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sophieswundergarten · 1 year ago

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@nobody33333333, and, I guess, anyone else who's interested

Okay, so, I promised I'd do this and I've been feeling guilty about it ever since

HOWEVER

The issue is that my brain is telling me I need to do this, but also that I need to have the book right next to me so I can be as factually correct as possible

In the interest of fulfilling my promise in a timely manner and also circumventing my OCD brain loop, I'm going to force myself to do this right here and now without fact checking! (Yay?)

Thus, without further ado, I present:

Sophie's Real Bad Summary of the rest of The Sofa Book!!

(There are gonna be mistakes, guys, it's been like two years since I read it last)

So, where we left off, River was talking to the sofa during a dream. He wakes up, and enters the house with Freak and Fiona.

They find a note directing them to a specific door (Bit of MBS out-of-the-box riddling there), and they find Alf!

He's dressed eccentrically on purpose to appear non-threatening to the kids (It doesn't work), and immediately accepts the sock and things back, but he gives the coin to Freak and domino to River.

He then snaps the crayon and explains that it was a decoy. (He has the real one safe) He created it because there are very few Zucchini crayons in the world, and there is a very specific person he's trying to find who wants the crayon. This person Alf is looking for is his father, Edward Disin! Disin tried to take over Indorsia and was executing people left and right, so an agent (Who was subsequently beheaded) infected him with a sort of "compulsive collecting disease", and Alf purposefully led him through a portal to earth carrying the last crayon necessary to complete his set: the Zucchini colour.

(Also, Disin owns the tech company, the food brand, and the chemical plant. He's very suspicious)

He explains that he wants the kids' help in capturing Disin because Indorsians live centuries and so they underestimate the children as inexperienced babies. Alf also explains that the sofa was originally part of a larger set of furniture that functioned as a kind of "brain" for this AI, which is known as Guernica.

This is because the AI speaks through a "painting" that's actually just a huge, framed computer screen. Part of the memory/brain was lost when the hassock (One of those footstool/container things) tragically died in a fire.

At any rate, Alf has to leave for a moment to battle some raccoons out of the kitchen with a tennis racket, and Guernica reveals that she's actually a lot more sentient than Alf knows. She explains that Alf is trying his best, but he's hiding things from the kids because he doesn't feel like telling them everything will help the already muddled situation . He also doesn't want to worry them.

Alf comes back and Guernica stops talking. Alf shows then satellite images or something he has of what appear to be dogs. They are not dogs. They are Disin's Very Sneaky Evil Henchmen (Sadly, they aren't really as funny as the Ten Men. And they're more likely to shoot people). They're called Doghats because they wear big hats that make them look like dogs to any overhead cameras, and they each have a code name of their corresponding dog breed.

Fiona is upset because a few dog hats are trying to break into her house, likely in an attempt to steal the crayon, and her little brother is home alone.

Alf has Guernica hack into Fiona's mom's computer and start playing the French(?) National anthem very loudly, which scares the Doghats away.

The kids then leave to try and decide what to do.

On their way, River stops to knock on a different door in a pattern revealed to him in the dream. It turns out to be a room full of pictures and odd notes and a suspect board. (Also the sofa! Freak refuses to believe it tessered but there it is) A lot of the pictures and notes are about them, which is concerning. We also learn here that Fiona is fully colorblind (achromatopsia), most likely because of Rodmore's chemical leaks or whatever.

The kids decide to climb a laundry shute/vent thing to see if they can eavesdrop on Alf in his study.

Through this they discover that the agent who infected Disin with the collectors disease was actually Alf's sister Miranda. Her mind has been saved in Guernica's computer system, but Alf is suggesting they let her take over Fiona's body so she can be human again. Miranda vehemently disagrees with this plan.

But, before the kids can hear anything else, they are chased out of the house by a maniacally laughing axe-weilding granny ghost.

The kids end up deciding to help Alf, and so they set about preparing Underhill house to be the place where a real live auction for the crayon will be held.

At some point, the sofa eats Fiona's phone and she gradually adjusts to not having it (In a slightly concerning manner implying she was addicted to just... having it on her at any given time), and she stops participating in the flash mobs.

The kids decide to sneak into Rodmore Chemical to see if they find any more clues.

This requires them to cross Hellsboro. After a few close calls nearly falling in the coal seam fire sinkholes (Which, apparently is something Freak risks all the time), they reach the building.

There, they explore and find some weird tech and a huge crystalline ice wall thing. As they are investigating a conference room, they hear Doghats coming, so they hide in the hazmat suits hanging from the wall.

Several Doghats enter, and start a video meeting with an angry man who's avatar is a dog that quickly morphs into a wolf as he berates his agents for failing. He them releases this specifically rutabaga colour gas that wipes their minds and leaves their bodies free for him to download more henchmen into. (Concerning)

The wolf man then reveals he knew the kids where there all along, and tries to trick them into taking off the hazmat suits. Luckily, they don't, and Fiona notes that the man must be far away because there's a delay in his response to them, due to the signal having to bounce off a satellite.

Wolf man threatens them, and the kids try to escape as more Doghats show up. This situation climaxes in them being on top of the building, needing to cross a very thin wire to another building's roof so they can escape. This is an issue not for all the obvious reasons, but also because a strong wind is going to blow through in a few minutes and if and of the kids are still on the wire it'll snap.

Freak makes it across alright, but Fiona is so petrified River has to help/carry her. At this point, the domino in River's pocket reveals itself to be another part of Guernica. It starts speaking and trying to help, but is quickly taken over by Alf's sister Miranda.

Miranda tells Fiona the whole story of how her father is an evil tyrant and why it's so important they stop him, and this keeps Fiona from flailing long enough for River to get them to safety. The kids return to their neighborhood and being questioning the domino, but because of an incident at the chemical plant with a mouse, Fiona's little brother's cat, Mucus ("Mew-Kiss"), steals the domino and runs off with it.

They also learn somewhere during this that the flash mobs are practice runs on the mind control being implanted by the food and phones and such distributed by Disin Corp. This is going to be used to enslave humanity for Disin's shipyards one he opens a portal to Indorsia that will let all of his military forces through.

At any rate, the kids finish setting up the house for the auction and Alf has purchased two hot air balloons (I did check my book here, but just for you, Bods). One is a replica of the "STATE FAIR OMAHA" balloon from The Wizard of Oz, and the other is a giant toilet. These are set up around the house as an attempt to keep Disin from escaping via helicopter.

The auction begins, and Alf has some government agents there to help aprehend the bad guys. The kids are outfitted as waiters, and they have serving trays with DNA identification built in so they'll light up in reaction to Disin. The auction continues with no sign of Disin, but when someone wins and it's time to hand off the crayon one of the government agents reveals himself to be Disin!! Gasp

Disin grabs the crayon and also Fiona as a hostage and takes off in the Omaha balloon. Freak and River chase after him in the toilet balloon. Now, the issue with all of this (Besides the obvious) is that Disin also stole the remote that can drop the bottoms of both balloon baskets.

While they manage to avoid dying by that, they do kind of set the balloon on fire.

They chase Disin to the Rodmore Chemical building, where they find that the ice wall is actually a portal, and there is a big net preparing to catch all the tanks and things Disin is commanding to Earth.

Also, at this point, River dies

The Doghats have these... water guns, filled with the lethal liquid "Hista mime". If it gets on you, you suffocate silently, believing you're trapped in a glass box.

This has not a lot to do with how River dies. I just forgot to say earlier and thought that the interjection helped replicate the way the story is told in book format.

Anyway, Disin has River killed by gassing him with that rutabaga stuff so they can download Greeves Stainer, notorious Indorsian assassin into his body.

The next chapter is a bit of an aside where River complains about books where the narrating character dies and has a dream-world picnic with his parents. (Who are dead. Did I mention that? It's taking a lot of brainpower to make this post without checking the book every five seconds. At any rate, River's parents are dead because they were in a car crash orchestrated by Disin because they found out about his evilness and were going to report him. River was also in the car (He was a small child at the time), but survived with only minimal damage to one leg, causing it to be slightly shorter than the other and giving him a limp)

BUT

Alf has a cloning pod in his basement. It uses the DNA that the sofa harvested when he stabbed himself on that fishhook at the beginning of this mess to clone him because he was designated the most mathematically like to die. This body does not have a limp.

River creates a quick make-shift poncho out of a garbage bag and races back to Rodmore. There, he finds the newly downloaded Stainer in his (River's) old body. He brains the guy with a chair and steals his(?) clothes back, then heads out and pretends to be Stainer.

Climax of dramatic threats, yada yada, Disin and one of his guys fall over the railing, and as the Indorsian tanks and things start to come through Freak drops the double-headed coin because, apparently, being double headed makes it a bomb. River reveals his identity as not an assassin, and the kids tighten the safety net thing so much it rubber bands the invading forces right back through the portal before it closes up.

Disin has disappeared, as does the mostly amnesiac and definitely brain damaged Stainer, and the kids head back with Alf.

Also! Freaks dad (Who was previously hinted at the be an alcoholic and possibly a worse father than Show Curtain (It's mostly "off screen")) comes over sobbing and saying that while a social worker visited that afternoon and told him to get his act together, what really motivated him was the sign he saw later that afternoon for where his life was headed if he didn't change some stuff sharpish: A giant fiery toilet in the sky. Also, Mucus gives the Guernica domino back

OKAY

I MAY (Read: "Absolutely") GOTTEN THE TIMELINE WRONG, BUT HERE WE ARE

(Also, they couldn't just clone Miranda a new body because the only remaining piece of her DNA was in Indorsia. I felt that was important to add)

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME IF I'VE GOT STUFF WRONG

THIS ACCOUNT HAS TAKEN ME HOURS TO WRITE OUT. BUT REALLY WANTED TO FOLLOW THROUGH.

ALSO MY BRAIN IS VERY TIRED FROM FIGHTING THE BRAIN WORMS, GOODNIGHT FOLKS!

#What we found in the sofa and how it saved the world

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