Horns and Wrinkls

By Joseph Helgerson44444

Horns and Wrinkles, by Joseph Helgerson is a book full of adventure! It is also a story about friendship and kindness and doing the right thing. The main characters in the story are two children named Duke and Clair. Clair is the narrator of the story. Duke is a mean boy and considered a bully. His parents are very strict with him because he is so out of hand. Clair is a nice girl who always gets pushed around by Duke. Duke always makes fun of her for not wanting to go on any adventures. Clair love snakes, frogs and turtles. Her family hates that stuff and she is kind of an outsider to them especially her two older sisters. Her sisters hate reptiles.

One day Duke gets angry with Clair and takes Clair and dangles her off the side of the bridge. Duke threatens to drop her into the river below. While Clair is hanging over the bridge she is trying to look for her pet turtle that Duke threw into the river when he got mad at her. Clair’s turtle’s name is Lottie. While she is searching for Lottie, a queer old lady with no name passes by below in a little boat on the river. The old lady is wearing one orange tennis shoe, a blue flowery dress, and a red checkered apron. Her boat is red with yellow seats. She yells at Duke for holding a “young lady” over a bridge. Duke gets very angry at the old lady’s comments and drops Clair into the water. The old lady pulls Clair into her boat and stares into her eyes. Clair gets a little freaked out about this and she asks the old lady if she sees any thing in her eyes. She tells Clair that she sees crickets.

Clair and the old lady hear Duke screaming on the bridge. He is screaming because three older children are pushing him and saying that this is their bridge and that he cannot be there. The children push Duke off the bridge. Duke cannot swim and is in trouble. When they next see Duke he has GROWN A HORN! His horn looks like a rhinoceros horn. The old lady and Clair pull Duke into the boat. The old lady tells Duke that the horn was done by river trolls and that the only way to cure him would be with a genuine act of kindness. Clair knew that it would be hard to get Duke back to normal because he was not kind. Also, Duke thinks it is cool to have a horn and would like to keep it.

Duke’s new horn sends Clair and Duke on an adventure where they encounter many different characters. They meet Bodacious Deepthink, the Queen rock troll, the ruler of all the trolls who has the power to turn a troll into a human. They also meet Jim Dandy, Biz and Stump, the three trolls that guide Duke and Clair through their adventures. Eventually these three trolls become like family to Duke and Clair. They meet Reliable St. John who is a little cricket that Bodacious Deepthink gives to the three trolls to help them find their fathers although they really do not know where there fathers are.

I am not going to give away the ending because it makes the book exciting but in the end it is a true act of kindness by Duke that gets both Duke and Clair home.

Maddy H.