Dur Pig was a small toy pig made of the same material as a soft towel. He had little plastic beans in his tummy, which made him fun to throw. His squishy trotters were exactly the right size to wipe away a tear. When his owner, Jack, was very young, he fell asleep every night sucking Dur Pig’s ear.
The opening paragraph introduces the two main characters in the story, a boy named Jack and his toy pig. Right from the first words in which the reader learns that the toy has been christened with the odd name Dur Pig it becomes clear that the relationship between the boy and his toy is anything but mundane. The evocative imagery of Jack sucking on the toy pig’s ear also helps to situate the status of the child’s unusually intimate relationship established between the child and his toy.
So fast that he had no hope of stopping her, Holly leaned forward, seized DP out of Jack’s lap, and threw him out of the open window. For a brief second Jack saw DP frozen against the steely sky, his little trotters spread-eagled; then he was whipped away out of sight.
The dramatic conflict which begins the turn which leads to its perhaps unexpected twist away from the sense of realism that the story has effectively established begins with this shocking moment of trauma. Holly is Jack’s new stepsister whom he first came to know as a surprisingly protective popular student on his first day at a new school. The easygoing friendship which had grown from that decision of Holly’s soured considerably under the situational terms of contractual obligations to become family members. It is Christmas Eve and Holly is anything but jolly stuck in the car. Dur Pig—more commonly referred to simply as DP by this point—is just too easy to recognize as Jack’s weak point in her impulsive action to get back at him for directing the “L” sign for loser toward her.
“DP’s in the Land of the Lost now and if you want to save him, you’ll have to go and find him there and come home together.”
In an effort to make up for the horrifically impulsive act of separating Jack from what everybody still recognizes is his best friend—Dur Pig—Holly has given him a brand new plush toy pig that is almost similar to DP. But not quite. And, besides, he is a long way away from being identical. Up to this point in the narrative, the story has existed very much within the confines of realism even to the point of introducing Jack’s mother and father only to have them divorce and his mother remarry. Shortly after grudgingly accepting the apology pig, however, realism is thrown completely out the door and the reader is tossed into the more familiar word of J. K. Rowling where toys can talk, a strange and mysterious place known as the Land of the Lost exists, and a villain called the Loser plots evil from the confines of his lair.
