Chapters 15 and 16

Vocabulary work

I. Learn the following words and expressions:

- latch - countdown - quiz show - to stretch oneself out - for future reference - trumpet - gadget - liquidizer - to insist - eventually - to make a fuss - liquorice - compassion - fatigue

- consolation - obscenity - existence - biscuit - to lure into a trap - addiction - hail - to bully - literal - wrist - invisible - contemporary - solicitor

II. Answer the questions:

1. What did Marcus and Will do when Marcus came to see Will at his place for the second time?

2. Did Will suggest to do anything about Marcus’s being bullied at school? What did he suggest?

3. What happened after Will saw two kids following Marcus after school?

4. Why do you think Will bought Marcus a new pair of shoes?

III. State who these words belong to. Translate and reproduce the situations in which they are used:

1. “Thought I’d pop round.”

2. “That’s very nice of you, Marcus, but I usually manage on my own.”

3. “If I knew I wasn’t going to get a job, I wouldn’t bother.”

4. “What do you think you’re doing?”

5. “Are you going to let it go on like this for the next however many years?”

6. “… now the rest of me looks all wrong.”

IV. Translate into English:

- заскочить в гости;

- кроме;

- очень щедро с твоей стороны;

- позволить (себе) что-л.;

- это мне не подходит;

- он едва сдерживался, чтобы не заплакать;

- в противном случае;

- бросить курить;

- выходить из себя;

- сойти за отца и сына.

Oral practice

V. Comment on the following:

1. ‘I could do that years ago, and I’m still going to school. Because I’ve got to get a job. You could have left school when you were about six or seven. Saved yourself all the hassle. You don’t really need to do history to go shopping or read, do you?’ (p. 98)

2. … most of the time he was in at four-fifteen, waiting for the buzzer – sometimes because he couldn’t be bothered to go out, sometimes because he felt he owed Marcus something. What and why he owed him he didn’t know, but he could see he was serving some purpose in the kid’s life at the moment… (p. 103)

3. ‘I tried not to think about that. It happened and I wished it hadn’t, but it’s just life, isn’t it?’ (p. 109)

VI. Give a good literary translation of the following:

1. “He’d never talked about it since the night it happened, and even then he’d never said what he felt. What he felt, all the time, every single day, was a horrible fear. In fact, the main reason he came round to Will’s after school was that he was able to put off going back to the flat; he could no longer climb the stairs at home without looking at his feet and remembering the Dead Duck Day. By the time he got to the bit where he had to put his key in the lock, his heart was thumping in his chest and his arms and his legs, and when he saw his mum watching the news or cooking or preparing work on the dining table, it was all he could do not to cry, or be sick, or something.” (p. 101)

2. “Will found himself working Marcus’s visits into the fabric of his day. This wasn’t difficult to do, since the fabric of his day was tatty, and filled with any number of large and accommodating holes, but even so, he could have filled them with other, easier things, like more shopping, or more afternoon cinema visits; nobody could argue that Marcus was the equivalent of a … Steve Martin film and a sackful of liquorice allsorts. It wasn’t that he behaved badly when he came round, because he didn’t, and it wasn’t that he was hard to talk to, because he wasn’t. Marcus was difficult simply because he frequently gave the impression that he was merely stopping off on this planet on his way to somewhere else, somewhere he might fit in better.” (p. 103)

3. “Santa Claus, whose existence most adults had real cause to doubt, bought him everything he wore and ate and drank and sat on and lived in; it could reasonably be argued that reality was not in his genes.” (p. 104)

VII. Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. Marcus was going to tell his mother that Will didn’t have any kid.

2. Will didn’t let Marcus in when he came to visit him once again.

3. Marcus thought that Will’s flat was cool.

4. Will offered to cut Marcus’s hair for him.

5. Marcus didn’t want to go back to his flat straight from school because he didn’t want to do his homework.

6. Will started to look forward to Marcus’s visits after a while.

7. Marcus told Will that he wished he saw his dad more often.

8. Marcus used to be bullied in his old school.

VIII. Find extra information on personality types: introverts and extraverts.

IX. Retell the 15^th and 16^th Chapters as if you were:

1. Marcus

2. Will.

Writing

X. Write a one-page summary of the Chapters 15,16.