Prime Time 6, Coursebook mit Audio-CD und DVD

1 Slam Reading: Slam a) Read how Sam, a London teenager, experiences his 16 th birthday. b) The extract is told from Sam’s point of view and you will get to know a lot about how Sam feels and what he thinks. Underline such passages while reading. 1 e day began with cards and presents and doughnuts – Mum had already been to the baker’s by the time I woke up. My dad was supposed to be coming over for tea and cake in the a‚ernoon, and in the evening, believe it or not, Mum and I were going to go to Pizza Express and the cinema. I got the rst text from Alicia straight a‚er breakfast – it just said, “I NEED 2 CU URGENT Axx”. “Who was that?” said Mum. “Oh, no one.” “Is that a Miss No One?” said Mum. She was probably thinking of Nikki, because she knew we’d been out the previous evening. “Not really,” I said. I knew it didn’t make any sense, because either someone was a girl or they weren’t, unless you’re talking about men who dress up as girls, but I didn’t care. Part of me was panicking. It wasn’t my head so much as my guts – I think my guts knew what it was about, even if my head didn’t. Or pretended it didn’t. I’d never forgotten that time when something half-happened when I hadn’t put anything on. e part of me that was panicking because of the text had never really stopped panicking since the half-happening day. I went and locked myself in the bathroom and texted her back. I said, “NOT 2DAY MY BIRTHDAY Sxx”. If I got something back from that, then I knew I was in trouble. I ˜ushed the loo and washed my hands, just to make Mum think I’d actually been doing something, and even before I’d opened the door my phone beeped again. e text just said, “URGENT, OUR STARBUCKS 11 am”. And then all of me knew – guts, head, heart, ngernails. I texted back “OK”. I didn’t see how I could do anything else, even though I wanted to do anything else. When I went back into the kitchen, I wanted to sit on my mum’s lap. I know that sounds stupid and babyish, but I couldn’t help it. On my sixteenth birthday, I didn’t want to be sixteen, or ‚een, or any teen. I wanted to be three or four, and too young to make any kind of mess, apart from the mess you make when you scribble on walls or tip your food bowl upside down. “I love you, Mum,” I said when I sat down at the table. She looked at me as if I’d gone mad. I mean, she was pleased, but she was pretty surprised. “I love you too, sweetheart,” she said. I tried not to get choked up. If Alicia was going to tell me what I thought she was going to tell me, I reckoned it would be a long time before Mum said that again. It might be a long time before she even felt it. All the way there, I was doing all kinds of deals, or trying to. You know the sort of thing: “If it’s OK, I’ll never skate again.” As if it had anything to do with skating. I o ered never to watch TV again, and never to go out again, and never to eat at McDonald’s again. Sex never came up, because I already knew I was never going to have sex again, so that didn’t seem like a deal God would be interested in. I might as well have promised Him that I wouldn’t ˜y to the moon, or run down Essex Road naked. Sex was over for me, forever, no doubt. Alicia was sitting at the long counter in the window with her back to everyone. I saw her face as I was walking in, without her seeing me, and she looked pale and frightened. I tried to think of some other things that could make her that way. Maybe her brother was in trouble. Maybe her ex-boyfriend had threatened her, or threatened me. I wouldn’t mind taking a beating, I thought. Even if it was a serious beating, I’d be better in a few months, probably. Say he broke both my arms and both my legs … I’d be walking around again by Christmas. I didn’t go over and say hello straight away. I got in the queue to buy myself a drink. If my life was about to change, then I wanted the old life to last for as long as possible. ere were two people in front of me, and I hoped they had the longest and most complicated orders Starbucks had ever heard of. I wanted someone 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 12 Growing up Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv