The Mosquito Coast

Author: Paul Theroux

The Mosquito Coast is a story about Allie Fox who is an inventor and his family Mother Fox, Charlie, Jerry and the twins April and Clover, who moved to Mosquito Coast.

Allie Fox worked for Mr. Polski. He mended the farm’s machines and anything which goes wrong. One day Allie and Charlie drove from Hatfield into Northampton and Allie shouted for fat people on the street to eat healthier food because they were eating junk foods and drinking Coke. Charlie was thirteen years old and he doesn’t doubt that Allie was right. He was embarrassed by the look that people gave them. Someone shouted to Allie and asked ‘’why his son wasn’t at school ‘’and Allie shouted back “School is for fools, my son is learning what he needs to know by being with me”. But Charlie wanted to be in school, wanted to be like the other. Allie created the ‘’Little Boy ‘’ which is an Ice-Machine does only need fire to work, no electricity and no moving part. This will keep going for ever, but not smell good.

Allie decides to leave America with his family and the Little Boy. They arrived in Baltimore and the ship was enormous in the night. They drove to the docks and in the darkness the ship seemed to go up and up into the sky. Allie gave his old van to a black guy who was passing. When they entered the boat and it began to move Allie shouted very happy ‘’ Free!!! Goodbye America! The name of the ship is Unicorn it was carrying machines, clothes and food but there were two other families the Bummicks and the Spellgoods. They introduced to them at breakfast. Gurney Spellgood was a missionary.

In the trip Charlie met Emely who is Gurney’s daughter and they became friends but he didn’t like Emely because she was different from anyone I had ever known. After we left at La Ceiba, she tried to kiss him say that she would be his girlfriend, if he wanted. He said ok, but has to be secret.

One day, Allie was talking to an old white German man called Karl and he paid him four hundred dollars for a place called Jeronimo and Karl told Allie that Jeronimo is a small town. Jeronimo don’t have anything no policeman, no telephones, no electricity, no aeroplanes. Jeronimo is NOTHING.

Mr. Haddy had a boat and takes Allie and his family on his boat and led him at Jeronimo. On arrival at Jeronimo, they just find a broken-down house. Allie shouted: Nothing! Nothing! This is what I dreamed about! So mother shouted: Nothing! Allie meet Maywits the local Indians, Mr. Haddy explain for Allie that ‘’Maywtis is the name of a flower ‘’and it isn’t their name.

Everything that Allie had imagined about Jeronimo came true and more quickly than anyone had thought possible but is hard to work for everyone all the time. So he starts to build the machine FAT BOY. In the beginning nobody knew what Allie was

building, but Charlie remembered of “Little boy” the machine to make ice. But now Allie wants to make ice for de Indians in the mountain village of Seville so he had to make a big machine calling “Fat boy”. When Fat boy was finished, Allie and Mr.Haddy went to Trujillo, which was the nearest town of any size, to get the chemicals Fat boy needed. Allie forces Zumbus, Charlie and Jerry up the mountain in very hot and difficult conditions. Allie just forced them to go just to see if the ice would not melt all until you reach your destination.

By the time they reach the village, the ice has melted, although Allie pretends it hasn’t. They find three white men living with the Indians and think they must be prisoners. When they get back to Jeronimo, they find that Mr Struss, has frightened the Maywits into leaving. Later, the three white men arrive and Allie realizes they will just live off the family, so he persuades them to sleep in the ice machine. In the night, he turns it on, in order to kill them. The machine explodes and the family has to flee.

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