"Swear To Howdy" By Wendelin van Draanen

My favorite book I've ever read, is "Swear to Howdy." It's a story about a kid, Russel Cooper, who moves to a rural area from the city suburbs. He becomes close friends with his neighbor, Joey Banks. Russel was nicknamed "Rusty" by Joey because of his name. They loved to be waywardness. They did everything from putting bugs in his older sister's drink when she wasn't looking, to replacing the dead family gold fish. Everytime something happens where they can get in trouble for it, Joey makes Rusty "swear to howdy" that he won't tell anyone. Rusty being the good friend he is, never spoke a word of it. Rusty never spoke of any of their schemes. Joey and Rusty find a huge bull frog, that they named "Tank." They sat there and watched the bull frong not move, until one day, a truck was driving by. Tank jumps into the back of the pick-up and jumps out on the bridge into the river. A few days later, Joey's dad gave him a bee-bee gun to shoot the squirrels that are digging tunnels under the driveway, and he then shot his dad's cat on accident. His dad loved that cat.
You start to think that him killing his father's cat and him getting in trouble for it is the big climax, wrong. He sneaks out a few nights later, grabs Rusty out of his room, then they go over towards the bridge for a new idea that Joey came up with. They hang a scarecrow in the tree by a piece of rope. When the pull the rope it raises it up, and when they let go, it drops. When a car was driving by they decided to drop it, and the scarecrow smacks the windshield. The car swirves off and hits the telephone pole. It was Joey's older sister. She had died when she hit the pole. Joey went into complete depression, and his dad started to hate him. Rusty found Joey on the side of the river eating these berries that were getting him drunk. A few nights later Rusty saw Joey in his room with his dad's rifle in his mouth, Rusty had stopped him. Joey made him "swear to howdy" that he wouldn't tell anyone. Rusty had to decide between being a loyal friend, and being a good friend. He chose to tell his parents about it, and his parents helped Joey out.