Phew! After a panic-stricken twenty-four hours of not knowing what had happened the wonderful characters after their untimely plummet off a cliff I can finally confirm that they ARE alive! Obviously if you've already read this then you'll know. But I'm sure some of you haven't and were of course incredibly worried for the well-being of Alex, Sabina and Edward.
Man was this an exciting chapter! Strangely enough most of it took place underwater, and must only have spanned a couple of minutes, but Horowitz really drew out the tension (in a good way) and my eyes were speeding along the lines like a 100 metre sprinter. Now that was an elaborate simile. So we pick up the second where we left off, the car is falling off the edge of a cliff, heading for the icy loch below. It hits the surface and carries on down until it hits the bottom. There were two things that happened which hadn't occurred to me. One was that Horowitz points out that they fall deep down into the bottom of the loch: I'd just assumed that it wouldn't be that deep and that if they could manage to get out of the car it would be easy to get to the surface. I didn't consider that if, by some miracle, they escaped the car, they'd have to keep swimming so far to the surface. I know it's a really small thing, but the idea of being that deep down to me just made it so much worse. Lucky it wasn't Loch Ness or they might have the 'monster' to contend with as well ;)
What also surprised me was that when they were underwater the car stopped a lot of water from coming in. I suppose I'd assumed again that the water would come crashing in instantly, but they had a few minutes to work out a way of escaping, as the water only came through "the vents" (not completely sure which bits these are as I know relatively little about cars). I don't know if this is what would really happen - although I've heard that Horowitz tries to get everything in his novels as close to the truth as possible - but putting this pressure of time on Alex to work out a way to escape really built up tension, and if Ihadn't been sitting on my bed I'd have been sitting on the edgeof my seat!
Something I should mention before I go on is Edward Pleasure being unconscious. That was certainly not good. Given the name of the title, 'Death and Champagne', I was pretty sure someone was going to die. I highly doubted it was Alex - unless the 350 odd pages were just a really long funeral - and so I now thought it would be Edward. Alex (I'd like to say and Sabina, but unfortunately she didn't really do much) was desperately trying to find a way out, and eventually decided to smash the window with Edward's walking stick, as this would let the doors open (not sure how, maybe the water would cut off the electric locking system or something). Anyway he and Sabina both get out, but Alex then has to go round and get Edward out of his seat and swim the twenty/thirty metres up to the top!!
The worst thing was how it was practically pitch black: it was night outside and they were at the bottom of the lake. I thought that was really horrible - saving someone's life must be bad enough, but to do it in the dark? No thank you.
When Alex is struggling to free Edward he has a little voice in the back of his head telling him to leave Edward and save himself. A lot of the time in these books when Alex is saving someone (he, like Harry, has a bit of a "saving-people-thing" (Hermione's words, not mine) he just does it, and I suppose this makes him your traditional 'hero' character. By giving this dimension of self-preservation does, Horowitz manages to do two things. He humanises Alex, as sometimes we could see him as this selfless person who time and again nearly dies for his country, a hero, but one we have no hope of imitating: this thought shows us that he isn't perfect either, he has thoughts he's not proud of and that he's scared too. On the other hand, the fact that he thinks about leaving Edward but still keeps dragging him up to the surface maintains this strong, worthy image we have of him. If Alex had actually left Edward down there, whilst aware that he was still alive, our perception of him would have been altered, we would have been disillusioned. Whilst we need a character we can relate to, we also need one we can believe in: to know that if they can do something we can too.
Alex and Sabina re-surface and drag Edward to the shore. Eventually ressussitating him, they know they have to get out of the cold. By some strange, fortunate coincidence, a man in a van saw them fall and has come down to help them and takes them to hospital wher they're all better. Alex notes how coincidental this was - how almost like magic (don't get me started) this apparition seemed to be. Hmm. Forshadowing I think?
Finally, what seems to be possibly the most important part of the chapter is mnetion at the end. Alex saw something just before the 'accident'. I looked back and there was a hint of this, but I don't remember picking up on it: he'd heard a cracking noise and seen a man standing on the hillside with some sort of gun aiming at them. It seems he'd aimed to puncture a tyre which would be all the car needed to go spinning out of control, making it look like a complete accident. Alex wonders though if he's making it up: after having been shot at so many times, maybe he's etting paranoid, and he decides not to tell the Pleasures. I bet you that's a mistake. Last time he ignored suspicious signs Edward was blown up and nearly died.
Alex also wonders if it was Desmond McCain behind it, but dismisses it quickly, thinking that being beaten at cards is not quite enough of a reason to want someone dead. But having your video game beaten was enough for Cray. I don't know what I think anymore, because I smell something fishy about McCain and he certainly seems the type to be a bad guy; on the other hand he seems too much like Damian Cray, something I know Horowitz wouldn't do by accident, which makes me think he wants us to believe McCain is bad but really he's going to blow our minds at the last minute and say Sabina was behind it the whole time... or something like that anyway.
I can't wait to read the next chapter, but I won't have much time tomorrow as the big Royal Wedding is taking place and it's Street Partys galore, but I'm sure I'll get round to it!
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