The Terrible Two

When Miles first meets his assigned welcome buddy, all he sees is Niles’s goofy smile and garish sash advertising his role as school helper. He judges him based on his preconceived notions of the stereotypical roles that kids play at school, and thinks to himself, “There was a Niles at every school. The kiss-up. The do-gooder. The school snitch” (33). Niles appears to be Principal Barkin’s pet and informant, and Miles cannot see anything he would have in common with him. He pushes away Niles’s attempts to help him acclimate to the new school and avoids Niles’s attempts at forming a friendship. Niles emerges as a cunning prankster driven to maintain his position at Yawnee Valley and becomes a worthy adversary to Miles’s pranking prowess. Niles is a perfectionist in every part of his life, but especially his pranks, and though he recognizes that Miles has significant pranking abilities, he searches for opportunities to exploit his foe’s weaknesses. At every turn, just when Miles thinks he has the upper hand, Niles outsmarts him, causing Miles to doubt he was ever a skilled prankster at all.

Though Miles sees Niles as his antagonist, Niles shows himself to be a good friend. On the first day of school, he helps Miles put Josh in his place when Miles confronts him in the lunchroom and corroborates Miles’s lie to get the bully sent to the principal’s office. When the pranks go sideways, and Miles finds himself at the mercy of Principal Barkin’s condemnation, Niles empathizes with Miles and offers to use his clout to lessen or expunge his sentence. Moreover, Niles reveals himself to be lonely and insecure. When Miles visits his home, Niles admits to never having had a friend over and that he not only needs a pranking partner, but he needs a friend. Once Miles surrenders to besting Niles and instead chooses to combine their pranking power, Miles’s eyes are opened to a new way of identifying himself. Niles teaches Miles how to become better at pranking, but he also teaches him about being a loyal friend. Niles changes Miles from a solo prankster fighting to find his place in a new school to one part of a powerful duo called the Terrible Two.

Principal Barkin is the authoritarian leader of Yawnee Valley Academy and the primary antagonist in the novel. As a principal, he prioritizes discipline and rules and is obsessed with maintaining order to ensure the school day goes uninterrupted. His commitment, however, is less about protecting a conducive learning environment and more about maintaining his status in the community and his family. Niles explains Principal Barkin’s familial history to Miles: “Just like Principal Barkin was always class president, and so was his father, and his father, and his father. ‘The Barkins: from presidents to principals.’ That’s what Principal Barkin is always saying” (39). Principal Barkin takes great pride in following in his family’s footsteps, but when he learns on the first day of school that someone pulled a prank and blocked the school entrance with his car, he worries he might have a breach in his system. The authors use illustrations to portray the principal in a cartoonish, satirical way, particularly in his facial expressions. When his power is threatened, his face turns various shades of red, which add a comedic element to the story and satirically underscore his abuse of power.

Despite his tough exterior, the authors reveal that Principal Barkin has a vulnerable side. He takes a verbally abusive phone call from his father early in the story, highlighting the pressure the family affixes to their status in the community. Later the reader learns that Principal Barkin once had a beloved Grandpa Jimmy, himself a bit of a prankster, who became the pariah of his family when he closed school due to a historic blizzard. During his nostalgic flashback, Principal Barkin briefly drops his tyrannical veneer and appears to be on the brink of an epiphany, however, he shakes off the feeling and refuses to concede to the pranksters. Ironically, the cow pamphlet he forced on Miles on day one becomes the catalyst for his downfall as Miles and Niles use the knowledge to fill the school with cows that cannot easily be removed. In the end, two adolescent boys and a herd of cows topple Principal Barkin’s carefully built house of cards and expose his weakness. In the process, Niles and Miles expose Josh’s deception and the novel ends with Principal Barkin forced to discipline his kid for the first time.

Josh is the school bully, who uses his position as the principal’s son to intimidate and persecute other students. Josh targets the new kid Miles on the first day of school as he bulldozes his way through the classroom banging his backpack into Miles’s head. Holly says, “Josh is pretty much the worst kid in this school” (38) and explains how Josh fixes the class presidential election in his favor each year, keeping her and other candidates from ever having a shot at winning. Josh torments his classmates with threats and extortion, and even attempts to manipulate the teachers by using his father’s position as an intimidation tactic. He chooses his attacks when adults are out of sight or when they are off school grounds. Niles wastes no time helping Miles accuse Josh of spilling his lunch tray and shares that he too has been brutalized by the bully. Josh is not particularly intelligent or clever, and rumbles through the hallways calling everyone who gets in his way “Nimbus.” Though Josh seeks to cause disruption and chaos much like the Terrible Two, his brand of anarchy is malicious, cruel, and physically dangerous. In the end, the pranking duo gives Josh his comeuppance as he falls for their tricks, and justice is served as he is put on school probation and removed from his position as class president.