I just started reading a juvie novel called Monsieur Eek by David Ives, a playwright and humorist who usually writes for grown-ups. The story is based on an actual case in medieval law, involving a castaway prosecuted by a British coastal town.

At the beginning, we find ourselves in the great and glorious coastal city of MacOongafoondsen (population: 21), whose inhabitants have not met anyone from the outside world in generations. No one in the city knows anything about the sea except that it is fearsome, since the city was founded by the victims of a shipwreck who turned their collective back on their mighty adversary. The Town Fool, a blue-eyed boy called Young Flurp (the family name, "Philip", was pronounced "Flurp"), has just discovered another shipwreck. The populace has gathered to discuss what it all means, and whether there might be "foreigners" aboard. Constable Shmink gives his opinion. This was too good not to share:

What do I think?" said Shmink. "I think..." He paused a moment. "I think it's the French!"



"The French!" everybody cried.

Emmaline felt a thrill at the words. The mysterious ship not only might have people she didn't know and who didn't know her; the people might even be French people. Her father had told her France was a great and powerful nation and its people ate fish eggs wrapped in paper-thin pancakes and wore lace on their sleeves and drank a bubbly wine called champagne. Or was it shampoo?

"Why the French?" asked Young Flurp the Town Fool, who preferred things to be logical.

"Why not the French?" snapped Shmink. "Blue-eyed fool! This so-called ship -- if it is a ship -- is not from here. Therefore, it must be foreign. If it's foreign, then the people on it -- if there are people on it -- must be foreigners. If the people on it are foreigners and the French are foreigners, therefore the people on it must be French!"



And there is someone on board, who had been locked below-decks during the shipwreck, and was spared when all the others abandoned ship or were washed overboard...

Mysterious people, the French...

Read it; it will be an entertaining hour.

Regards--
Mary Anne