Mark and Luke Winwood

Mark  and Luke Winwood  Character Post 40

Mark Winwood is one of those kids who is thoughtless rather than deliberately destructive or naughty. When he and his twin brother Luke obtain two kayaks, Mark naturally chooses the red one and names it Red Devil. He and the quieter Luke are all set to enjoy a paddle down the Bandinangi River with their uncle, who is to meet them at the launch spot. Big brother Ben drops them and their kayaks off and is meant to wait until their uncle arrives but it gets later and later and Ben knows being late for work is a bad look when he's only just started the job. Mark talks him into leaving because after all, what could happen?
While they wait, Mark messes about, blowing up a plastic bag and bombing it with rocks despite Luke's protests. When it sinks, he decides to set off down river anyway. Luke wants to wait but Mark pushes off, sure Luke will follow, despite their quarrel...
When Luke does follow he expects to catch up with Mark quickly but no matter how fast he paddles, he reaches the collection point without seeing anything more of his brother.
Weeks pass, amid recriminations and theories. Luke sticks to his story, despite all efforts to make him reveal what happened to Mark. Ben and the boys' uncle (whose absence turns out to be a simple lapse of memory) are investigated. Luke has a horrible time of it, and only the friendship of Jeremy Archer who treats him normally gets him through the pain of learning to rely on himself rather than on Mark. 
Meanwhile, Mark is in real trouble and has to convince some very odd people he is not really an environmental vandal. When he finally makes a pledge to become a responsible and evangelistic environmentalist, he is offered to choices. One would mean his absence would never be noticed... but neither would his story be believed. The other puts his family through six weeks of horror...but he will be able to keep his pledge.
Not the sort of choice a somewhat thoughtless but basically okay nine-year-old wants to make...but of course Mark does. 


ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. She runs  Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!