Booked for battle

The air resounds with the thud of cardboard sabers. A few minutes later, the field is littered with drooping weapons and laughing teenagers.

The Bookmarks, a Duxbury Free Library reading and discussion club for teenagers whose motto (“Not all those who wander are lost’’) is borrowed from Tolkien, have been invited to attend an American Library Association conference in Washington, D.C., next June, to explain their style of discussion. To raise money for the trip, they are putting on a Cardboard Tube Fighting League fund-raiser this Saturday.

The group discovered cardboard tube fighting last summer in time to incorporate a bit of it into a presentation on Greek mythology at a reading program party.

The weapons are cylindrical pieces of thick cardboard about 4 feet long. The appeal, explains young-adult librarian Ellen Snoeyenbos: “It’s totally ridiculous.’’

As word of mock combat with reliably harmless weaponry spread among the town’s youthful warriors, Snoeyenbos and the Bookmarks seized on the fund-raiser as a chance to exploit their discovery of the fighting fad made popular by YouTube.

Saturday’s event will feature one-on-one tournaments, guild-on-guild skirmishes (up to 10 fighters per team), “and an all-out battle for possession of the Royal Crown,’’ according to the club.

For $10, participants buy the right to take part in battle. Cardboard tube weapons will be provided (750 tubes have been acquired from Marshall Paper Tube Co. in Canton). Would-be warriors are encouraged to make shields and armor out of cardboard and duct tape.

Duxbury’s Bookmarks, the only youth group invited to make a presentation at the library association’s annual conference, will demonstrate what Snoeyenbos calls the club’s “unique style of discussion group.’’

“We’re a philosophical club,’’ says Chris Kimball, a Duxbury High School senior and the club’s president, who has been in the group for years. Members propose topics for discussion, the group votes on what it wants to debate, and there are no limits on who can speak or how often. The topic often morphs into related questions. For example, Kimball recalls, a recent topic was “secrets.’’ Members asked, What constitutes a secret? Are secrets healthy?

Members include book-loving veterans like Kimball, newcomers like sophomore Makai McClintock, and “not your typical high school students’’ like home-schooled freshman Logan Brown. McClintock moved to town this year and joined Bookmarks because he does a lot of reading. One of his favorite books was the widely taught dystopian allegory “The Giver,’’ by Lois Lowry, which he says offers new insights when you reread it at an older age. “It grows with you,’’ he says.

Because he is home-schooled, Brown likes to join extracurricular activities with other kids. He offers a summation of the club’s appeal: “It’s smart.’’

On a rainy late afternoon in October, members put philosophy aside for an hour’s indulgence in fantasy on the grassy “battlefield’’ behind the library, where Saturday’s fund-raiser will take place.

“We few,’’ calls Snoeyenbos, rallying her troops like Shakespeare’s Henry V before the battle of Agincourt, “we happy few, we band of brothers!’’

Wearing a black outfit with an iridescent silver apron, black hood, and black ninja mask, Shaylyn O’Keefe runs onto the field to join the muster. The veteran warrior handles her sword skillfully and later wins a staged duel with a boy twice her size.

The combatants form a circle between a tree and a plaque marking a Pilgrim history site to watch the lead-off event, a duel between the black-caped Black Lord (Kimball) and a noble sort who has vowed to stop him, green-clad Brendan Davidson.

Kimball declares that he is seeking the Holy Grail.

“This is holy ground,’’ Davidson replies. “I cannot let you pick up that cup.’’

The battle is joined. After a few rousing pirouettes and fancy moves, good-guy Davidson falls dramatically in combat.

“All right,’’ he says, breaking character, “we practiced this.’’

The next event requires a quick choosing up of teams: boys and girls together, about seven or eight on each side. In costume or school clothes, the two sides run at each other and engage in tube battery. The tubes usually don’t break on first contact, but when they do, you’re out. In Duxbury at least, the rule is that until the break hangs beyond a 45-degree angle, you can still whale away.

Otherwise the club follows the rules of the Cardboard Tube Fighting League. The rules say things like “no stabbing’’ and “don’t work the head.’’

When the rain drives the “jolly crew’’ back indoors, the club routs a puzzled looking noncombatant trying to do homework from an otherwise unoccupied room, and Snoeyenbos tells her charges to get a fresh weapon for the duels.

Little Shaylyn fights big Brendan. He charges with gusto, but his sword breaks on the first stroke. “You can still use it,’’ Snoeyenbos said. But the tube divides cleanly in half at the next stroke; the severed end goes flying like the barrel of a maple baseball bat.

Boys fight boys; girls fight girls. Boys fight girls. Stephanie Ferriello, wielding powerful but occasionally wayward strokes, hits her opponent in the head. “I’m not trying to hit him,’’ she protests.

The kids may come for the swordplay, but they stay for discussion time. Snoeyenbos and a few members give quick reviews of books they’ve read recently (members also submit written reviews for the library’s association’s yearly best-book awards).

Then Alex Zahnzinger comes up with a topic for the day’s philosophical discussion: “Why do people marry someone they don’t really like?’’

In quick succession, the topic shifts to why do young people go out with people they don’t really like, why do some people “have to have’’ a girl or boyfriend, and why, when they do, do they sometimes abandon their same-sex friends?

Words like “angst’’ and “awkward’’ turn up a lot. “Insecurity’’ makes an appearance. To keep the discussion on a philosophical plane, the rule is “general conversation’’ only, no gossip.

And for those tired of words, there is always fighting.

To get a peek at cardboard tube fighting, see the group’s promo at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUG68wEK5ik. The fund-raiser takes place Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., on the field behind the Duxbury Free Library, 77 Alden St.

Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox2@gmail.com.