way2go! 5, Schulbuch

49 Little Thwaites seemed to lift about a foot into the air and he yelled ‘Ow-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ and straightened up like elastic. ‘ Arder! ’ shrieked 7 a voice from over in the corner. Now it was our turn to jump. We looked round and there, sitting in one of Mr Coombes’s big leather armchairs, was the tiny loathsome 8 figure of Mrs Pratchett! ‘Lay it into ‘ im !’ she was shrieking. ‘Let ‘ im ‘ ave it! Teach ‘ im a lesson!’ ‘Get down, boy!’ Mr Coombes ordered. ‘And stay down! You get an extra one every time you straighten up!’ ‘That’s tellin ’ ‘ im !’ shrieked Mrs Pratchett. ‘That’s tellin ’ the little blighter 9 !’ I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It was like some awful pantomime. The violence was bad enough, and being made to watch it was even worse, but with Mrs Pratchett in the audience the whole thing became a nightmare. Talk about the following questions. 1 How do you think the boys felt when they were called to the Headmaster’s office? 2 What is your impression of Mr Coombes and Mrs Pratchett? 3 Why do you think Roald Dahl wrote Mrs Pratchett’s way of talking the way he did? 4 Which words does Dahl use to show the reader what a horrible experience this was for the boys? 5 Why do you think Roald Dahl can remember this event so well? 2 Choose one of these activities to do in class or at home. 1 Write down questions you would like to ask the characters in this extract. 2 Write a story about how you got in trouble at school and what the consequences were. 3 Create a ‘WANTED’ poster for one of the characters from the story. Include a drawing, a description, other important information, the character’s crime, and the reward offered for arresting the character. 4 Use the picture on p. 48 as a stimulus and draw another situation from the story. 5 For schoolboys in the UK in the 1920s, caning (being hit with a thin stick) was not an unusual punishment. Corporal punishment 10 still takes place in schools in some other countries. Do research on when corporal punishment was forbidden in Austria and in the UK. If you want to find out more about Roald Dahl’s childhood, and if you want to discover how he lost his nose, read the book: Boy: Tales of Childhood . 3 7 to shriek: kreischen 8 loathsome: verhasst 9 blighter: Lümmel, Nichtsnutz 10 corporal punishment: körperliche Züchtigung Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv