darkest dungeons of the children's prison. I do this for your own good, naturally, and it hurts me more than it hurts you."
Suddenly, a bell-like voice rang out loud and clear: "We will appeal this verdict, of course."
"Oh, yes," sneered Mr. Justice Rough, rocking with laughter, "and who might you be?"
Right there, right then, the two little people shed their disguises.
They flung off their beards.
They discarded their dark glasses.
They tossed away their trenchcoats.
And, lo and behold, revealed in Day-Glo blue jeans and flying golden capes, the spine-chilling emblem Child Power emblazoned on their chests, were the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O'Toole.
"Take cover, everybody!"
"Look out!"
"It's the Infamous Two!"
"I am O'Toole," announced Noah, leaping on to a table.
"And I am Shapiro," proclaimed Emma, rippling her muscles for all to see.
♥
So Jacob Two-Two slipped the supersonic bleeper into his ear and was still wearing it the next morning when, blindfolded, he began his long journey to the children's prison, taking a route so utterly confusing as to confound even the most ingenious of his pursuers. Accompanied by two guards wearing dark glasses, wearing dark glasses all the time, he traveled by car, train, bus, canoe, helicopter, ox-cart, rickshaw, stilts, dinghy, skis, submarine, flying balloon, camel, raft, dogsled, roller skates, glider and motorcycle.
Jacob Two-Two's two guards on his seemingly endless journey were called Master Fish and Mistress Fowl.
♥
♥
"Once," he began, "I was a star, with my own dressing room. The Hooded Fang, most hated and vile villain in all of wrestling. Why, as I made my way from my dressing room into the arena, the boos were sufficient to raise the roof beams. And the minute I stepped into the ring, the fans pelted me with stinking fish, rotted eggs, and overripe tomatoes. Oh, it was lovely!"
"Then," said the Hooded Fang, his eyes suddenly charged with menace, "it happened. One dreadful evening in Doncaster, just as I slipped between the ropes, waiting for the eggs and fish to fly... a child laughed. A child, standing on a chair in the front row, pointed at me, laughed out loud, and said, 'He's not terrible, Daddy, he's funny!' Funny? Desperately, I rolled my eyes. I bared my fangs. I made menacing faces. But nobody threw anything. Not one little rotten egg. The child wouldn't stop laughing. And, before you knew it, the whole arena was convulsed. The more I growled, the louder they laughed. When my opponent entered the ring, I immediately poked my thumb into his eye, but instead of hitting back, he just fell against the ropes, roaring with laughter."
The Hooded Fang blew his nose. His head hung heavy.
"These things get around, you know. It was in the newspapers. And soon, wherever I went, all I had to do was crawl through the ropes, and the fans were laughing so hard tears came to their eyes. All because a child laughed. A funny villain is no good, don't you see? No good at all."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Hooded Fang," said Jacob Two-Two. "I'm sorry."
"Are you?" asked The Hooded Fang, surprised. "Why?"
"Because you seem to be such a nice man."
"What?" roared The Hooded Fang. "How dare you! I'm not nice. I'm horrible, disgusting, mean, vicious, evil, and vile! Now get out of my sight, before I sink my fangs into you. Oh, how I hate kids!"
♥
♥
Jacob Two-Two awakened with a bounce and was actually singing when a guard called Mr. Fox, an enormous fellow, wearing s fur coat, scarf, and earmuffs, came to fetch him and led him to a door marked FREEZER. "You'll have to have a shower in here," he said, "before we can issue you with a prison uniform."
When Jacob Two-Two emerged from the shower, trembling with cold, Mr. Fox shoved a towel at him, saying, "Hurry, I'm prone to chills."
♥
But before he could ask them any questions, a menu was placed before them. It read:
CROCODILE STEAK
or
TART OF DEATH-WATCH BEETLE
ELECTRIC EEL SOUP
or
SNAKEBURGERS
NETTLE PIE
♥ "Mr. Fox will be leaving us. He's going to London. Undercover work. An entirely new division." Here The Hooded Fang paused, his smile vile. "Toy Shop Sabotage."
♥
♥
♥ The fog, Jacob Two-Two discovered, was manufactured by the perfidious Slimers to keep the children's prison safely hidden. Other goods made in the prison included-
1. Jigsaw puzzles too complicated to solve.
2. Pinball machines that registered TILT, if you so much ass blew on them.
3. Ping-Pong tables with a net bound to collapse the first time it was struck by a ball.
4. No-flow ketchup, guaranteed to stick in the bottle.
5. Blue jeans labeled preshrunk, but manufactured to shrink still more after the first washing.
6. Dentists' drills.
7. Bad-temper pills for teachers and baby-sitters.
8. Shoes made especially for children to outgrow within three months.
9. Rain for picnics.
10. Weeds to ruin swimming holes.
11. Major news stories concocted to break only when they could replace favorite television programs.
The Slimers also turned out KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs by the thousand, giving them away free, and offered special cut-rate to builders who put up apartment buildings where there were ABSOLUTELY NO PETS ALLOWED, not even a tropical fish tank. In a word, anything to torment little people or get them in trouble with big people who did, in fact, love them.
♥
Inside the workshop, Jacob Two-Two and the rest of his work gang were set to feeding coal into the fog-making machines. Faster, faster.
♥ "Why can't they stand the sun?" he asked twice.
"Because," said Oscar, "speaking scientifically, any big person who cannot stand little ones also fears the sun."
"Or pets," added Pete.
"Or flowers," said Oscar.
Or even laughter, thought Jacob Two-Two, remembering The Hooded Fang.
♥
"I've tried everything. I must break his spirit, you see, and the only way I can do that is to get him to say anything but two. If only I could get him to say one, three, or even sixteen. Sixteen!" exclaimed The Hooded Fang. "That's it!" And he leaped up, knocking over his wife, and charging out of his lair and down the two hundred steps to Jacob Two-Two's cell, remembering to knock two times.
"All right, Jacob Two-Two," said The Hooded Fang, "if you're such a clever little fellow, can you tell me how many legs I've got?"
"Why, two, of course," said Jacob Two-Two. "Why, two, of course."
"Good. First-rate. And now, Jacob Two-Two," said The Hooded Fang, hard put to conceal a fiendish grin, "can you tell me how many suns there are?"
"Aside from me," said Jacob Two-Two twice, "my father has two. Daniel and Noah."
"No, you twerp! Suns. S-u-n. Can't you even spell?"
"I'll answer that," said Jacob Two-Two, "I'll answer that, if you tell me how many times two goes into two?"
"Think I'm an idiot, do you? The answer to that," said The Hooded Fang, thrusting out his chest, "is one."
"And that," said Jacob Two-Two twice, "is how many suns we have."
"You're not playing fair! You're cheating."
"I am not! I am not!"
"All right, then, smarty-pants. Tell me how many ounces there are in a pound."
"Why, that's easy. That's easy," said Jacob Two-Two. "There are two times two times two times two ounces in a pound."
Shaking with rage, counting on his fingers, and then removing his shoes to use his toes as well, The Hooded Fang had to admit that Jacob Two-Two was right. "Oh, I hate you," he bellowed. "I could chew you up right here and now."
"But, Mr. Hooded Fang," said Jacob Two-Two, "please, you mustn't be so sad."
"Mustn't I?"
"Because," said Jacob Two-Two, "you, too, can be a two-two."
"What's that, you little twerp?"
"How many sides are there to every story?" asked Jacob Two-Two. "How many sides are there to every story?"
"Two."
"What should every boy learn to stand on?"
"His own two feet."
"And what will it be when it gets dark?"
"Tonight."
"And where will you go tonight?"
"To bed."
"And what will it be when you wake up?"
"Why, tomorrow, of course," said The Hooded Fang, smiling just a little.
"You see, you see," exclaimed Jacob Two-Two, jumping up and down joyously, "it's easy, it's easy. You, too, are a two-two now."
The Hooded Fang's cheeks flared red. He looked like he was going to explode. "All right, then. I've tried everything. And now there's only one thing to do. Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock, I'm going to feed you to not one, but two hungry sharks. Ho, ho!"
"Oh no," cried Jacob Two-Two. "Oh no."
"Oh yes," replied The Hooded Fang, "and what's more, I will personally bring you your last meal."
♥
"I won't, I won't," said Jacob Two-Two, "because I know your dreadful secret."
The Hooded Fang retreated a step.
"You're not horrible," said Jacob Two-Two two times, "and you're not disgusting, mean, vicious, or vile."
"Ssssssh," said The Hooded Fang, clapping a hand over Jacob Two-Two's mouth as two guards passed outside. "Somebody might hear."
♥
Which is when Jacob Two-Two bounded into his arms and began to hug and kiss him.
"All right! Okay! But cut out the mushy stuff at once."
♥
As The Infamous Two watched, aghast to witness such villainy, the nefarious Mr. Fox began to work more quickly. He moved to the counter where the most difficult two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles were kept and busied himself switching pieces from box to box, making it impossible for a boy or girl to complete either puzzle successfully. Mr. Fox began to work faster, faster, and faster, for a toy saboteur's work is never done. Removing batteries from toy boxes that promised "batteries included," he slipped wrong-size screws into erector sets and made pinprick holes in kites. He sought out the most complicated model kits, removed the English instructions, and replaced them with sheets written in Japanese. Then he turned to the chemistry sets, switching the labels on tubes. "That ought to make for an explosion or two," he cackled.
♥
♥
"Mercy. I suffer from high blood pressure. My nerves are shot. I bleed easily."
Shapiro drove the sword tip against the coward's throat.
"You wouldn't harm an old man who wears glasses," cried Mr. Fox.
"We're going to spare you, you wretch," said O'Toole.
"We have other uses for you," said Shapiro.
"Aaach-choo," said Mr. Fox. "Aaach-choo!"
♥
A crocodile that he had been following with his eye slithered onto the marshy shore, heaved, flipped over on his back, and died. The letter C was emblazoned on his stomach. Then another crocodile flipped over, dying, this one still in the water, the letter H painted on his stomach.
Soon all the prisoners were gathered on the balustrades, watching in amazement. More and more crocodiles were flipping over, dead, and the letters on their bellies read R, I, E, L, W, D, O, P. Properly put together, this could only mean one thing!
"CHILD POWER!" shouted one prisoner after another.
"It must be..."
"...The Infamous Two."
"We're going to be rescued!"
Even as they leaped up and down gleefully, the prison alarms sounded, and Slimers, armed with slime guns, took up their positions. Then the man who was supposedly the slimiest Slime of them all, The Hooded Fang, unwrapped his slime-ball cannon, which commanded the surrounding waters "This is going to be a massacre," he promised.
♥ But what, wondered O'Toole, if Jacob Two-Two fails, as he had promised, to render all the Slimers helpless? What's his plan? Can it work? So much-too much, perhaps-depended on a boy who was still very little.
Who couldn't cut a slice of bread that wasn't a foot thick on one end and thin as a sheet of paper on the other.
Or count the laundry.
Or ride a two-wheel bicycle.
Who had to say everything two times, because nobody ever listened to him.
But who, even now, accompanied by Pete and a stumbling Oscar, was racing through the fog to the fog-making workshop, hiding whenever a platoon of Slimers marched past them.
♥
Oscar pulled Pete, Pete pulled Jacob Two-Two, and Jacob Two-Two pulled on the switch handle. They pulled and pulled, until the handle finally sank to its off position.
♥
♥ "Watch out for the wolverines," cried a prisoner.
But the wolverines, also blinded, tripped and fell over the snakes, and the snakes scurried for the shelter of the darkest, deepest holes on the island. Within minutes, the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O'Toole, their golden capes flying, were scaling the prison walls. With some help from the prisoners, they easily disarmed and tied up the weeping, blinded Slimers. Then Shapiro and O'Toole sought out Jacob Two-Two.
"You're marvelous," said the intrepid Shapiro.
"Wonderful," said the fearless O'Toole.
♥ "Don't pay any attention to him," said Jacob Two-Two fondly. "Don't pay any attention to him. He's just pretending."
"Stinker!"
"He's the only one here who doesn't really fear the sun," said Pete.
"You know why?" asked Oscar.
"Because The Hooded Fang is childish," cried Jacob Two-Two twice. "He's one of us."
"Oh, I never! I MOST CERTAINLY AM NOT!" shouted The Hooded Fang, peeking at them between his fingers.
"The proof is," cried Jacob Two-Two, "the proof is, whenever he struts across the prison yard, grunting and growling, he is careful not to step on cracks."
"I'm not childish," protested The Hooded Fang, even as he forgot himself so far as to lower his hands and face the sun. "I'm vile! I'm notoriously evil! And if you don't believe it, come to my lair and look at my scrapbook. So there!"
"Empty his pockets," said Jacob Two-Two. "Empty his pockets!"
"No, please! Not that!"
But, even as he protested, The Hooded Fang was seized by the intrepid Shapiro and the fearless O'Toole.
"You're not being fair," complained The Hooded Fang. "It's two against one."
One of the Hooded Fang's pockets yielded a handful of jelly beans and the other, a ball of string, eight rubber bands, three pieces of beach glass, five pebbles, a fountain pent top, and three packages of bubblegum.
Found out, tearful, The Hooded Fang bared his sharp, terrifying fangs. He grunted. He growled.
"You see," said Jacob Two-Two. "You see. He's also funny. He's also funny."
The Hooded Fang burst into tears. "I want my mommy," he wailed.
Everybody laughed. Jacob Two-Two hugged The Hooded Fang. And the next thing Jacob Two-Two knew he found himself in Richmond Park...
...where weary from his many adventures, he fell asleep.
♥ "You're a dreamer."
A dreamer?
Maybe.
But that night, after Jacob Two-Two had climbed into bed, he was paid a visit by the fearless O'Toole, accompanied by the intrepid Shapiro. They brought him a Child Power uniform that was different from all the others. It contains a pair of Day-Glo blue jeans and a golden cape, but the Child Power emblem was emblazoned on the T-shirt two times.