social network, or living relatives, showing the dearth of Protestants in Adenville. Uncle Mark - The town marshal, who is the uncle of John and the one who discovered the landslide that killed the Pennyworth family and rescued an unconscious Frankie. Aunt Cathie - Mark's wife and Papa's sister, who considers adopting Frankie due to the fact she and Mark are childless on account of an earlier miscarriage. When Frankie says he wishes to live with the Fitzgeralds instead, she accepts it on the basis she will still be his aunt, and she and Mark go to an orphanage in Salt Lake City to adopt a daughter and son. All the Fitzgerald men have the middle name of Dennis, a reminder of the "Fitzgerald Curse", put upon the family because an ancestor named Dennis helped the British during the Revolutionary War. His father decreed that all male Fitzgeralds should have Dennis as their middle name to remind them of his son's loyalty to the Crown. In reality, the author had an older sister, Belle Empey (née Fitzgerald). In addition, his brother "Sweyn" doesn't have that name; the real John's two elder brothers were named William and Tom, and he had two younger brothers, Gerald and Charles. There was no record of his parents ever adopting any children. Other characters Andy Anderson, a boy who loses his lower left leg to infection after stepping on a rusty nail in an abandoned barn. Later he falls into severe depression over this and even considers suicide, until Tom convinces Andy he can still do chores and play. Parley Benson, son of a bounty hunter and the envy of most of the other boys. He possesses his own coonskin cap, a Bowie knife, and his own repeating air rifle. Tom wins Parley's air rifle in a bet about whether Tom can magnetize wood. After reading about boomerangs in an encyclopedia and seeing an illustration of one in a dictionary, Tom fashions a boomerang from a stick, and after throwing it, holds up a magnet to make it appear the magnet is bringing it back. Losing his air rifle earns Parley the "worst whipping of his life" from his father. Another story has Tom betting who is braver by having both boys break curfew and meet at the entrance to the forbidden Skeleton Cave. Dotty Blake, also known as "Britches Dotty", a "tomboy" whom Tom