Read the paragraphs below and answer the questions.
Molly and her sister Hannah are staying with their grandparents. Hannah has just had an argument with grandmother and stormed upstairs.
Me and Grandpa are left in the kitchen. Grandpa rubs at his face, just the way my dad does. He breathes in this big breath - I can see his stomach rising, under the faded check cloth of his shirt. It's gone a nasty yellow around his neck and against the cuffs. My dad's shirts are always stiff and clean and white: you button him up all the way to his throat and there he is, locked up safe and going nowhere. But Grandpa Lived Through A War, so he wears things till they fall apart.
"All right, love?" he says now, and I nod.
"You don't want me to die in a field, do you?" he says, and I shake my head.
"You shouldn't listen to Hannah," I tell him. "She's always like that. Dad should have put her in an orphanage or something, instead of sending her here. She would have liked that, I expect," I add, virtuous, "since she doesn't want to live here".
Grandpa comes over and pats my shoulder. "Now, now," he says, in an absent sort of way. "No one's going to any orphanage."
1. What is the most important difference the author shows between Molly's dad and her grandpa in this section?
2. What does the word 'virtuous' suggest about Molly?
3. What does the metaphor 'locked up safe and going nowhere' suggest about Molly's dad?
But why not? If Dad could send us here, he could send us anywhere.
I go through the back door of the shop, into the hall and up the narrow stairs. The shop is part of Grandma and Grandpa's house, so all of their rooms are muddled: the kitchen is downstairs, next to the storeroom, but the living room is upstairs. At night, when I lie in bed, the light from the television flickers against the landing wall, and studio laughter plays across my dreams. Everything is darker here, and older. Nothing matches, so you'll have our old settee from Newcastle next to a high-backed red chair with feet like a lion. There's a dark wood bookcase, with glass doors, where Delia Smith and Dick Francis sit beside ancient cloth-bound books with gold and silver printed up the spine.
The room I have here was Auntie Meg's when she was my age. It's got horrible yellow wallpaper and a grown-up picture of a tree, and a yellowy sink in the corner that doesn't work. Some of my things are here my old bear Humphrey, my best books, my art things. But nearly all of my stuff is still at home, because we're not staying here for ever, just until Dad gets things Sorted Out.
1. What does the "muddled" and mismatched house symbolize?
2. What is the effect of the 'studio laughter plays across my dreams'?
3. Why does the author capitalize the phrase 'Sorted Out'?
Whenever that is.
I take dry clothes out of the wardrobe - blue jeans and my soft yellow jumper - but I don't put them on. I wrap my arms around them and stand by the window looking out over the garden. The rain is rat-a-tat-tat-ing on the roof and streaming down the windows. The trees are roaring with the wind in them, more like they're fighting now than talking.
"Listen"! Mum would say, if she was here. "There's a night with a devil in it."
It wouldn't be bad thing - the devil in the night - but something exciting. Mum loved thunder-and-rain-storms. If she was here now, like if we were staying with Grandpa and Grandma because it was a holiday maybe, we'd go out and jump in the puddles. Even Hannah would, probably
It's not dark yet, but you can tell that tonight isn't going to be fun. The sky is full of anger and the trees are raging like they want to kill someone. Standing here alone by the window, I almost believe in a devil in the rain.
1. Why does the author use phrases like "the trees are roaring" and "the sky is full of anger"?
2. What does Molly's memory of her mum saying 'There's a night with a devil in it' mainly reveal?
3. Why does Molly wrap her arms around her dry clothes instead of putting them on?
Inside, the house is full of fighting too. I can hear Hannah next door, crying. I can hear Grandma downstairs, her voice high and angry, and Grandpa, murmuring at her. I put on my dry clothes and climb into bed, pulling the funny old-fashioned quilt-and-blanket over my head. I get my book out and read, trying not to listen to the loneliness of being alone in a house full of noise. I'm reading Three Cheers, Secret Seven, which is Secret Seven book eight, so when I'm done I'll only need to read six more and I'll have read all the Famous Five and Secret Seven books there are.
Outside, the rain falls quieter now.
It's getting dark.
1. What is the main reason Molly reads her book at the end?
2. What does the phrase 'the loneliness of being alone in a house full of noise' mean?
3. What is the mood at the very end of the story, created by the line 'It's getting dark.'?