What does Valli tell the elderly man when he calls her a child?

What made Mr Keesing allow Anne to talk in class?

Chubukov says of Natalya: “... as if she won’t consent! She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat...” Would you agree? Find reasons for your answer.

Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is? You may select appropriate words from the box to answer the question.

   greedy            naive                   stupid                ungrateful 
   selfish            comical               unquestioning

Why didn’t Valli want to make friends with the elderly woman?

Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?

What ideals does Nelson Mandela set for the future of South Africa?

Anne says teachers are most unpredictable. Is Mr Keesing unpredictable? How?

How does Mandela describe the systems of government in his country

(i) in the first decade, and
(ii) in the final decade of the twentieth century?

Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?

Do you think Mr Keesing was a strict teacher?

What kind of a person is Valli? To answer this question, pick out the following sentences from the text and fill in the blanks. The words you fill in are the clues to your answer.

How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?

What did being free mean to Mandela as a boy, and as a student ? How does he contrast these “transitory freedoms” with “the basic and honourable freedoms”?

How was Mij to be transported to England?

What does Valli mean when she says, “I was just agreeing with what you said about things happening without our knowledge.”

Why were two national anthems sung?

“They were beckoning to him, calling shrilly.” Why did the seagull’s father and mother threaten him and cajole him to fly?

Chubukov says of Natalya: “... as if she won’t consent! She’s in love; egad, she’s like a lovesick cat...” Would you agree? Find reasons for your answer.

The Narrative Voice Here are two other sentences from the story. Can you say whose point of view the italicised words express?

1. But on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who sat down in front with other children who got good marks and who didn’t track in a whole lot of mud, did notice that Wanda wasn’t there.

2. Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in room thirteen didn’t have names like that. They had names easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or Allen.

What are ‘compulsive habits’? What does Maxwell say are the compulsive habits of

(i) school children
(ii) Mij?