Meet Clarence, better known as Big Bang, a lanky, larger-than-life 10-year-old who looks like he was built to block linebackers but moves like he’s afraid of squashing butterflies. In Doesville, he’s Dewey Does’ ride-or-die sidekick, the kid who’ll cheer louder than anyone at every game, yet the second a piano appears, the whole world fades out. Music isn’t a hobby for him; it’s oxygen. He’s been fluent in scales and arpeggios since his feet barely reached the pedals, and he’ll tell anyone who listens that “notes never lie; people do.”
The first day he showed up in town, Dewey spotted the new kid’s size, grinned like a maniac, and hurled a football straight at his chest with a bellowed “You’re my new tight end!” The ball bounced off Big Bang’s bewildered hands and rolled away like it had hurt feelings. Since then, Dewey launches a fresh recruiting assault almost every afternoon (complete with diagrams, pep talks, and the occasional ambush tackle), trying to drag his soft-spoken giant onto the Martha Horton Elementary roster. Big Bang just laughs that low, rumbling laugh, adjusts his glasses, and heads for the nearest keyboard, fingers already itching to translate the chaos of friendship into something that actually makes sense.