Discuss your memories of your childhood.

Work out your criteria about what you mean by being a «good», «naughty», «somewhere in between» child.

Work in two groups and read the beginnings of two different stories.

Group A: Read «Words Long Unspoken».

Group B: Read «Bluebells and Autumn Leaves».

Group A

It was evening in the private room at the hospital. I moved to put on the light.

‘No. Not yet. I can’t talk to you with the light on’. My father lay with tubes stuck in his nose and arm. His face looked grey and his voice was weak. I sensed his fear. I had always feared him when I was young; now he was old, it was his turn.

Group B

‘You had Miss Grant as your teacher, didn’t you?’ wheezed my mother. ‘She’s just died. Look.’ She pointed at the obituary notice in the local paper. Suddenly it all came back to me.

Discuss the following questions with your partner.

1) Who are the characters?

2) What are they talking about?

3) What do you think the story is going to be about?

Read the whole story and check your predictions.

Group A

Words Long Unspoken

It was evening in the private room at the hospital. I moved to put on the light.

‘No. Not yet. I can’t talk to you with the light on.

My father lay with tubes stuck in his nose and arm. His face looked grey and his voice was weak. I sensed his fear. I had always feared him when I was young; now he was old, it was his turn.

‘There’s something I want to say to you,’ he said. ‘Do you remember that time when Judy threw you off?’

Did I remember! I had never lived it down. I had grown up with horses. We kept some farmwork and others for riding. My father rode a huge, grey hunter. He’d just bought a smaller horse for my tenth birthday. She was a black, mean-looking mare called Judy. Whenever I went into the stable she tried to kick me or bite backside. She was bad-tempered and stubborn. The very first time I mounted her, I’d felt the angry energy in her; a bubbling volcano under me.

Yes, I grew up with horses; the smell of them still comes to my nostrils when I think of our farm. But I never completely lost my fear of them. I could feed them, clean them, harness them. Yet when it came to riding them, I always felt butterflies in my stomach. I sensed that they might do anything at any moment. And perhaps they sensed my fear too.

Anyway, that Sunday my father had an important visitor. I can’t remember who. After showing him round, my father told me to saddle up Judy.

‘Joe will put her through her paces,’ he told the man proudly.

I mounted, my heart beating fast and my hands sweating.

‘Just walk her round the top field, then let’s see her trot. Keep her on a tight rein, right’.

Under me I felt the suppressed power in the mare and her rising anger. After walking along the bottom of the field, we turned up the side. I touched her flanks with my heels. She broke into a smart trot. By the time we reached the top of the field, the trot had become a canter. I tried to slow her to a trot again but she was stronger than me. I saw my father and his visitor way down the field watching me. As we turned back towards them, the canter became a gallop. I knew I had lost control. All I could do was to hold on tight.

She galloped onto a rough track, her hooves drumming loudly. Next to the track was a pile of bricks and rubble. My feet came out of the stirrups and I felt myself slipping. Judy threw me off onto the bricks and careered off into the road. The visitor ran after her.

I got up. I was cut and bruised but no bones were broken. As I stumbled towards my father, he hissed, ‘You bloody fool! You’ve made us all look stupid. Get indoors!’

I looked down at my father. ‘Yes, I remember, Dad.’

I still recalled the humiliation I felt. We had never mentioned it again, until today.

‘I’ve had it on my mind all these years,’ he said. ‘I always regretted what I said to you but I never told you. I’m sorry I was always so hard on you, Joe. I’m so...’

It was the first - and the last - time I saw my father cry. I reached out and took his hand.

Group B

Bluebells and Autumn Leaves

‘You had Miss Grant as your teacher, didn’t you?’ wheezed my mother. ‘She’s just died. Look.’

She pointed at the obituary notice in the local paper. Suddenly it all came back to me.

That first day at school my mother had left me in the playground, surrounded by other children - all bigger than me. A whistle blew. The noise stopped and the children filed into the school building. I did not know which row to join so I simply followed a girl with pigtails. When I entered the classroom everyone looked at me. A large motherly lady took me by the hand and said, ‘You’re in the wrong class. You’ll be in Miss Grant’s class. Come on, I’ll show you.’

Miss Grant was tall and thin, with dark eyes and sallow skin. She had a high-pitched nasal voice which made everything she said sound threatening. She pointed to a seat next to a boy with a runny nose.

‘Sit with George. He’ll tell you what to do. Children, this is Joe Green. Say hello to him.’

I tried very hard to please Miss Grant but somehow everything always turned out wrong. In the autumn she drew a tree on a sheet of brown paper pinned to the wall.

‘Now children. It’s autumn. The leaves turn yellow and red and brown. Then they fall off the trees. Here is some coloured paper. I want you to cut out some nice leaves. Then we’ll paste the leaves on the tree and make a nice picture.’

We cut out our leaves then went one by one to paste them onto the tree. I was one of the last. Miss Grant gave a little cry of alarm.

‘But you’ve stuck them upside down, Joe. Can’t you see?’

By then the leaves were stuck fast; it was too late. I had spoiled her tree.

Just before Christmas, we made paperchains from strips of coloured paper as decorations. I made a longer chain than anyone else in the class. Surely she would be pleased with me.

But when she came to my desk her voice rose in a wail.

‘But you’ve stuck them the wrong way round,’ she whined. ‘Can’t you see? The coloured part has to be on the OUTside not on the INside! How can we see the pretty colours if they’re on the INside? What am I going to do with you?’

In the spring she told us about flowers. Obviously she liked flowers a lot.

‘So what wild flowers do we find in spring? Violets, yes?Anemones, yes.Anything else? Do you know my favourites? Yes, bluebells! But we have to respect nature. Lots of people pick them. That’s wicked. We should leave them in their natural home.’

So - she liked bluebells. That was all I remembered. The next Sunday I went into the woods and picked enormous bunch which I put in a bucket of water till Monday morning. I entered the classroom full of pride. Now she would bo pleased.

‘Joe!’ she screamed. ‘I told you NEVER to pick the flowers. Don’t you ever LISTEN?’

And she threw my lovely bluebells into the wastepaper basket.

 

Next day I went to the cemetery. There were a few bunches of faded flowers on her grave. Smiling to myself, I replaced them with an enormous bunch of bluebells!

(from «Musical Cheers» Alan Maley)