My Dog Skip Plot
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 637 views
Willie Morris as an adult is looking back on his childhood in the early 1940s and how it was colored by his dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Skip. In the beginning, Willie (Frankie Muniz) is a lonely child with a gruff, proud father (Kevin Bacon) and a charismatic, talkative mother (Diane Lane), but he is an only child and small for his age with few friends. His one companion is a young man who lives next door, Dink Jenkins (Luke Wilson), who is the local sports hero in Mississippi. However, when Dink is drafted to go to war, Willie’s mother decides to buy him a dog, against his father’s wishes, in order that he should have some company.
Willie and Skip become firm friends very quickly. However, Willie is still bullied at school by Big Boy Wilkinson, Henjie Henick and Spit McGee, until Dink sends him a German helmet and belt from the front line. The other boys demand he plays ball in order to win back his belongings. Skip leaps in to help him. That same day, the three boys force Willie to spend the night in a graveyard, where they claim a witch is buried. If he stays there, he gets to join their gang and also keep the ball Dink Jenkins signed for them, and if not, he has to give them his German helmet. Willie stays there for a number of hours, until he hears two moonshiners who are loading crates into a crypt and decides to leave. Skip, however, jumps on them until one of them threatens to hit him with a spade. Willie is forced to spend the night at the graveyard, because they tell him not to move and so is accepted into the group.
