B is for Boy. A Boy named B.

A brief summary:

This chapter focuses on Boy B and to the details surrounding the way he became friends with Jack when they were children. Boy B was mentioned briefly in the opening chapter, described simultaneously as ‘friend, accomplice, instigator’ and ‘nemesis’. In many respects B is the polar opposite of A: wild and scruffy, a year younger and with a propensity for violence. He has an older brother who no one messes with and exudes confidence in his swagger. But beneath this hard exterior B seems to share the same sense of loneliness as A. This is what makes them friends.

Trigell gives details about how Jack was bullied at school and how he tried to hide his shame from his parents. The reader learns that as the bullying got worse Jack began to truant from school. It was during one of his days bunking from school that Jack comes across A. The pair strike up a relationship based upon on their shared sense of isolation: A without friends, and parents and teachers to notice, whilst B retreating into ignorance and wildness as a result of something to do with his infamous brother.

Are children inherently good or evil?

The chapter ends with a confrontation between some of Jack’s tormentors and both boys walking home after spending the day together. After sensing an opportunity to further intimidate their helpless victims, the bullies are surprised by a violent attack by the much smaller and younger B. He sets about the older boys with a disturbing sense of unrestrained violence, hitting and kicking them in to submission. The attack is quickly over and the pair become even closer friends as a result of their experience.

Points to consider:

1. In what ways is Boy B different to Boy A? Are they really so different after all?
2. Look at the description of Boy B. How does Trigell use language (profanity, sentence structure, cultural references) to present a clearer picture of the type of boy that he is?
3. Although he is described as ‘ignorant’, in many respects it seems that Boy B has a great deal of experience of life. He seems more like a man than a boy. How does Trigell achieve this and what is he trying to say about his character?
4. What does the fact that Jack wont tell his parents about being bullied imply about his family life? Does this connect in any way to the absence of his parents in the first chapter where he is released from prison?
5. What do you make of the line ‘Children can be monsters too.’ Do you agree with this statement, or do you think circumstances create monsters?
6. Why is the passage about Mrs Johnston’s views on Jack written in italics? To what extent does it make you read it differently?
7. Is Boy B a bad influence on Jack, or is the situation more complicated than that? It might help to closely read the final passage of the chapter where Boy B is annotating the Bible he stole from church.