Cameron Smith Timeline and Summary
MoreCameron Smith Timeline and Summary
- Before the book opens, Cam almost dies at Disney World when he jumps off the Small World ride.
- Cam starts experiencing weird hallucinations at school and at home, but blames it on the weed.
- During a flare-up, he accidentally punches Chet King; his parents send him to two different therapists.
- Cam hallucinates/has a seizure at breakfast, and starts seeing doctors.
- He gets diagnosed with mad cow disease.
- A pep rally is thrown in his honor.
- Cam is hospitalized and starts losing his grip on reality while under the care of Glory, his nurse.
- Cam keeps seeing a punk-rock angel in his delusions.
- Gonzo becomes his roommate at the hospital. He was admitted for various tests, but basically just suffers from hypochondria.
- Dulcie reveals herself to Cam, and informs him of his quest to save the world that he must undertake. He needs to make Gonzo come, too.
- Gonzo and Cam escape the hospital and start to "follow the signs" to a bus depot.
- They ride the bus to New Orleans.
- Miss D, a no-nonsense drag queen, leads them to meet Junior Webster, jazzman extraordinaire.
- Junior meets with Cam, tells him about the Wizard of Reckoning, and then gets killed in a trumpet-battle with him.
- Cam takes Junior's glasses and buries them in the Cyprus Grove cemetery.
- The boys follow "signs" and get on a bus towards the YA! Party house in Daytona, Florida.
- At a stop in Mississippi, Cam goes to call home, and when he gets back to where the bus is supposed to be, it has left without them. Gonzo makes a terrible lookout.
- While hitchhiking, Cam almost gets hit by a bus belonging to CESSNAB zealots.
- The boys go to CESSNAB, and Cam buys into their propaganda until he realizes he can't even check out Don Quixote from the library. Then a cute library girl ropes him into helping lead the revolution.
- In the midst of the chaos, the boys escape CESSNAB and flee to a motel.
- During a bout of insomnia, Cam takes a walk and meets Tara and her classy boyfriend, who take him to a party in the suburbs. There he meets Balder, the Viking God-trapped-in-a-garden-gnome's-body who decides to join the boys in their mission.
- Balder and Gonzo draw attention to themselves at a diner when Balder challenges people to try to kill him, but then fire giants come and the diner explodes into flames.
- The trio buys an awesome used car, which they christen Rocinante.
- During heavy rain Cam pulls off the road toward a town called Hope, Georgia. He meets an old guy with a hardware store who leads him to a wishing tree and gives him a "magic" screw.
- The guys get back on the road… well, until they run out of gas. Oops.
- They find a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere while looking for gas; they meet the doctors who were once teamed up with Dr. X.
- The docs (and a boy named Ed) help Cam configure the Infinity Collider to try to find Dr. X. After a bunch of hoopla, it seems like nothing really happened.
- Ed gives Cam the Calabi Yau manifold to play with.
- The trio head toward Disney World.
- They're wanted by the police and by Snow Globe Wholesalers, so they pick up three hitchhiking dudebros on their way to the YA! Party House for cover.
- Cam convinces Dulcie to tell him the dudebros' futures, and he instantly regrets it because one gets killed in the army in the near future.
- They drop off the hitchhikers and go back on their merry way… until they realize the buttheads kidnapped Balder.
- Cam and Gonzo go back to Daytona to rescue Balder.
- Cam goes on a show called What's Your Category and wins six hundred bucks
- They lose a bidding war for Balder but manage to steal him from Marisol's dressing room afterward.
- Gonzo agrees to go on I Double Dog Dare You to save their butts after being caught stealing Balder.
- Cam bumps into his sister and they have a good talk.
- Then he bumps into Staci Johnson and they hook up.
- And then he hooks up with Dulcie.
- Copenhagen Interpretation show up and play a concert. Cam convinces them to play while he holds the Calabi Yau manifold up to an amp, which closes the wormhole and kills the fire giants.
- Cam and Gonzo take Balder to the ocean so he can look for his ship, Ringhorn.
- Balder is killed by United Snow Globe Wholesalers SWAT guys; Cam and Gonzo give him a Viking burial.
- Dulcie gets shot by a USGW guy and turned into a snow globe. Cam diverts his mission to track her down and save her.
- The boys follow a USGW truck to Tomorrowland, Disneyworld.
- They get ambushed and almost caught, and then Cam gets into a final showdown with Dr. X and the Wizard of Reckoning—who turns out to be a bizarro-world version of himself.
- Cam blows Junior's trumpet as hard as he can and defeats the Wizard.
- Cam dies, but Dulcie is there, so it's okay.