Chapters 29 and 30

Vocabulary work

I. Learn the following words and expressions:

- predictable - improvement - crumpet - a jar of honey - obtuse - thrilled - to make a fuss of smb. - distracted - to attempt smth. - vertigo - dizzy - to omit - to be dragged under - surface

- cramp - buoyant - (eye) pupils - to be feeling low - aftermath - to adore smb. - stale - custard creams - bewildered - coalmine - despair - NYPD - grumpy - stuff

II. Answer the questions:

1. What was Marcus worried about in connection with Fiona? What did he and Will talk about?
2. Why was Ellie sad one school day? Why did it affect Marcus?
3. How did Will and Rachel’s relationship develop?
4. What did Rachel want to talk to Fiona about?

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

1. “Why should she listen to me? Who am I? Nobody.”
2. “He’s not even a real person. He’s just a singer. He’s just someone on a sweatshirt.”
3. “You know more than I do. You should be telling me things about it.”
4. “If I were about to stick my head in the gas oven, and then you told me Marcus adored me, I wouldn’t necessarily take it out again.”
5. “… after a few weeks of that I knew I was never going to do it, and the reason I was never going to do it was because I didn’t want to miss out.”

IV. Translate into English:

- достигнуть критической стадии;

- прийти в голову;

- четыре или пять дней подряд;

- с другой стороны;

- придираться к кому-л.;

- сидеть на корточках;

- невозможно удержаться (от чего-л.);

- помимо всего прочего;

- везение, удача.

Oral practice

V. Comment on the following:

1. … on the way home Marcus remembered the end of the conversation, the way Will had said ‘Understood?’ in a way that was supposed to tell him that the conversation was over, and he wondered whether friends did that. He didn’t think they did. He knew teachers who said that, and parents who said that, but he didn’t know any friends who said that, no matter how tall they were. (p. 215-216)

2. It had never occurred to Will that Marcus actually had any real feelings towards him, especially feelings that were visible to a third party. He knew that Marcus liked hanging out at his place, and he knew that Marcus described him as a friend, but all this he had taken merely as evidence of the boy’s eccentricity and loneliness. Rachel’s observation that there were real feelings involved kind of changed things, just as they sometimes did when you found out that a woman you hadn’t noticed was attracted to you, so that you ended up reassessing the situation and finding her much more interesting than you ever had done before. (p. 224-225)

3. … there were always one or two things that seemed unfinished, things I wanted to follow through. Like you want to see the next episode of NYPD Blue. If I’d just finished stuff for a book, I wanted to see it come out. If I was seeing a guy, I wanted one more date. If Ali had a parents’ evening coming up, I wanted to talk to his form teacher. Little things like that, but there was always something. And in the end I realized there would always be something, and that those somethings would be enough. (p. 227)

VI. Give a good literary translation of the following:

1. “Marcus was disappointed for a moment, but he hadn’t really given Will very much to go on. She could have been at anything, which was weird if you thought about it: no one could say his mum was predictable. She could have been moaning about Marcus coming round to Will’s flat again, or she could have been on about him taking up the piano, or she could have found a boyfriend that Marcus didn’t like very much (Marcus had told Will about some of the peculiar men she’d been out with since his parents had split)… It was nice, in a way, contemplating all the things he could have meant when he’d said she was at it again. He thought it made his mum seem interesting and complicated, which of course she was.” (p. 213)

2. “He decided to skip the next couple of lessons. If he went to the maths class, he would sit and dream and get picked on and laughed at when he attempted to answer a question that had been asked an hour or a month before, or that hadn’t been asked at all; he wanted to be on his own to think properly, without irrelevant interruptions, so he went to the boys’ toilets near the gym and shut himself in the right-hand cubicle, because it had comforting hot pipes running along the wall which you could sort of squat down on. After a few minutes someone came in and started kicking on the door.” (p. 217)

3. “Sometimes someone said something, and he did look down, and he was left with an irresistible urge to jump. He could remember the last time it had happened: it was when he had split up with Jessica, and she had phoned him late at night and told him he was useless, worthless, that he would never be or do anything, that he had had the chance with her to – there was some peculiar, incomprehensible phrase she had used – sprinkle some salt on the ice, that was it, by having a relationship that meant something, and maybe a family.” (p. 220)

VII. Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. Fiona had started to cry again in the mornings, and Marcus was worried.
2. Will agreed to talk to Fiona about her troubles.
3. Will said they couldn’t be friends because they were different heights.
4. Ellie was sad because Kurt Cobain tried to kill himself.
5. Marcus cried because Ellie was being rude to him.
6. Will wanted to talk to Rachel because he was feeling low.
7. Rachel confessed to having thought of killing herself some time ago.
8. Will asked Rachel to talk to Fiona.

VIII. Study the word-combinations with the word ‘point’ and make your own sentences with them:

- to miss the point – упустить главное

- to see the point of – видеть смысл в чем-л.

- to earn/score (extra) points – набрать/получить (дополнительные) очки

- a turning point – поворотный момент

- more to the point – ближе к сути

- to the point of enjoyment – до степени наслаждения

- at this/which/some point – в этот/этот самый/какой-то момент

- comfort point – зона комфорта

- point of view – точка зрения

- to be on the point of doing smth. – быть на грани совершения чего-л.

- to point at smth. – указать на что-л.

- - there is no point – это бессмысленно

- to pass the point of no return – перейти роковую черту

IX. Retell the 29^th Chapter as if you were:

1) Will

2) Marcus

3) Ellie

Retell the 30^th Chapter as if you were:

1) Will

2) Rachel.

Writing

X. Write a one-page summary of the Chapters 29,30.

XI. Make up your own story (8-10 sentences) using your active vocabulary.