What about your future? Where will your imagination lead?

look
What about your future? Where
will your imagination lead?
Here you will read about the dreams
and aspirations of many different
people — from those who want to
make their communities a better place
to live to those interested in unusual
adventures. These stories may be your
inspiration for a future full of exciting
possibilities!
beyond

Moon
Maiden
ALISON BAIRD
Focus Your Learning
Reading this story will help you:
n identify the elements of fantasy
n experiment with language
n analyse character development
“Moon Maiden” © 1998 Alison Baird taken from What
If…? Amazing Stories. Selected by Monica Hughes
© 1998 published by Tundra Books.
214 Look Beyond
“You can’t do it, sis,” Matt had said. And
he had looked down his nose at her in his
maddening, superior way. Matt was no giant himself, but
it was easy to look down at Kate.
“Oh, yeah?” She’d glared up at her brother, hands on
hips. “Well, I don’t care what you think, I’m going.
What’s the point of winning a lunar study scholarship if
you don’t use it?”

It had been a hot and smoggy day, she remembered, with an
ultraviolet alert, so the two of them had been stuck indoors and Matt,
as usual, had taken out his boredom and frustration on Kate.
“One: you’re way too young—”
“I’m nearly fourteen!”
“Two: you’re a nitwit,” Matt had finished.
And that settled it. After that “nitwit,” no power in the universe
could have prevented Kate Iwasaki from embarking on the shuttle for
Luna Base.
But Matt had had a parting shot. “You’ll never spend half a year on
the Moon! You’ll end up going crazy, like all those loony Lunies.”
Kate had shivered at that; she’d heard about the moon-madness.
It started with hallucinations. Then you began talking to imaginary
people, even yelling and screaming at them, or sometimes recoiling
from invisible horrors. That was when the security guards came and
“escorted” you away. It was a fact of life on Luna Base; some people
just could not take the claustrophobic atmosphere: the isolation was
worse than on the most remote polar weather station or deep-sea lab
on Earth.
But Kate firmly pushed her fears aside. She was too sensible, too
scientific, to ever lose control like that—or so she told herself. “I’m
going, and that’s that,” she had declared, lifting her chin.
Now she smiled with satisfaction as the small lunar shuttle
carrying her and the other students planed low over the surface of the
Mare Tranquillitatis. Through the window she could see flat plains of
ash-coloured lunar soil—regolith, the instructor called it—strewn with
modest-sized impact craters, some no more than a decimeter across.
Not too impressive, Kate thought. She’d already been on much more
spectacular trips, to the giant craters Tycho and Copernicus, and to the
lunar mountain ranges, the Alps and Apennines. But this outing was
always the most popular. The shuttle’s interior was crammed to
capacity with eager students.
The spacecraft slowed and hovered briefly before setting down
gently on its four wide landing pods. The cabin ceased to thrum and
vibrate as the engines were cut, and a flashing light came on over each
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216 Look Beyond
air lock. The students all rose and shuffled down the aisle in their
cumbersome space suits, pulling on their helmets.
“All right, to the air locks, just four at a time now,” the instructor
told them as he checked their helmet seals. “And don’t stampede; form
proper lines.”
Kate managed to be one of the first in the air locks. She held her
breath as the metal door slid open, and all sound ceased with the
release of the air. When they climbed out, most of the kids bounced
around like demented kangaroos the minute they reached the surface.
Kate just stood looking up at the sunlit face of Earth, its blue-white
glow fifty times brighter than the brightest moonlight. Poor polluted
overcrowded Earth! No, she wasn’t in any great hurry to go back there.
With some difficulty the instructor managed to herd them all
together and direct them to their destination. At the sight of it, the
students began to babble with excitement.
Tranquillity Base. The flagpole—bent out of shape by the blast of
the Eagle’s engines when it had escaped back into space—had been
straightened to preserve the image of the site as it had appeared on the
old footage. But everything else was as it had been left: the descent
stage of the lunar module, the instruments, even the astronauts’
footprints. It was all surrounded by a towering steel wire fence topped
with surveillance cameras: no one must get too near, trample on the
sacred footprints of Armstrong and Aldrin, or carve their initials on the
plaque attached to the leg of the descent stage.
A hushed silence now fell as the words on the plaque were
quoted solemnly by the instructor: “Here men from the planet Earth
first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all
mankind.”
First set foot on the Moon. Kate wondered how those two men
must have felt when they first climbed out onto the lunar soil. Above
them had been the same jet-black sky and sunlit Earth, about them the
same barren, crater-strewn plain. But for those pioneering spacemen
there had been no emergency response teams, no Luna Base with its
decorative greenery and mall full of brightly-lit shops. No other living
thing—not so much as a microbe—had shared the grey wasteland with

them. The nearest human being had been the pilot in the orbiting
command service module, high above. All the rest of humanity had
been crowded into that cloud-swathed sphere nearly four hundred
thousand kilometers away. Other explorers would follow over the years
and feel that isolation in turn; but to be the first ... Kate shivered. First
to walk the grey solitudes, first to disturb the thick soft dust no wind
had ever lifted ... She realized suddenly that she had strayed somewhat
and was now some distance away from the others. She turned hastily
to rejoin them.
But there was a woman standing in the way.
Kate stared. It was not unusual for a stray tourist or maintenance
worker to be out here on the lunar surface. But this woman was
different.
She wasn’t wearing a space suit.
She stood there as though the moon’s airless surface were the most
natural place for her to be: a slender woman, Asian-featured, wearing a
kimono of some green silky material embroidered with flowers. There
were real flowers in her hair—shell-pink blossoms nestling among
ebony tresses piled neatly atop her head. About her neck there hung a
string of lustrous, cream-colored pearls. The gaze of her large brown
eyes was cool, solemn, and direct.
There were no footprints behind her, nor were there any shadows
on the grey ground at her feet.
Kate’s breath boomed like thunder inside her helmet. Her mouth
was dry as a bone. The gravity that allowed the other students to leap
and bound around the steel fence seemed to be binding her to the
ground. As she stared helplessly, the woman in the green kimono
approached. There was no smile of welcome on the delicate features;
her expression was sombre, her tread light but purposeful as she drew
closer to Kate.
Kate longed desperately for something to break the spell. But
fear and disbelief immobilized her. The pale woman was almost
touching her; an arm in a long, flowing sleeve reached out toward
Kate’s faceplate. It stopped before actually making contact, the white
hand raised in a gesture of ... command? Entreaty? Kate could not
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218 Look Beyond
take her eyes from the woman’s; they were as deep as shadows, their
gaze calm and compelling. She was willing Kate to do something.
But what?
The hand gestured again. Open your faceplate, it said, as plain as
speech.
Kate tried to swallow and couldn’t.
Open it—let me touch you ...
“No,” Kate whispered. But it was only a croak.
The woman who was not—could not—really be there gazed at
Kate steadily. The embroidered flowers upon her pale-green robe stood
out in precise and minute detail, real as the harshly-lit moon rocks, the
granular patterns in the soil. Without speaking, the woman commanded
her again. Her will reached out across the airless space like a lightning
bolt arcing from cloud to cloud.
Raise your faceplate—now.
“Kate? KATE?”
At the sound of the voice, jarringly loud inside her helmet, Kate
moved at last—straight upward, in a leap that would have cleared an
Olympic high jump back on Earth. She spun, arms flailing, before
falling slowly back to the lunar surface.
“Kate? Did I startle you? Sorry.” It was the instructor; he was
standing over her, peering out through his faceplate with a mixture of
amusement and concern. Kate scrambled to her feet, grateful for his
timely interruption—then she went rigid again, her heart hammering.
The woman was still there, standing a few paces away.
The instructor couldn’t see her.
Kate spoke with an effort. “I ... I was just ... daydreaming. And I
...” Her voice faded away, for the woman was gliding silently toward
her again, her eyes intent.
“We’re heading back to the base now,” the instructor told her.
She hastily joined him, springing along at his side. She wondered
wildly for a moment if the ghostly woman would follow, join them in
the shuttle’s cramped interior, disembark with them, and wander
about in the brightly lit mall ...
But a glance over her shoulder showed her only the flat and

empty plain. The green-robed figure had vanished as though it had
never been there at all.
“Want to come to the VR-cade with us, Kate?” one of the boys asked.
“They’ve got some great new games.”
Kate whirled, startled, to face the other students. “What? Oh ...
no, thanks. I think I’ll just go to my quarters—I’m kind of tired.”
“See you later then.” The other kids moved away through the
Lunar Mall in a noisy chattering group, gliding gracefully in the weak
gravity. Kate was left alone.
She walked on through the mall in a daze. It starts with
hallucinations, she thought. Matt had been right; she was going moonmad.
Only a crazy would come here to live, people on Earth said:
social misfits, loners, eccentrics of all kinds—they ended up here, like
a kind of flotsam cast up from Earth. Loony Lunies! But why should
she suffer from moon-madness? She had only been here for three Earth
months, and she’d been enjoying every minute of it. Now she recalled,
with a pulse of horror, the woman in the strange robe with its intricate
pattern of long-petalled flowers embroidered on the green material.
They intruded on her vision, for a terrifying instant were clearer than
the scene of shops and pedestrians around her.
No—go away!
She realized in alarm that she had almost said it out loud.
So much for sensible, scientific Kate Iwasaki! she thought bitterly.
I’ll have to go to the counsellor now, and he’Il ship me home on the
next shuttle. She looked fearfully at the other shoppers. Surely they
must see how tense and obviously agitated she was. She thought one
or two of them looked at her oddly as they passed, and she hastily
turned toward a storefront, pretending to admire the wares on display.
It was Ramachandra’s gift shop. She’d often paused to gaze at the
items in its display case, all beyond her own modest price range. Most
souvenirs here were tacky and cheap: plastic models of shuttles or
moon rocks with “A gift from Luna Base” emblazoned on them in gold
letters. But Mr. Ramachandra sold quality goods. Loveliest of all were
the little sculptures which he made himself: graceful figures and animal
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220 Look Beyond
shapes that seemed to quiver with life. Kate pretended to examine one
now, an elegant figure of a woman with a hunting bow in her hands.
The string was of gold wire, the arrow poised and ready for flight. A
hound stood at the woman’s side, eager, ready to spring.
“Artemis, Goddess of the Moon,” said a voice in her ear.
She looked up, and to her embarrassment found herself staring
into the face of Mr. Ramachandra himself: an elderly Indian man, with
white hair wisping around a bald, nut-brown scalp. He was attired, as
always, in an outrageous many-colored robe adorned with bits of
flashing mirror that glittered as he moved. His eyes were darkest
brown, the colour of black coffee.
She realized to her dismay that she was on the verge of tears, and
that Mr. Ramachandra knew it.
“Something is wrong,” he said in an undertone, making it a
statement of fact rather than a question.
Kate gulped a lungful of air, furious with herself. “It’s nothing,”
she managed to say, but the answer rang false even in her own ears.
“Oh, dear. That kind of nothing.” He waved to a door at the back
of his shop. “I was just going to have a cup of tea. Will you join me?
Tea can be an excellent restorative.”
She didn’t really want to join him, but it was either that, or risk
bawling in public like an idiot. If I’m going to have to leave Luna
Base, at least let me do it with some dignity, she thought, and
followed Mr. Ramachandra into the back room. It was small and
cluttered, with half-finished figurines of stone, wood, or clay sitting
on the shelves.
“I’ll just put the kettle on,” said Mr. Ramachandra. “There. Now
perhaps you’d like to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing really. I’m just going crazy, is all,” she replied,
smiling wanly.
“If so you’re in the right place. Only a lunatic would go to the
Moon. We are all a little bit odd, we Lunies, wouldn’t you agree?”
“This is more than just being odd. I’ve got moon-madness.” Tears
welled in her eyes, and she blinked, hard. “Hallucinations and
everything. They’ll have to send me back home.”

“What sort of hallucinations are you having?”
In a few short sentences she told him. It was easy to talk of it in
here, with the kettle on the stove and the workroom all around her,
small and cluttered and normal. Mr. Ramachandra raised his white
eyebrows when she had finished.
“Curious,” he said. He rose and went to the kettle, which was
already shrieking for attention. He glanced at her thoughtfully over his
shoulder. “You’re Japanese, aren’t you, Kate?” he added abruptly as he
filled a teapot, waiting patiently as the water, slowed by the low
gravity, slid down the kettle’s spout like ketchup.
“Canadian, actually,” she corrected.
“But you are Japanese by descent, am I right?”
“Yes,” she admitted, wondering where this was leading.
“Curious,” he said again. He settled in his chair as the tea
steeped. “Are you familiar with Japanese folklore and legends?”
“Not really, I’m more into science.”
“Then you’ll not be familiar with the old tale of the maiden of the
Moon?” She shook her head and he continued, a faraway look in his
eyes, “There was once an old couple in long-ago Japan, who yearned
for a child of their own. One day when the husband was cutting
bamboo, he found a tiny human infant, a little girl, tucked away in
one of the hollow stems. He and his wife raised this girl-child, and she
grew into a beautiful maiden. But she would not marry any of the
wealthy men who came to ask for her hand in marriage. She explained
that she was a magical being, a child of the Moon, and one day she
would have to return to her own people in the moon-world. And,
indeed, there came a night when a company of glorious spirit people
descended upon a moonbeam, and they bore the lovely moon-maiden
away with them into the sky as her foster parents watched in sorrow.”
His coffee-coloured eyes looked deep into hers. “You’re quite sure
you’ve never heard this story?”
Kate hesitated. “Pretty sure.” She had, in fact, no recollection of it
whatsoever.
“And yet your hallucination, as you call it, seems strongly
reminiscent of it. Moon-people. Elegant spirit beings in a lunar realm.
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222 Look Beyond
It almost makes one wonder if there might not be a kind of ancestral
memory, or ...”
“Or what?”
“Or perhaps what you saw was—real.”
She stared. He’s the crazy one, not me, she thought.
“The Moon,” Ramachandra continued as he poured the tea into
two large mugs, “the Moon is many things. It is a home for us, and a
provider of useful resources. But it is also a place of myth and
fable—a repository of dreams, if you will.” His own face took on a
dreamy look. “A land about which myths have been woven is a
haunted place. How haunted must the Moon be, which hangs in the
sky for all to see, which all cultures have held in common since the
dawn of time!
“Among these empty wastes dwells the Chinese goddess Chang’o,
in the form of an immortal toad; and the Man in the Moon wanders
about with his bundle of sticks on his back and his faithful dog at his
side; and the Maori woman Rona, exiled here after cursing the moongod,
gazes longingly at the Earth to which she can never return. For us
Hindus, the Moon is associated with Soma, god of the sacred plant
that brings ecstasy to mortals. I have felt positively blissful ever since I
first arrived here.
“Now perhaps Mr. Ramachandra’s mind is only making him
believe that he feels the presence of the god. Perhaps that is the
explanation. And then again,” he added, with an impish smile,
“perhaps it isn’t.”
She stared at him over her steaming mug. “What are you
saying—that all those things are real?”
He answered with a question of his own. “Why did you come to
Luna Base?”
She shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to see the Moon. It’s always
interested me.”
“How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said irritably. “Is it important?”
“It might be.” Mr Ramachandra sipped his tea and stared into
space. “The original moon landings, now—why did those astronauts

come here? It was quite pointless, from a scientific standpoint. It had
already been demonstrated that automated machines could do the
same thing more cheaply and with no risk to human life. But we are a
romantic and impractical species, we humans.”
Kate made a dismissive gesture. “My dad said it was all done for
political reasons.”
“The space race was, yes. But the desire to walk upon the
Moon—that goes back further to the old myths and legends, to
dreamers like Jules Verne. That is why the world watched and held its
breath in 1969. And that is why some of us come here—not the
tourists, who only want to do what the neighbours haven’t done, to
take pictures and jump higher than on Earth. No, it is the Moon of
myth and magic that calls people like you and me.”
“But if the woman I saw was ... real, then everyone else should
have seen her too,” Kate argued.
“Maybe not, if it was a spirit you saw.” He put down his mug
and waved his arms about vaguely. “The spirit realm is everywhere,
but it is not like our physical reality. It is different for each one of us,
or so I believe.”
Kate looked away. “I ... would rather she wasn’t real. You see, she
wants me dead.”
“Why do you say that?”
Kate rose and began to pace the little room. “She wanted me to
open up my faceplate. To let all my air out, and die. She wanted that. I
could see it, in her eyes.”
“But you don’t know why she would want such a thing?”
“No! That’s just it. Why? What’s it all about?” She was almost
shouting now.
Mr. Ramachandra’s voice and gaze remained calm. “Why don’t
you ask her?”
Kate stood tensely inside the main air lock, listening to her own short,
sharp breaths. She’d have to be quick: students weren’t allowed out on
their own. The metal door slid open; there was a hiss of expelled air;
and dust grains danced briefly before settling again. Before her lay
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224 Look Beyond
smooth grey ground surrounded by barren hills: the desolate grandeur
of the Taurus-Littrow Valley.
Kate drew a deep breath and leaped out of the air lock.
She bounded down the length of the valley, halting only when
the safe comforting glow of the base was far behind her. A huge, greywhite
boulder sprawled up ahead, casting a long shadow under the
harsh sun. Kate paused next to it, and waited.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Where are you?”
Nothing stirred. The valley was empty, as it had been for billions
of years. Kate turned slowly, scanning the hills, the drab grey ground.
And then, quite suddenly, she noticed the tree.
It was no more than a few moon-strides away on the valley’s flat
floor, growing where nothing should be able to grow: a slender sapling
covered in sharp-pointed leaves. As she stared at it, leaves and
branches stirred, as though bending to the whim of a wind. The little
tree bowed and swayed before her, offering no explanation for itself, a
green intrusion on the moonscape.
Kate swallowed hard. Hallucinations again. She missed the Earth,
with its green growing things, that was all. But the tree did not fade as
she approached it. It looked so real. She must try to touch it, prove to
herself that it wasn’t actually there...
And then she halted in midstride, for the shapes of other trees
were appearing all around her. Insubstantial at first, like smoke or
shadow, their spindly forms solidified as she watched. The grey land
around her bore a blush of green. Above her, blossoms hung amid the
stars, clustering on the half-seen boughs of some flowering tree. She
whirled. The great grey boulder was still there, but now its rugged
sides were mottled with moss and lichen and surrounded by largefronded
ferns. The other rocks also remained where they had been,
but they had changed. Random moon-rubble no longer, they formed
part of a garden whose lush greenery they complemented, as if by
design. A large, ornamental pond spread before her, a mirror for black
sky and blue Earth; beside it stood a squat stone lantern, its peaked
roof sheltering a flame that danced as it fed upon some other, alien air.
Then Kate saw the woman.

She was walking along the far side of the pool. Her jet-black
hair now streamed loosely upon her shoulders, teased by the same
wind that played in the little tree, and her robe was white. Where she
walked, grass sprang from the regolith; it did not so much sprout as
suddenly appear, as though her presence called it into being. And
there was a path beneath her feet, a path lit by stone lanterns that
ran winding into the hills beyond—hills that were rocky and barren
no longer. On one jade-green summit there rose pagoda-roofed
towers, their windows glowing warmly against the black sky.
The white-clad woman was now close enough to touch. Kate’s
blood turned to ice, but she held her ground. The woman raised one
hand, gesturing gracefully.
Suddenly Kate understood.
She was being invited to join the woman: to go with her up the
winding curves of that lamplit path, up into the hills that were empty no
more. Up to the palace with its shining towers. There would be music
and warmth within, and light and laughter; and something more, more
than any of these things, something for which her heart hungered ...
Kate set a booted foot upon the path, mesmerized. She would go.
She would enter that palace, that place of light where a welcome
awaited her. All that came between her and that realm was this heavy,
cumbersome suit that she wore. It held her back, anchored her to the
dead realm of the airless waste. She could cast it off, set it aside, be
freed forever from the need for it.
Freed ...
Understanding came to Kate in a blinding flash, and she halted
in the middle of her second step. The woman in white turned to her,
eyes inquiring. Kate made herself meet those deep tranquil eyes,
boldly and directly.
“No,” she said.
The sound of her voice could not reach the woman. Or could it?
The dark eyes widened, the hovering hand fell. The woman faced her,
eyes steady and intense, imposing her will.
“No,” Kate said again, more forcefully. “I want to stay here. Here.
Do you understand? I’m not going with you!”
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226 Look Beyond
The woman stared at her, first with gentle puzzlement, then with
comprehension, which broke upon her face like a wave. For the first
time her deep eyes smiled. She shook her head and laughed
soundlessly. Then, in an instant, she was gone.
With her went all the life and colour of that other world. Trees and
shrubbery wisped away to nothingness; the Earth-reflecting pool rippled
away like a heat mirage, and there in its place was the dry, grey ground.
The far hills were bare and lifeless once more, the lofty towers bowed
and faded. Of the garden only the boulders remained, forlorn as bare
bones. Kate was alone once more. Her eyes misted, but only briefly.
She drew a sharp, shuddering breath. And headed back through
the silent valley to Luna Base.
Mr. Ramachandra was modelling clay in his workshop. When he
glanced up and saw Kate standing in the doorway, he smiled but said
nothing, his fingers continuing to pinch and stroke the clay.
“I confronted her,” she blurted.
He put the clay down. “Ah.”
“You were right,” said Kate. “Everything was all right. She didn’t
mean me any harm; she only wanted me to join her, in her world. I
think she believed I wanted to. When I looked in her eyes, it was as
though she understood. I don’t think I’ll ever see her again.”
He tilted his head to one side, considering. “No, I don’t suppose
you will.”
“So, what happened out there? Was she real? Or did it all just
happen inside my head? Was I moon-mad, and did going out there
cure me?”
He looked thoughtful. “If I were making up a story, I would say
that your spirit came from the Moon; that you inhabited this sphere
long before you were born in a human body. And that is why you
longed for the Moon, like the maiden in the folktale, why you came
here as soon as you had the chance. It was a homecoming, if you will.
But you realized that to return to your spirit life, you would have to
leave your human, physical life behind, together with your family and
friends down on Earth. And you couldn’t make yourself do that.”

He rose and went to a shelf, taking from it a small figurine, which
he held out to her. Kate stared at it: a woman in a flowing kimono,
standing upon a base that curved like the crescent moon. “It’s
beautiful,” she said shyly.
“It is the moon maiden from the story.”
She reached out, ran a finger over the exquisite folds of the robe,
the flying hair. “How ... how much are you asking for it?”
He pressed the little figurine into her hands. “Consider it a gift,”
he said. “I do not charge my friends.”
She thanked him, stammering a little, then met his dark brown
eyes again. “You know, that was really dangerous, sending me out
onto the surface all by myself. I might’ve cracked ... flipped open my
faceplate, or something. What made you so sure I’d be all right?”
He said nothing, but continued to gaze at her, calmly and
confidently, a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“Thanks,” she said awkwardly.
Then she turned and walked away, the moon maiden clutched in
her hands.
Activities
1. As a class, discuss the characteristics of a fantasy. Take notes during
your discussion. Then, individually, prove in note form that “Moon
Maiden” is a fantasy.
2. Identify the main characters in this story. For each of them, write
three similes that capture their personalities or roles in the story.
3. Write Kate’s diary entry in which she explains what she has learned
from her experience on the moon, why she was tempted to join the
woman in white, and why she did not go with her.
Look Beyond 227

Project, based on growth patterns in U.S. rap sales,
what rap sales will be like in the year 2000. Write a
paragraph justifying your response with information
from the graph or your broader experience.
994 41.1 million units
995 42 million
996 56 million
997 62 million
U.S. Rap Sales
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
RAP:
1997 4.8% of record sales
1998 5.5%
R&B
1997 6.6%
Canadian Sales
1998 5.8%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
228 Look Beyond
The rise and rise of rap
Choose a cause that you believe in strongly and
create a logo that communicates not only the name
of the organization but something of its philosophy.

Read the quotations on this
spread. Decide on one small thing
that you can do to improve your
world. Share your commitment
with the class.
Write or find an inspirational
message that you think is
especially compelling. Contribute
your message to a class bulletin
board. Read all messages and
choose your favourite. Write an
explanation of why it is your
favourite.
So the United Nations appointed a World Commission on Environment
and Development which produced the famous report called Our Common
Future which set out the idea of Sustainable Development. This means:
Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their needs...
Get it?—Feed the world today but leave a planet around for your
great grandchildren.
Agata Pawlat, 17, Poland
The greatest challenge of both our time and the next
century is to save the planet from destruction. It will
require changing the very foundations of modern
civilization—the relationship of humans to nature.
Mikhail Gorbachev
As chairman of the Space Sub-committee in the
Senate, I strongly urged the establishment of a
Mission to Planet Earth, a worldwide
monitoring system staffed by children ...
designed to rescue the global environment.
Albert Gore Jnr.
Note: Quotes are from Rescue Mission,
Planet Earth, A Children’s Edition of
Agenda 21 published after the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Look Beyond 229

The Adventurous Life of
John Goddard
STUART MCLEAN
When John Goddard was fifteen years
old, he sat down one night with a
red pencil, a blue pen and a yellow legal
pad and made a list of things he wanted
to do before he died.
His list began just the way you might
expect:
• Become an Eagle Scout.
• Broad jump fifteen feet.
• Make a parachute jump.
• Dive in a submarine.
• Learn ju-jitsu.
The more the boy wrote, the more his
imagination took hold. The list soon left the
realm of idle daydreams and entered the
world of serious adolescent fantasy:
Focus Your Learning
Reading this article will help you:
n scan text for information
n create an advertisement
n set goals and develop strategies for achieving
those goals
230 Look Beyond
• Milk a poisonous snake.
• Light a match with a 22.
• Watch a fire-walking ceremony in
Surinam.
• Watch a cremation ceremony in Bali.
And it didn’t stop there. As young
Goddard continued his list, his vision
expanded and showed signs of the grand
adventurer he was going to grow up to be:

• Explore the Amazon.
• Swim in Lake Tanganyika.
• Climb the Matterhorn.
• Retrace the travels of Marco Polo and
Alexander the Great.
• Visit every country in the world.
The ideas poured onto the page and at
some point took a sharp turn in tone. As
Goddard added to his list, he displayed an
academic sophistication well beyond his
fifteen years:
• Read the works of Shakespeare, Plato,
Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Rousseau,
Hemingway, Twain, Burroughs, Talmage,
Tolstoy, Longfellow, Keats, Poe, Bacon,
Whittier and Emerson.
• Become familiar with the compositions of
Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, Ibert,
Mendelssohn, Lalo, Milhaud, Ravel,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi,
Rachmaninoff, Paganini, Stravinsky,
Toch, Tchaikovsky, Verdi.
• Read the Bible from cover to cover.
• Play the flute and the violin.
When he put his pens down, there were
127 items on Goddard’s list.
Well. Yes.
We have all taken a stab at this sort of
thing at one time or another. The
extraordinary difference between John
Goddard and the rest of us, however, is the
unsettling fact that Goddard didn’t throw
his list out. Nor did he chuck it into the
bottom of a drawer. He kept his list in plain
sight and set out to complete every item
line by line. Today Goddard has check
marks beside 108 of his original 127 goals.
And that includes all of the items
mentioned above.
Well, that’s not exactly true. There are
still thirty odd countries that he hasn’t
visited. But he is working on that.
I first read about John Goddard in Life
magazine when I was a teenager. It was in
one of those articles at the back of the
magazine in a section called the “Parting
Shots.” The article stuck in my mind (How
could I forget it?) and I always hoped I
would get a chance to talk to him. Fifteen
years later I sat down with his phone
number in front of me and called him at his
home in La Cañada, California. I wanted to
talk to him, I explained, about the list I had
seen so long ago in Life. I wanted to know
if he was still working on it. Yes, he was.
Did he remember what had inspired him to
write it? John Goddard chuckled.
I think what motivated me to write the list
was listening to some family friends who
were visiting with my parents. They had
been over for dinner and were helping to
clear the dishes. I was doing my homework
in a little alcove, a sort of breakfast nook.
The man of the family, a Dr. Keller, looked
at me and said to my parents, ‘I’d give
anything to be John’s age again. I really
would do things differently. I would set out
Look Beyond 231

and accomplish more of the dreams
of my youth.’ That was the gist of his
conversation—if only he could start over—
and I thought, here’s a man only forty-two
years old, and he is feeling life has passed
him by, and I thought, if I start planning
now, and really work on my goals, I won’t
end up that way.
Almost fifty years have passed since
John Goddard wrote out his life goals. He
is now in his mid-sixties. But the day we
spoke, he was busy preparing for a trip to
the North Pole—one half of goal number
54, which is to visit both the North and the
South poles. Another check mark. I spoke
to John Goddard for almost two hours, and
we talked about many things. I asked him
if he remembered the day he wrote the list.
I remember it vividly because it was such
a rite of passage for me. It was a rainy
Sunday afternoon in 1941. Until that
time I really hadn’t crystallized all my
ambitions and hopes and dreams.
Writing them down was the first act in
achieving them. You know, when you
write something down with the sincere
intent of doing it, it’s a commitment. A
lot of us fail to do that. We don’t set
deadlines and say, for example, by June
of 1990 I’m going to have checked out in
scuba, taken a rock climbing course and
learned how to play the piano. The
moment of writing it down is vivid in
my mind because that was my formal
232 Look Beyond
commitment to that life list. And I felt
I would give myself a lifetime to fulfil
everything on it.
One of Goddard’s early challenges was
an expedition by kayak down the longest
river on earth—the 4,000-mile Nile. He was
the first person in the world to travel the
length of the river from the headwaters to
the Mediterranean. He took a bank loan to
finance the trip and then paid off the loan
by writing a book about his adventures. He
sold the book on the lecture circuit. And
that’s the way he has made his living ever
since. Goddard supports himself through his
lectures, his books, and the sale of his films
and tapes. He is not a wealthy man.
I asked him if he had ever been in any
physical danger. He told me of the time he
was lost in a sand storm in the Sudan, and
couldn’t put up a tent because the wind
was blowing so hard. But he couldn’t sit
still because if he had stopped moving, he
would have been buried alive. He told me
about the time he had been shot at by river
pirates in Egypt. Later I read that he had
also been bitten by a rattlesnake, charged
by an elephant, trapped in quicksand, been
in more than one plane crash and caught in
more than one earthquake.
Sometimes I go on and on about a
hazardous drive my family and I had one
winter between Montreal and Toronto. It
was snowing more than usual, the driving
was tough, and there were a lot of cars off

the road. There was also a service centre
every fifty-odd miles, lots of snow-ploughs
and plenty of people to help out if I had
got in trouble. Nevertheless, when I tell
the story of the drive I can make it sound
pretty dramatic.
Imagine being able to start a story with
“Exploring the Congo was difficult....”
Exploring the Congo was difficult. It took
me six months and resulted in the loss of
life of my partner, Jack Yowell from Kenya.
Four hundred miles downstream we had a
disaster when we both capsized on a raging
stretch of rapids. It was the 125th set of
rapids, and we were paddling fragile 60pound,
16-foot kayaks. He got swept to the
left and flipped over, and racing over to
help him I got flipped over, too, and nearly
drowned myself. I tried to fight to the
surface and banged into the river bottom.
The river was so turbulent I couldn’t really
tell which way the surface was, and I was
Activities
1. Scan the article to find advice that
John Goddard gives about setting and
achieving goals. Find three different
pieces of advice and record them in a
paragraph.
2. Imagine John Goddard is coming to speak
in your community. Make a poster or
advertisement to attract an audience.
drowning because I was under the water an
interminable time. I think the thing that
saved me was the fact that I could hold my
breath for three minutes in an emergency. I
was finally washed to calm water and ran
along the banks desperately trying to find
Jack. I couldn’t see him anywhere. Then
suddenly a box of matches came floating
by, then his pipe, overturned kayak and
aluminum paddle, but no Jack. It was very
difficult to go on and travel the remaining
2,300 miles to the Atlantic. But we had
promised one another if one of us did die
on the upper river that the survivor would
continue and finish the expedition for both
of us. So I fulfilled that promise.
John Goddard still has a lot of things left
on his list, but at age sixty-four he is in good
shape and determined to keep at it. He does
one hundred sit-ups every morning, works
out on cables and weights and rides a
stationary bike at least six miles a day.
3. John Goddard had 127 items on his
list of things he wanted to accomplish
before he died. Make your own list with
a minimum of 50 items. Select three
goals from your list that you feel are
attainable this school year. For each of
these three goals, explain how you plan
to achieve it.
Look Beyond 233

Focus Your Learning
Studying this poem
will help you:
n identify irony and
playful uses of
language
n identify slang,
colloquialism,
and jargon
n present a choral
reading
234 Look Beyond
e.e. cummings
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added
my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and

died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scrumptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
Activities
1. As a class, discuss what we mean when we call someone a “sunny
character.” What are the advantages of an optimistic view of life?
Are there any disadvantages? Explain.
2. In a short-answer response, explain the irony in this poem. Consider
Uncle Sol’s name as well as the events that befall him.
3. Work with a partner to prepare a choral reading of this poem. Before
you begin, find examples of slang, colloquialism, and jargon, and
decide how you are going to present them in your reading. Try to
communicate the humour of this poem as you read.
Look Beyond 235

Tar Beach (Woman on a Beach Series #1) 1988 Faith Ringgold
David Heald, © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
236 Look Beyond

“After deciding to be an artist, the first thing that
I had to believe was that I, a Black woman, could
penetrate the art scene and that I could do so
without sacrificing one iota of my Blackness or
my femaleness, or my humanity.”
– Faith Ringgold
Focus Your Learning
Studying this painting will help you:
n describe your response to a visual
n write a dialogue
Activities
1. Write a detailed description of what you see in this visual.
Record your response on a graphic organizer that allows
you to list your response according to your five senses.
2. Write a dialogue between the two children on the blanket.
What are they doing on the “tar beach”? How do they feel?
What is their feeling about family life?
Look Beyond 237

Demeter and
Persephone CELIA BARKER LOTTRIDGE
Focus Your Learning
Reading this myth will help you:
n compare myths across
cultures
n share and compare
responses
n write a myth and present it
as a picture book
238 Look Beyond
Demeter was the goddess who loved the earth.
While most of the gods spent their days on
Mount Olympus in the company of other gods, Demeter
loved to wander the fields and forests, visiting the country
people who offered her hospitality. They knew that the
simply-dressed woman with the golden eyes and golden hair
must be one of the immortals, because of the nobility of her
bearing and the wisdom in her face.
She had a daughter who was her heart’s joy. As Demeter
loved the fields of grain and the trees laden with fruit, so her
daughter Persephone loved flowers and the spring time. Her
step was light and her smile was like sunshine.
Hades, lord of the underworld, saw Persephone and fell
in love with her. Although his palace was built of gold and
its walls were rich with precious stones, it was dark and
gloomy. Hades longed for the brightness and joy that
Persephone would bring to his kingdom, so he went to Zeus
and asked for her as his bride. Zeus did not want to offend
his older brother, but he knew that Demeter would never
agree to send her daughter to the underworld. So if he did
not forbid Hades to marry Persephone, he did not approve of
it, either. Hades saw that Zeus would not stand against him,
so he proceeded with his plan.
Persephone was gathering flowers in a meadow one day
when a golden chariot drawn by four coal-black horses burst
through a crevasse in the earth. The driver of the chariot

grasped the girl by her wrist and pulled her into the chariot beside
him, before he turned his horses and plunged again into the earth.
Only a few crushed blossoms remained to show that Persephone had
been there.
When Demeter came looking for her daughter, of course she
could not find her. For nine days she wandered, asking all she met if
they had seen Persephone. At last, a story told by a country man gave
her the dreadful suspicion that her beloved daughter had been taken
into the underworld. She went to Helios the sun, who sees everything,
and demanded to hear the truth.
When Helios told her that Persephone had been taken by Hades
to be his queen, Demeter’s anger knew no bounds. She left Olympus
and walked barefoot on the earth, her hair dishevelled, mourning her
loss. And the earth, which had been so dear to her, became desolate.
The goddess forbade the fields and the trees to bear. Streams dried up;
and dust blew in the hot wind. Ploughs could not cut the fields, and
seeds that were scattered did not grow. People began to starve; and the
beloved goddess who had been their friend walked among them
unrecognized, for her eyes were blank, her gown tattered, and her
body bent with grief.
Zeus sent one god after another to plead with her, but Demeter
would not hear any of them. “Until my daughter is returned to me, the
earth will show the sorrow in my heart,” she said.
Zeus, the Father of Heaven, knew he could not let the earth die.
He also knew that Persephone, the eternally young, did not belong in
the underworld. So he called Hermes, the messenger of the gods, who
guides the souls of the dead to their new home, and said, “Go to
Hades. Tell him that he must allow Persephone to return to Demeter.
He must let her go—unless she has eaten any of the food of the dead.
If she has done that, she must remain below the earth.”
And so Hermes found Hades sitting on his gloomy throne and
told him what Zeus had said. Hades knew he had no choice and he
called for Persephone, his queen. She came with her head bent and
her steps dragging; but Hermes saw that even in her misery she
brought brightness and warmth to that cold metal palace, and he
knew why Hades wanted her.
Look Beyond 239

240 Look Beyond
When Persephone heard that Hermes had come to take her away
from there, her eyes brightened and colour came into her pale cheeks.
But Hades said, “If you have eaten anything during your time here you
cannot leave, for no one can eat the food of the dead and return to live
on earth.” Persephone said nothing; but as she left Hades’ palace one
of the gardeners cried out that he had seen her eat four seeds from a
pomegranate, the fruit of the dead.
Demeter greeted her daughter with great joy, and in all the
desolate world the sap began to rise again. But Persephone confessed
that she had indeed eaten the pomegranate seeds, and that Hades
would finally claim her. Then Zeus saw that he must act to stop death
from overtaking the earth. Equally, the old days of endless spring and
summer could be no more.
He spoke to both Demeter and Hades. “Because Persephone ate
four seeds in the underworld, she will spend four months of the year
with Hades. But always she will return to her mother Demeter to bring
flowers and brightness to the earth.” And Demeter and Hades and
Persephone knew that this was the way it would be.
Demeter sorrowed that Persephone would be in a world so far
from the light for so long each year. But now her sorrow did not
overwhelm her. She looked at the dry, barren earth and the golden
light of love came into her eyes once more. She began to walk the
fields and groves again, and again they flourished.
Activities
1. Work in groups to compare the Greek myth of Demeter and
Persephone with another myth from any other culture describing a
natural phenomenon. From your comparison, draw up a list of
characteristics of myth. Share your findings with the class.
2. Using the characteristics of myth, write your own myth or retell in
your own words a myth that you know. Prepare the myth as a picture
book for primary or junior-level children. If possible share your
completed book with a student of the appropriate age.

What a Certain
Visionary Once Said
TOMSON HIGHWAY
Focus Your Learning
Reading this essay will
help you:
n identify visual
images that create
mood and reinforce
meaning
n experiment with
language
Mystic Moose by Ray Keighley
As you travel north from Winnipeg, the
flatness of the prairie begins to give
way. And the northern forests begin to take
over, forests of spruce and pine and poplar
and birch. The northern rivers and northern
rapids, the waterfalls, the eskers, the
northern lakes—thousands of them—with
their innumerable islands encircled by
golden-sand beaches and flat limestone
surfaces that slide gracefully into water. As
you travel farther north, the trees
themselves begin to diminish in height
and size. And get smaller, until, finally,
you reach the barren lands. It is from
these reaches that herds of caribou in
the thousands come thundering down
each winter. It is here that you find trout
and pickerel and pike and whitefish in
profusion. If you’re here in August, your
eyes will be glutted with a sudden
Look Beyond 241

explosion of colour seldom seen in any
southern Canadian landscape: fields of wild
raspberries, cloud berries, blueberries,
cranberries, stands of wild flowers you
never believed such remote northern terrain
was capable of nurturing. And the water is
still so clean you can dip your hand over
the side of your canoe and you can drink it.
In winter, you can eat the snow, without
fear. In both winter and summer, you can
breathe, this is your land, your home.
Here, you can begin to remember that
you are a human being. And if you take the
time to listen—really listen—you can begin
to hear the earth breathe. And whisper
things simple men, who never suspected
they were mad, can hear. Madmen who
speak Cree, for one, can in fact understand
the language this land speaks, in certain
circles. Which would make madmen who
speak Cree a privileged lot.
Then you seat yourself down on a carpet
of reindeer moss and you watch the
movements of the sky, filled with stars and
galaxies of stars by night, streaked by
Activities
1. List the vocabulary used in this essay
that strikes you as being particularly
vivid and effective. What impression of
the landscape does this vocabulary
create? How does this impression
242 Look Beyond
endlessly shifting cloud formations by day.
You watch the movements of the lake
which, within one hour, can change from a
surface of glass to one of waves so massive
in their fury they can—and have—killed
many a man. And you begin to understand
that men and women can, within maybe
not one hour but one day, change from a
mood of reflective serenity and self-control
to one of depression and despair so deep
they can—and have—killed many a man.
You begin to understand that this earth
we live on—once thought insensate,
inanimate, dead, by scientists, theologians
and such—has an emotional, psychological
and spiritual life every bit as complex as
that of the most complex, sensitive and
intelligent of individuals.
And it’s ours. Or is it?
A certain ancient aboriginal visionary of
this country once said: “We have not
inherited this land, we have merely
borrowed it from our children.”
If that’s the case, what a loan!
Eh?
reinforce the message of the essay?
Share your views with your group.
2. Write a paragraph describing a landscape
that you know. Make your language as
richly descriptive as you can.

This poem is intended to be
read aloud by two people. One
person reads the lines on the
left, the other those on the right.
When the two lines are the
same, read them together.
Focus Your Learning
Studying this poem for two
voices will help you:
n share ideas and information
n present a choral reading
n write a poem
Paul Fleischman
We were counted not in
nor
but in
thousands
millions
billions. billions.
stars stars
As grains of
sand sand
at the sea
We were numerous as the
in the heavens
As the
buffalo buffalo
When we burst into flight
that the
sun sun
was darkened
on the plains.
we so filled the sky
and
Look Beyond 243

244 Look Beyond
day day
became dusk.
Humblers of the sun Humblers of the sun
we were! we were!
The world
inconceivable inconceivable
Yet it’s 1914,
and here I am
alone alone
the last
without us.
caged in the Cincinnati Zoo,
of the passenger pigeons.
Activities
1. As a class, discuss which North American
animals have become endangered or extinct.
What has been the cause of these
environmental problems?
2. Work with a partner to prepare a choral reading
of this poem. Follow the instructions at the start
of the poem, and be sure to read with
appropriate expression.
3. Write a poem about an animal or bird that is
extinct or endangered. You might wish to work
with a partner to write a poem for two (or more)
voices.

“Gwaii Haanas” was inspired by a
trip to Burnaby Narrows in Gwaii
Haanas, then known as South
Moresby. A campaign to preserve
the area has resulted in the island
being managed equally by the
Haida nation and the federal parks
department.
Focus Your Learning
Reading these poems will help you:
n share ideas and information
n compare and contrast two poems
n interpret the tone of the poems
n create a poster
Jenny Nelson
When I grow up, my father says,
the Big Trees will be gone.
I want to see the trees
my father’s seen.
I want to travel on the water
watch the otter
slide into the sea.
I want to see how small I am
beside old Cedar Tree.
I want to see the things
that Chini’s seen.
I want to know the forest
through my toes, as my foot goes,
on moss, on bench, on rock,
on rotting wood.
I want to feel the forest
with my eyes and hands and nose,
Look Beyond 245

wet clothes,
sounds of tree-bird,
sounds of silence,
smell of mushroom, smell of cedar,
following the creeks that run
red and quiet,
water falls.
The forest calls.
I have a need
to see the Trees
My father’s seen.
Leave some for me.
kateri akiwenzie-damm
at night there are no voices
singing me gently to sleep
though i know they whisper
outside these strange walls
i look to the sky for sweet light
of stars
but night is never dark here
246 Look Beyond
Emily Carr, Wood Interior, VAG 42.3.5, Vancouver Art Gallery/Trevor Mills

i long to join the dance of the earth
—i knew the movements once
i dream of the wind
the damp smell of the earth
and the footsteps of animals dancing
by moonlight
my body is tired and aching
blood rushes to my feet
drains into the pavement
is pulled through my scalp
i lose track of the land
Activities
1. In a small group, brainstorm a list of ways in which people’s
relationship with the environment has changed over the
decades. When making your list, consider how the landscape
has changed and why many people feel less of a connection
with nature than they once did.
2. Compare and contrast these two poems, using at least three
points of similarity or difference. Provide detailed evidence
from the poem for the points you make.
3. Look for suitable music to accompany each of these poems.
Present these pieces of music to the class, and be prepared to
explain how you have made your choices.
4. Create a poster with a message derived from either of these
poems. Display your posters for the school to see.
Look Beyond 247

Five Minutes to
Change the World
By Ma Myat San Moe, 14, Myanmar
Focus Your Learning
Studying this play will help you:
n work with others to present
a performance
n identify and evaluate
sources of information
n record and organize
information
248 Look Beyond
PEG KEHRET
CAST: Five players, either sex, and CONTROLLER.
AT RISE: Characters ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR and
FIVE are On Stage.
ONE: Our parents made a mess of the world.
TWO: The oceans are polluted. The air is polluted.
THREE: There’s overpopulation.
FOUR: Oil spills. Litter.
ONE: Wars. Famine.

THREE: Homelessness. Drugs. Crime.
FIVE: Animals are becoming extinct.
ONE: Child abuse. Illiteracy.
TWO: There are nothing but problems everywhere. The older
generation was totally irresponsible.
FIVE: If we were in charge, this never would have happened.
TWO: We would have world peace. And a clean environment.
FOUR: If teens ran the world, things would be different.
ONE: No one would go hungry.
THREE: Give us just five minutes with the world leaders and we
could tell them how to improve the whole planet.
(CONTROLLER rushes in.)
CONTROLLER: Stop!
OTHERS: Who’s that? What? What do you want? (Etc.)
CONTROLLER: I am Controller. I decide who is in charge of the world. I
have heard your complaints, and I think you are right. The
world is in a mess. The adults have botched up the job.
FIVE: Controller? I never heard about any controller.
THREE: Are you God’s assistant?
CONTROLLER: I am no one’s assistant. I am in charge.
TWO: Hi, boss.
CONTROLLER: I have decided to give you a chance to save the world.
Right here. Right now. When I say “go,” you will have
five minutes to decide what changes you want to make
and how you will make them. It is not enough to say you
want world peace; you must also say how you plan to
achieve it.
FOUR: Five minutes isn’t very long for such an important job.
Look Beyond 249

250 Look Beyond
CONTROLLER: All you must do is tell me how to proceed. I’ll see that your
plans are carried out.
TWO: Do you have anything to do with raising allowances?
ONE: Five minutes is better than nothing. Let’s do it.
CONTROLLER: Ready? (Others nod yes.) Go.
ONE: I think the first problem we have to solve is hunger. When
people don’t have enough to eat, they can’t think about
anything else.
FOUR: People in the U.S. should share their food with the poor
countries.
THREE: We spend millions of dollars a year on diet foods while
other people are starving.
FOUR: How do we get the food to those who need it?
TWO: Let’s fly it over and drop bundles down to areas that need
food. Can’t you just see it? Millions of cupcakes falling from
the sky. (He sings) “Twinkie, Twinkie, little star.”
ONE: Who pays for the airplanes?
THREE: The government.
FIVE: If the government does it, taxes will go up.
FOUR: We are the government.
ONE: We have to be careful that the food doesn’t go to
unscrupulous people who sell it on the black market. How
do we know who to trust?
THREE: What about spoilage? Bread would get stale.
FOUR: We would send flour and yeast. Powdered milk. Dried fruit.
FIVE: Do those people have ovens? How do they cook?
ONE: What about utensils? Bowls and cups? If we send powdered
milk, do they have something to mix it in? Some way to
drink it?

TWO: This is getting too complicated. Let’s tackle one of the other
problems first.
THREE: Pollution.
FOUR: Yes. Let’s get rid of pollution.
FIVE: Let’s ban all automobiles.
TWO: No way. I’m almost through driver’s training. I’ll get my
license in a couple of weeks.
THREE: Do you want clean air, or do you want to drive a car?
TWO: Both.
FIVE: Not just cars. We should ban all motor vehicles.
ONE: My dad is a sales rep. Without a car, he’d have no job.
TWO: At least we’d know what to do with the extra food. We
could give it to you.
THREE: Couldn’t he call his customers and take orders by
telephone?
ONE: He has new products twice a year. The store owners want
to see them, before they order.
FOUR: What about trucks? Should we ban trucks, too?
ONE: Without trucks, how would the food get to the
supermarkets?
FOUR: If nobody had a car, we would all shop at neighbourhood
stores.
THREE: It would be like the old days. My grandparents are always
telling how they grew all their own vegetables, and every
year they raised a steer and slaughtered it for meat.
ONE: Gross.
FOUR: I don’t think the manager of the apartment where we live
would be too happy if we had a steer on the balcony.
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252 Look Beyond
TWO: You could have a pig instead. Or chickens.
FOUR: There’s an old lady in the apartment next to us who gets
Meals on Wheels. Without them, she’d never have a decent
dinner.
FIVE: Maybe we can’t ban all motor vehicles.
THREE: Who decides which ones are OK and which are not?
FOUR: We could allow delivery trucks and business cars, but no
personal cars.
ONE: There would be a lot of people who suddenly claimed they
needed their car for business purposes.
FIVE: What about school buses?
TWO: Ban the buses! Close the schools. But not until after I finish
driver’s training.
ONE: Think of all the industries that are dependent on people
being able to drive. My father wouldn’t be the only one out
of work. Our whole economy would have to change.
CONTROLLER: Your time is half gone.
THREE: Half gone! We haven’t decided anything yet.
FOUR: Air pollution is too complicated. Let’s start with something
smaller, something we know we can change.
FIVE: Overpopulation. How do we get birth control information to
people who need it?
THREE: Are there charities that do this? If there are, we could have
a fund raiser and give them the money.
ONE: Remember the big flap between some parents and the
school board last year because birth control information
was available at our school?
TWO: Right. And I didn’t even need it. (Others all look at him.
TWO shrugs.)

FIVE: If we do anything to promote birth control, it’s sure to
cause a controversy.
FOUR: Let’s start with drugs and alcohol. They cause so many
other problems, and none of the parents would object.
THREE: Good idea. I say we ban all drugs.
ONE: Drugs are already banned.
THREE: We could make alcohol illegal.
FIVE: They tried that years ago. Prohibition. It didn’t work. People
kept drinking, only they did it secretly.
ONE: Just like they do drugs now.
FOUR: It’s a problem either way, whether there are laws against it
or not.
THREE: Then what good does it do to try to change things? It won’t
make any difference what we decide.
CONTROLLER: You have two more minutes.
TWO: Maybe our parents weren’t totally irresponsible. Maybe
they tried to solve some of these problems and weren’t
able to.
FIVE: Our grandparents, too.
ONE: Maybe we can’t change the whole world. Maybe what we
have to do is change ourselves.
FIVE: And each of us could try to influence one other person and
have them do the same until eventually it makes a difference.
THREE: I make a commitment never to use drugs or alcohol. Will
you join me?
TWO: Not even a beer now and then?
THREE: Not even a beer.
FOUR: I join you.
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254 Look Beyond
FIVE: Me, too.
ONE: Me, too. And I make a commitment to volunteer at least four
hours a month with the Red Cross or the Salvation Army or
some other agency that helps feed the hungry people.
THREE: I’ll go with you.
FIVE: I will give up junk food and donate the money I save to a
group that helps save endangered animals.
TWO: Wow! I’ve seen you eat. You’ll probably save the elephants
single-handed.
FOUR: I can’t stop pollution, but I will pick up litter at the city
park. I’ll recycle the cans and paper I find and dispose of
the other trash.
FIVE: That’s a great idea. I’ll help you do that. I know where we
can take recyclable plastic, too.
THREE: Five minutes ago, we set out to save the world, Now we’re
reduced to picking up other people’s trash. What’s wrong
with us?
ONE: Nothing’s wrong. The problems don’t have easy solutions.
FOUR: We’re being practical. We have to start somewhere.
ONE: (Turns to TWO) What about you, (Name)? You haven’t
agreed to any of these changes. What do you plan to do?
TWO: Are there any volunteer jobs where you get to drive? (They
all stare at him, waiting.) All right, all right. When I get my
license, I won’t drive unless it’s a necessary trip.
FIVE: No cruising?
TWO: (It pains him to say this.) No cruising.
THREE: It’s a start.
TWO: It’s a sacrifice.
CONTROLLER: Time’s up. What instructions do you have for me?

THREE: None.
FOUR: We couldn’t figure out any solutions. We had our chance to
save the world, and we blew it.
ONE: No, we didn’t. (Turns to CONTROLLER) Here are your
instructions: Every person is to make one change that will
benefit the world.
FIVE: We’ll start small.
ONE: And grow.
THREE: And become powerful.
FOUR: Eventually, we’ll make a difference.
ONE: Even if it means personal sacrifice.
TWO: Like no cruising.
CONTROLLER: You have used your five minutes well. Your instructions will
be carried out. (CONTROLLER exits, followed by others.)
Activities
1. In a group of six, prepare to enact this play. Be sure to
present it with appropriate emotion and
characterization. Practise the play until you feel
confident enough to present it.
2. Choose one of the problems identified in the play. Do
some research to find out more about its causes. Make
notes of your findings organized under appropriate
headings and subheadings. Then list at least three steps
you can take to address the problem you chose.
Look Beyond 255

Focus Your Learning
Studying these poems
will help you:
n share and compare
responses
n identify metaphor
and show how it
relates to the
poem’s message
n write a dialogue
256 Look Beyond
David Kherdian
Just once
my father stopped on the way
into the house from work
and joined in the softball game
we were having in the street,
and attempted to play in our
game that his country had never
known.
Just once
and the day stands out forever
in my memory
as a father’s living gesture
to his son,
that in playing even the fool
or clown, he would reveal
that the lines of their lives
were sewn from a tougher fabric
than the son had previously known.
Softball by William Kurelek

Farzana Doctor
My mother taught me to fight.
In the eleven short years I knew her
She taught me about justice.
Racism.
Love.
“You’re a chocolate face.”
“So what. You’re a vanilla face.”
I grew up in a small suburban white town.
I went to Brownies, said the Lord’s Prayer,
Disliked Friday evening Gujarati classes and
Always wanted to fit in.
“___________ go home.”
My mother swelled in fury
When her little girl repeated the ugly words
She had been told at school.
And so she went out to find justice.
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258 Look Beyond
Banu marched to Ed Broadbent’s office
And spoke of her children.
And of racism and ____________.
“And we are not from _____________.”
Years after the cancer took over
Years after I tried to forget her
Years after I shunned the med-keeners who looked like me
Years after I streaked my hair blond
She returned to me.
And I remembered.
I remembered the name-calling
And how she got mad
And I remembered
How she went down fighting.
Did she know that on that day,
She planted a gem in her little girl’s mind
Which many years after her death
Would grow
Inside my Indo-phobic
Multiculturized
Coconut head?
Did she know that her one act
Would help create a
Woman who would love herself

Her brown skin
Her dark eyes
The beauty of women?
If I could know her today
We would sit together
And have chai.
We would speak of our lives
Of truth
Of justice
And of “__________” who
Would not go home
But stayed to change the world.
Activities
1. Do you feel that the parent and child in each of these
poems found it easy to communicate with each other?
Discuss in a group, supporting your views with details
from the poems.
2. Find one metaphor in each poem. Write a short-answer
response showing how each metaphor relates to the
main message of the poem.
3. Suppose the parent and child in each of these poems
had the opportunity to discuss the “one act” described,
several years after it occurred. With a partner, write the
dialogue that might have taken place between the
parent and child from one of these poems. Explore the
impact of the parent’s action on the child.
Look Beyond 259

Birth of a New Technology Andy Lackow
A Computer-Manipulated Illustration; Software: Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator, Strata StudioPro
260 Look Beyond

Focus Your Learning
Viewing this visual will help you:
n express your ideas and reach conclusions
n compare your own and others’ insights and viewpoints
Activities
1. Explain the title of this piece, making specific references to
elements of the visual. Write your response.
2. Do you find this a positive or a negative image? Discuss in
a small group.
Look Beyond 261

Eldinah’s Journey
LISA WALDICK
Focus Your Learning
Reading this magazine article will help you:
n use a graphic organizer
n share and compare ideas
n write a letter in role
n ask questions to extend your understanding
262 Look Beyond
At first glance, Eldinah Tshatedi couldn’t
be more different from the character
she played in the movie, African Journey. In
this film, which has aired on Canadian
television, Eldinah plays a shy, African girl
from a poor village. When I met Eldinah,
however, I found she was anything but shy.
Sporting long, braided hair and dressed in
Doc Martens and jeans, she was exuberant,
enthusiastic and talkative.
African Journey is about a Canadian
teenager, Luke Novak. He goes to Africa to
visit his father who is working there as a
mining engineer. While in Africa, Luke
befriends a 16-year-old boy, named Themba,
who introduces him to the beauty, culture
and difficulties of southeastern Africa.
Eldinah plays Themba’s sister, Tulani. In
the movie, Tulani runs away to the city in
order to escape an arranged marriage with a
much older man. The city is overwhelming
and frightening, but Tulani manages to
make her way.
A Star Is Born
When casting for African Journey took
place, Eldinah was living in Zimbabwe. A

friend was trying out for the part of Themba
and asked Eldinah to come along for moral
support. Eldinah agreed. While there, the
casting director talked her into trying out for
the part of Tulani. Eldinah had never been
to drama school, but she loved to act, and
was always in her school plays. She gave
the audition a try and was called back.
Eventually, she was chosen—from over 300
actresses—as the one who could best
embody the character of Tulani.
As one of the collaborators on African
Journey, Mark Winemaker, commented,
“Anyone who has met Eldinah knows she
has a certain magic and presence. I think
George Bloomfield, the film director, was
quite overwhelmed by that.”
Eldinah also did her homework. She read
the script and thought about the way her
character would dress and speak. Eldinah
doesn’t have an African accent, because she
moved at a young age from South Africa,
where she was born, to the State of Oregon
in the U.S.A. and lived there until age 12.
Eldinah had never been to Zimbabwe’s
rural areas, but she had many friends who
had—and that helped her.
A Mind of Her Own
The fact that she had these friends was
something unusual. Eldinah went to a
private high school in Zimbabwe and, at
first, she had some trouble fitting in. Her
background was different from that of the
other kids in her class because she had lived
in the United States for so long. She wore
tank tops, ripped jeans, and mini-skirts; she
questioned teachers and said what was on
her mind. These were not, as Eldinah puts
it, “done things.”
“But,” says Eldinah, “I still managed to
have a lot of friends because I didn’t like to
be friends with people from just my school.
I was friends with everybody; I had friends
from all walks of life. I got to learn a lot
from being with them.”
In the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare,
explains Eldinah, there are low-density and
high-density suburbs. The low-density
suburbs where Eldinah lived “are pretty
posh. The families aren’t very large, parents
can afford to have cars, and everyone is very
well spoken in English.” In high-density
suburbs, “you might have 10 people living
in a house that only has two bedrooms.”
Eldinah didn’t stick to hanging around with
people from the elite areas.
When I asked her what life was like in
the high-density suburbs, she was earnest
in her explanation.
“They don’t have the same kind of food. It
could be mealie-meal with milk because they
can’t afford meat; or if they have vegetables,
it would be vegetables from their garden.
They don’t have a garden with flowers; any
available space has to be for vegetables that
they can eat. You would not find a car
Look Beyond 263

around there. If you found a bicycle, that
would be unusual. People are that poor.”
Eldinah says some of her classmates were
shocked by her other friends. “People would
call me strange. I mean, people from private
schools don’t go to areas like that. You don’t
go to lower-class areas; you are not seen
with people from there. But I didn’t care.
What’s different? They’re people.”
Because of these friends, Eldinah knew
how to speak with an African accent and
how to dress as if she were from the country.
When she was asked to come in for a screen
test after her first audition, her friends
loaned her clothes to wear.
In the Country
When Eldinah actually got out to the rural
areas of Zimbabwe to shoot the film, she
became filled with admiration for the
people living there.
“The things they make!” she told me.
“Things to keep out the frost. They make
264 Look Beyond
houses out of straw and mud. They make
their own pots. I would never be able to do
that.
“They look after their cows. Even though
they don’t have all the animal feed that rich
families have, they still know how to take
care of them.
“Even the kids—not all of them might be
able to go to school. But even the ones who
don’t, learn. And when the kids who do go
to school are playing with other kids, they
teach them what they’ve learned. People in
the rural areas know how to share.”
Understanding Tulani
It didn’t take Eldinah long to see similarities
and differences between herself and the
character Tulani.
“What we have in common is ambition
and determination. We are both very strong
people. We do what we believe in. The
thing that is different between Tulani and
me is that Tulani hasn’t been able to take
advantage of an education like I have. She
hasn’t had the chance to be a child, like I
have. She’s had to mature very quickly, and
take care of her brothers and sisters.
“Also, there is no way I have ever had to
walk two hours every day to get water,
whereas Tulani has. I have seen a lot of
things that Tulani hasn’t. I know about
prostitution, I know about AIDS, and she
doesn’t really understand about that.”

In the film, after Tulani runs away from
home, she tries to find work in the city. She
wasn’t able to attend high school because
she was needed at home. Because of her
lack of education, Tulani finds it extremely
difficult to find a job. The city streets are full
of other young people and she meets some
women who, out of desperation, began
earning a living as prostitutes. They warn
her about AIDS—”slim” as it is called in
certain African countries.
In many ways, Tulani’s character reflects
the realities of youth throughout much of
Africa. Unemployment is high; education is
a privilege; and many go to the cities to
seek their fortunes. Some find misfortune.
Others manage to make their way—as
Tulani eventually does.
Pursuing a Dream
Eldinah, like her character, left home to
pursue her dreams. At age 17, she used the
Activities
1. Create a Venn diagram in which you show
the differences and similarities between
Eldinah and her character Tulani. Given
the significant differences between them,
how is Eldinah able to capture the role of
Tulani effectively? List characteristics that
you think help Eldinah to be a good actor.
Share your ideas with the class.
money she earned from African Journey to
travel to England, where she eventually
decided to study nursing. Now 21, she is
well into her nursing program.
She also has two other films to her
credit. One is the documentary, Journey to
Understanding, a follow-up film to African
Journey. This film explores international
development issues such as the
environment, and women and education.
It also presents modern-day Africa from
the perspective of young people living
there. Eldinah’s other film is called
Rwendo, a British made-for-T.V. movie
about a domestic worker.
Eldinah is delighted but realistic about
her unexpected acting career. “There’s no
guarantee I’ll always get acting roles,” she
says. “My nursing is something for me to
fall back on. Even if I never get acting jobs
after this, I’ll have no regrets. I mean, I’ve
loved it.”
2. Write a letter from Eldinah to a friend in
North America in which she describes her
experience and the people she has met.
3. Assume you had the opportunity to
interview Eldinah for a newspaper, radio,
or television. Write the questions you
would ask her.
Look Beyond 265

Snow White NASA
Focus Your Learning
Reading this personal account will help you:
n understand the significance of the title
n analyse character development
n examine the text to understand viewpoint,
opinion, bias, and stereotypes
n present a dialogue
266 Look Beyond
BEGUM
Ialways wanted to be an actress and
when I was chosen to play the lead in
my primary school play, I thought I had
definitely started out on the road to fame
and fortune in Hollywood. My teachers
were rather short on irony, otherwise it
might have occurred to them that there was
something a little strange about putting on
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a
school full of disabled children and casting
me as the heroine. My classmates’ approach
was more direct.
—“You’re going to be painted white,
Nasa Begum” they would taunt me, along
with other horrendous suggestions. Yes,
Snow White was without a doubt fairskinned,
and I wasn’t—(not to mention the
other ways I didn’t look like Walt Disney’s
version of this damsel in distress.) Still, I
desperately wanted the part, so I spent
many anxious hours trying to convince
myself that I could fit the role.
Eventually my mind was put at rest when
my teacher, who was strong on kindness but
weak on political awareness, told me that
Snow White had dark hair like mine and in
the summer was probably quite tanned from
doing a lot of sunbathing. I’m not entirely
sure I believed her but I wanted the part

so much, I was ready to be convinced.
Unfortunately, I never had the chance to
make dramatic history by becoming the
first Pakistani Snow White because I had
to go into hospital for an operation. That’s
one of the stories of my life.
For one reason or another my acting
career always seemed to be fated by some
disaster or another. Once again seriously
miscast, but enthusiastically bringing my
own Islamic experience into the role of the
Angel Gabriel, I tripped up and fell straight
into some poor parent’s lap. On another
occasion I was so carried away with waving
my palm around as we sang “Hosanna” in
the school Easter play (the concept of a
multi-cultural approach to teaching hadn’t
yet reached my school), that I lost my
balance and fell off the stage backwards.
I still have a small bald patch on the top
of my head to prove what dangers I was
willing to undergo in the name of drama.
It was after this that I decided to redirect
my enthusiasm into something that didn’t
seem quite so risky. I devoted most of my
efforts to school work. I never liked anything
to do with painting or practical things like
needlework and raffia as I had already spent
long spells in the hospital’s Occupational
Therapy department making stuffed toys,
mats, bead necklaces and anything else
which would encourage me to use my
hands. I loved reading and writing. I don’t
think I was ever quite the “girly swot” but
reading was my comfort and protection.
I knew that I wasn’t learning as much at
my school as my sisters did at theirs. They
always seemed to be doing lots of interesting
things and moving on at a fast pace, whereas
the progress in my school was slow and
repetitive.
One of the problems for me was that
I spent so much time in hospital that I
would miss large chunks of the school
term.There was a teacher on our ward
but it wasn’t really equipped to cater for
children who had to spend long periods
of time in hospital and as I worked quickly
and the resources were limited, I spent a
lot of time being bored.
My “real” school, the school that was
different from the one my sisters went to,
catered for children with physical disabilities
from nursery school age right up until the
age of sixteen. We were all transported to
and from school in single decker buses as
children came there from all over the city.
For some of us, by the time we arrived at
school we had already been travelling for
over an hour. The bus journey was one of
the best parts of the school day because the
activities we had started in the playground
would extend into the journey to and from
school. You could make or break friends,
play games and share gossip. I used to enjoy
waiting on the pavement each morning,
there seemed to be something special about
being collected for school from my own
Look Beyond 267

doorstep. I used to chat to the milkman, the
postman and the families on their way to the
primary school which was right next door.
It was not a very big school but there was
an enormous range of ability levels within
each class. There were children who never
seemed to be able to finish their work whilst
others would be impatiently looking around
for something else to do. I think I was
somewhere in between. I could do the work
without much difficulty but I was very slow
in getting it down on paper. It wasn’t until I
went away to boarding school that anyone
acknowledged that my lack of writing skills
was due to my physical condition rather
than to an inability to study.
I didn’t do as much academic work as
my sisters in mainstream schools, and one
of the reasons for this was the bane of my
life—physiotherapy. I was sure that I was
being treated unjustly as not everyone in
my class had to go away to these sessions
and, what was worse, it didn’t even exist at
my sisters’ school. I couldn’t see the point
of all these agonizing exercises. I was never
very good at accepting the fact that things I
didn’t like could be “good for me” and the
physiotherapist managed to do a really good
job of making me a conscientious objector
for the rest of my life. I was certain that
there were not many physiotherapists who
would allow someone to pull their limbs
in agonizing directions on the unlikely
grounds that it would “make them better.”
268 Look Beyond
It never occurred to me to question the
fact that this was the sort of school I should
go to, or to ask to go to school with my
sisters. I knew that I was different but it
wasn’t something that was an issue for me.
On the whole I used to enjoy school a lot
and looked forward to Mondays and the
end of the holidays. As a little girl I would
ask the teachers to give me homework and
eagerly present it to them the next morning.
I became less keen on working after school
when people told me I had to do it.
The kids at my school were like kids in
any other school. There were the hard kids
in the gang who would rant and rave and
there were the wet blankets who nobody
wanted to know. I was in the middle.
Unlike many girls, I never sought the
devotion of one best friend and was
happy to wander round making friends
with whoever crossed my path.
As a child it was hard for me to accept
that there were two distinct ways I was
different from the majority, not like the
people I saw on the TV, in the comics and
books I read. At school everyone had some
form of disability so no one was picked on
just for that. But disabled kids are just like
everyone else and they would tease out and
pick on anyone who was different. I had
never thought about it before I started
school but I soon learnt what it meant
to be Black in a predominantly White
establishment. I used to get very upset at

the relentless name-calling, but grassing on
anyone was not on so I had to learn to live
with it.
It was hard, though, and it made me feel
out of place wherever I was. My mum used
to sew me the Salwar Kamiz, matching silk
dresses and trousers, like she did for my
sisters, but they just attracted further
derogatory remarks at school until I
begged her to let me stop wearing them.
Eventually she relented and bought me
Western-style trousers and dresses. Even
this didn’t help because my culture said
that girls should wear both trousers and
dresses but according to my school friends
this was the pits of fashion. I ended up
feeling uncomfortable in the clothes I wore
at school and at home and I tried to solve
this dilemma by wearing Western clothes
at school and changing immediately I
returned. For almost fifteen years I did not
allow white people to see me in Salwar
Kamiz.
There was only one other Asian girl at
my school and I always admired her. It was
worship from afar. She was in the Seniors
and I was just a Junior but I saw her on the
school bus each day. She had a wonderful
dress sense and beautiful long black hair
which fell from her shoulders right down to
the base of her spine. I was desperate for
long hair but as I wore a brace from my
neck downwards it was almost impossible
to let it grow. Everything about this girl
fascinated me, not least the fact that her
family owned a shop which seemed like a
palace to me, full of Asian and Western
clothes.
Then came the tragedy of the Orange
Dress. I was about nine at the time, orange
was my favourite colour and I was in love
with that dress. Every day when the school
bus stopped for her to get in, I would see
it in the window of her family’s shop. I
wanted it so much. Eventually I managed to
persuade my mum to let me have it for the
school party and she gave the money to the
bus lady to buy it when we stopped at the
shop to drop the girl off on the way home.
The dress was there in the morning but by
the time we came home, it was gone! My
heart was broken. My beloved dress had
been sold and there were no more in my
size. There was no consoling me and it took
a couple of years for me to live down the
“story of the orange dress.” I think what
upset me most was that I wanted that dress
and I wanted it from that shop. Most of all
I wanted the girl whose family owned that
dress shop to be my friend.
She was the only Black role model I had.
Her culture was very different from mine
and her experience of family life was not
the same, but the fact that she was at my
school was important for me. Until I met
her, I had never seen another Asian person
with a disability and I was proud to be
considered to be like her.
Look Beyond 269

But it was still quite a shock for me
to realize that the other kids at school saw us
as being quite different from them. I don’t
remember race being an issue in the hospital
where I spent a lot of my childhood and there
were so many Asian people where I lived that
I did not stand out as being Black. It took me
a long time to understand why people who
did not know me in my neighbourhood made
fun of my disability and why people with
disabilities used racial slurs. Eventually I
learned that wherever I went I would
probably stand out as being different from
the majority and I had to be prepared to
accept being called names because of my
race or disability, and sometimes both.
At least at primary school I developed
an awareness of being Black through the
very blatant approach adopted by my
schoolmates. It is easier to cope with the
uninhibited forms of discrimination used
by children than the subtle approach
Activities
1. In a group of four, make a web with the
words “Snow White” in the centre.
Around the words, brainstorm all of the
different ways that this title is used to
make a point in the story. Then, as a
class, discuss the significance of the title.
2. Write a character sketch of Nasa,
showing how events in her life have
270 Look Beyond
adopted by adults. Children are usually
willing to be given explanations and to
learn about what it means to be Black or
disabled and why discrimination is wrong.
Adults find it much harder to recognize
their own prejudices, they use their own
misconceptions to convince themselves
that they are right.
Looking back, I find it hard to believe
that I was denied the right to have the same
education as my sisters, that they went to
the primary school right next to our house,
whilst I travelled for an hour across town.
At playtime my mum used to pass them
fruit through the fencing that divided our
garden from the school playground. But I’ve
come a long way since the days of Snow
White and orange dresses. I’ve reclaimed
my identity by refusing to accept a concept
of ‘normality’ which tells me I must walk,
have fair skin and try to blend in by
wearing Western clothes.
contributed to the development of her
character.
3. With a partner, write a dialogue between
Nasa, as an adult, and her child, in which
Nasa gives advice about prejudice, being
picked on, and other difficulties that she
experienced in her childhood. Role-play
the dialogue for the class.

Goalie
RUDY THAUBERGER
Focus Your Learning
Reading this story will
help you:
n understand character
motivation by retelling
events from a different
point of view
n use artwork to represent
character
Nothing pleases him. Win or lose, he comes
home angry, dragging his equipment bag up the
driveway, sullen eyes staring down, seeing nothing, refusing to
see. He throws the bag against the door. You hear him,
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272 Look Beyond
fumbling with his keys, his hands sore, swollen and cold. He drops the
keys. He kicks the door. You open it and he enters, glaring, not at you,
not at the keys, but at everything, the bag, the walls, the house, the air,
the sky.
His clothes are heavy with sweat. There are spots of blood on
his jersey and on his pads. He moves past you, wordless, pulling his
equipment inside, into the laundry room and then into the garage. You
listen to him, tearing the equipment from the bag, throwing it. You hear
the thump of heavy leather, the clatter of plastic, the heavy whisper of
damp cloth. He leaves and you enter. The equipment is everywhere,
scattered, draped over chairs, hung on hooks, thrown on the floor.
You imagine him on the ice: compact, alert, impossibly agile and
quick. Then you stare at the equipment: helmet and throat protector,
hockey pants, jersey, chest and arm protectors, athletic supporter, knee
pads and leg pads, blocker, catching glove and skates. In the centre of
the floor are three sticks, scattered, their broad blades chipped and
worn. The clutter is deliberate, perhaps even necessary. His room is
the same, pure chaos, clothes and magazines everywhere, spilling out
of dresser drawers, into the closet. He says he knows where everything
is. You imagine him on the ice, focussed, intense, single-minded. You
understand the need for clutter.
When he isn’t playing, he hates the equipment. It’s heavy and
awkward and bulky. It smells. He avoids it, scorns it. It disgusts him.
Before a game, he gathers it together on the floor and stares at it. He lays
each piece out carefully, obsessively, growling and snarling at anyone
who comes too close. His mother calls him a gladiator, a bullfighter. But
you know the truth, that gathering the equipment is a ritual of hatred,
that every piece represents, to him, a particular variety of pain.
There are black marks scattered on the white plastic of his skates.
He treats them like scars, reminders of pain. His glove hand is always
swollen. His chest, his knees and his biceps are always bruised. After
a hard game, he can barely move. “Do you enjoy it?” you ask, “Do you
enjoy the game at least? Do you like playing?” He shrugs. “I love it,”
he says.

Without the game, he’s miserable. He spends his summers
restless and morose, skating every morning, lifting weights at night.
He juggles absentmindedly; tennis balls, coins, apples, tossing them
behind his back and under his leg, see-sawing two in one hand as he
talks on the phone, bouncing them off walls and knees and feet. He
plays golf and tennis with great fervour, but you suspect, underneath,
he is indifferent to these games.
As fall approaches, you begin to find him in the basement,
cleaning his skates, oiling his glove, taping his sticks. His hands
move with precision and care. You sit with him and talk. He tells
you stories. This save. That goal. Funny stories. He laughs. The
funniest stories are about failure: the goal scored from centre ice, the
goal scored on him by his own defenceman, the goal scored through
a shattered stick. There is always a moral, the same moral every
time. “You try your best and you lose.”
He starts wearing the leg pads in September. Every evening, he
wanders the house in them, wearing them with shorts and a T-shirt.
He hops in them, does leg lifts and jumping jacks. He takes them off
and sits on them, folding them into a squat pile to limber them up.
He starts to shoot a tennis ball against the fence with his stick.
As practices begin, he comes home overwhelmed by despair. His
skill is an illusion, a lie, a magic trick. Nothing you say reassures him.
You’re his father. Your praise is empty, invalid.
The injuries begin. Bruises. Sprains. His body betrays him.
Too slow. Too clumsy. His ankles are weak, buckling under him. His
muscles cramp. His nose bleeds. A nerve in his chest begins to knot
and fray. No-one understands. They believe he’s invulnerable, the
fans, his teammates. They stare at him blankly while he lies on the ice,
white-blind, paralyzed, as his knee or his toe or his hand or his chest
or his throat burns.
To be a goalie, you realize, is to be an adult too soon, to have too
soon an intimate understanding of the inevitability of pain and failure.
In the backyard, next to the garage, is an old garbage can filled with
broken hockey sticks. The blades have shattered. The shafts are
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274 Look Beyond
cracked. He keeps them all, adding a new one every two weeks. You
imagine him, at the end of the season, burning them, purging his
failure with a bonfire. But that doesn’t happen. At the end of the
season, he forgets them and you throw them away.
You watch him play. You sit in the stands with his mother,
freezing, in an arena filled with echoes. He comes out without his
helmet and stick, skating slowly around the rink. Others move around
him deftly. He stares past them, disconnected, barely awake. They talk
to him, call his name, hit his pads lightly with their sticks. He nods,
smiles. You know he’s had at least four cups of coffee. You’ve seen
him, drinking, prowling the house frantically.
As the warm-up drills begin, he gets into the goal casually. Pucks
fly over the ice, crashing into the boards, cluttering the net. He skates
into the goal, pulling on his glove and blocker. He raps the posts with
his stick. No-one seems to notice, even when he starts deflecting
shots. They come around to him slowly, firing easy shots at his pads.
He scoops the pucks out of the net with his stick. He seems bored.
You shiver as you sit, watching him. You hardly speak. He ignores
you. You think of the cost of his equipment. Sticks, forty dollars. Glove,
one hundred and twenty. Leg pads, thirteen hundred dollars. The pads
have patches. The glove is soft, the leather eaten away by his sweat.
The game begins, casually, without ceremony. The scoreboard
lights up. The ice is cleared of pucks. Whistles blow. After the stillness
of the face-off, you hardly notice the change, until you see him in goal,
crouched over, staring.
You remember him in the backyard, six years old, standing in a
ragged net, wearing a parka and a baseball glove, holding an ordinary
hockey stick, sawed off at the top. The puck is a tennis ball. The ice is
cement. He falls down every time you shoot, ignoring the ball, trying
to look like the goalies on TV. You score, even when you don’t want
to. He’s too busy play-acting. He smiles, laughs, shouts.
You buy him a mask. He paints it. Yellow and black. Blue and
white. Red and blue. It changes every month, as his heroes change.
You make him a blocker out of cardboard and leg pads out of foam

ubber. His mother makes him a chest protector. You play in the
backyard, every evening, taking shot after shot, all winter.
It’s hard to recall when you realize he’s good. You come to a point
where he starts to surprise you, snatching the ball out of the air with
his glove, kicking it away with his shoe. You watch him one Saturday,
playing with his friends. He humiliates them, stopping everything. They
shout and curse. He comes in, frozen, tired and spellbound. “Did you
see?” he says.
He learns to skate, moving off of the street and onto the ice. The
pain begins. A shot to the shoulder paralyzes his arm for ten minutes.
You buy him pads, protectors, thinking it will stop the pain. He begins
to lose. Game after game. Fast reflexes are no longer enough. He is
suddenly alone, separate from you, miserable. Nothing you say helps.
Keep trying. Stop. Concentrate. Hold your stick blade flat on the ice.
He begins to practise. He begins to realize that he is alone.
You can’t help him. His mother can’t help him. That part of his life
detaches from you, becoming independent, free. You fool yourself,
going to his games, cheering, believing you’re being supportive,
refusing to understand that here, in the rink, you’re irrelevant. When
you’re happy for him, he’s angry. When you’re sad for him, he’s
indifferent. He begins to collect trophies.
You watch the game, fascinated. You try to see it through his eyes.
You watch him. His head moves rhythmically. His stick sweeps the ice
and chops at it. When the shots come, he stands frozen in a crouch.
Position is everything, he tells you. He moves, the movement so swift
it seems to strike you physically. How does he do it? How? You don’t
see the puck, only his movement. Save or goal, it’s all the same.
You try to see the game through his eyes, aware of everything,
constantly alert. It’s not enough to follow the puck. The position of the
puck is old news. The game. You try to understand the game. You fail.
He seems unearthly, moving to cut down the angle, chopping the
puck with his stick. Nothing is wasted. You can almost feel his mind at
work, watching, calculating. Where does it come from, you wonder,
this strange mind? You try to move with him, watching his eyes
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276 Look Beyond
through his cage, and his hands. You remember the way he watches
games on television, cross-legged, hands fluttering, eyes seeing
everything.
Suddenly you succeed, or you think you do. Suddenly, you see
the game, not as a series of events, but as a state, with every moment
in time potentially a goal. Potentiality. Probability. These are words you
think of afterwards. As you watch, there is only the game, pressing
against you, soft now, then sharp, then rough, biting, shocking,
burning, dull, cold. No players. Only forces, feelings, the white ice,
the cold, the echo, all joined. A shot crashes into his helmet. He falls
to his knees. You cry out.
He stands slowly, shaking his head, hacking at the ice furiously
with his stick. They scored. You never noticed. Seeing the game is
not enough. Feeling it is not enough. He wants more, to understand
completely, to control. You look out at the ice. The game is chaos again.
He comes home, angry, limping up the driveway, victorious.
You watch him, dragging his bag, sticks in his hand, leg pads over
his shoulder. You wonder when it happened, when he became this
sullen, driven young man. You hear whispers about scouts, rumours.
Everyone adores him, adores his skill. But when you see his stiff,
swollen hands, when he walks slowly into the kitchen in the
mornings, every movement agony, you want to ask him why.
Why does he do it? Why does he go on?
But you don’t ask. Because you think you know the answer. You
imagine him, looking at you and saying quietly, “What choice do I
have? What else have I ever wanted to do?”
Activities
1. Choose one section of the story to rewrite from the point of view of
the goalie.
2. Design a goalie mask for the protagonist of this story. Decorate it in
some way that represents his character.

Rosa Parks
Model of Courage, Symbol of Freedom
ROSA PARKS WITH GREGORY J. REED
Focus Your Learning
Reading this biography will help you:
n draw on prior knowledge to understand the text
n prepare a news report to focus on issues and
attitudes of the past
n create an election brochure to focus on the
character described
Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise
McCauley on February 4, 1913, in
Tuskegee, Alabama. Named after her
maternal grandmother, Rosa was the
first child of James and Leona (Edwards)
McCauley. James was a carpenter and a
builder. Leona was a teacher. When Rosa
was still a toddler, James decided to go
north in search of work. Leona, who was
pregnant with Rosa’s brother by then,
wanted a stable home life for her children.
She and Rosa moved in with her parents,
Sylvester and Rose, in Pine Level, Alabama.
Rosa saw her father again briefly when she
was five years old, and after that did not
see him until she was grown and married.
Though Rosa longed to go to school,
chronic illnesses kept her from attending
regularly in her early years. Her mother
taught her at home, and nurtured Rosa’s
love of books and learning. The schools
for Black children in Pine Level didn’t go
beyond the sixth grade, so when Rosa
completed her education in Pine Level at
age 11, her mother enrolled her in the
Look Beyond 277

Montgomery Industrial School for Girls (also
known as Miss White’s School for Girls), a
private school for African American girls.
Several years later Rosa went on to Alabama
State Teachers’ College for Negroes, which
had a program for Black high school
students in training to be teachers. When
Rosa was 16, her grandmother became ill.
Rosa left school to help care for her. Her
grandmother Rose died about a month later.
As Rosa prepared to return to Alabama
State, her mother also became ill. Rosa
decided to stay home and care for her
mother, while her brother, Sylvester,
worked to help support the family.
Rosa married Raymond Parks in December
1932. Raymond was born in Wedowee,
Alabama, in 1903. Like Rosa’s mother,
Leona McCauley, Geri Parks encouraged
her son’s love of education. Even though
he received little formal education,
Raymond overcame the confines of racial
segregation and educated himself. His
thorough knowledge of domestic affairs
and current events led most people to
believe he had gone to college.
Raymond supported Rosa’s dream of
completing her formal education, and
in 1934 Rosa received her high school
diploma. She was 21 years old. After she
received her diploma, she worked in a
278 Look Beyond
hospital and took in sewing before getting a
job at Maxwell Field, Montgomery’s Army
Air Force base.
Raymond was an early activist in the
effort to free the Scottsboro Boys, nine
young African American men who were
falsely accused of raping two White
women, and he stayed involved in the case
until the last defendant was released on
parole in 1950. In their early married years,
Raymond and Rosa worked together in the
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP). In 1943 Rosa
became secretary of the NAACP, and later
served as a youth leader.
It was also in 1943 that Rosa tried to
register to vote. She tried twice before being
told that she didn’t pass the required test.
That year Rosa was put off a Montgomery
city bus for boarding in the front rather
than in the back, as was the rule for
African American riders.
She tried again in 1945 to register to vote.
This time she copied the questions and her
answers by hand so she could prove later
she had passed. But this time she received
her voter’s certificate in the mail.
In August of 1955, Rosa met the
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., at an
NAACP meeting, where he was a guest
speaker. Some months later, Rosa was busy
organizing a workshop for an NAACP youth
conference. On the evening of December 1,
1955, Rosa finished work and boarded the

us to go home. She noticed that the driver
was the same man who had put her off the
bus twelve years earlier. Black people were
supposed to ride in the back of the bus.
Rosa took a seat in the middle.
Soon the bus became crowded with
passengers. The “White” seats filled up. A
White man was left standing. Tired of
giving in to injustice, Rosa refused to
surrender her seat on the bus. Two
policemen came and arrested her.
Rosa’s act of quiet courage changed the
course of history. Four days later, the Black
people of Montgomery and sympathizers
of other races organized and announced a
boycott of the city bus line. Known as the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, this protest lasted
for 381 days. During this time, African
Americans walked or arranged for rides
rather than take the bus. Reverend King,
the spokesperson for the boycott, urged
participants to protest nonviolently. Soon
the protest against racial injustice spread
beyond Montgomery and throughout the
country. The modern-day Civil Rights
movement in America was born.
The bus boycott ended on December
21, 1956, after the U.S. Supreme Court
declared bus segregation in Montgomery
unconstitutional on November 13. Not long
afterward, Rosa and Raymond, who had
endured threatening telephone calls and
other harassments during the boycott,
moved to Detroit.
Rosa remained active in the Civil Rights
movement. She travelled, spoke, and
participated in peaceful demonstrations.
From 1965 to 1988, she worked in the office
of Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.
During those years, Rosa endured the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
in 1968 and she suffered the deaths of her
husband and brother in 1977 and her
mother in 1979.
Rosa’s interest in working with young
people stayed strong, and in 1987 she
co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks
Institute for Self-Development for the
purpose of motivating young people to
achieve their highest potential. In the years
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since her arrest, Rosa Parks has been
recognized throughout America as the
mother of the modern-day Civil Rights
movement. For children and adults, Mrs.
Parks is a role model for courage, an
example of dignity and determination.
She is a symbol of freedom for the world.
In 1995 Mrs. Parks joined children and
adults all over the world to mark the 40th
anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,
through marches, lectures, exhibits, and
many other events. She co-founded a new
organization, The Parks Legacy. A movement
among legislators was launched to establish
February 4, Mrs. Parks’ birthday, as a
national legal holiday.
Every year, Rosa Parks receives many letters
from young people. Here are two letters with
her replies.
Dear Mrs. Parks,
I live in the New England area, and I
always wondered about the South. When
you were growing up in Alabama, did you
think that things would ever get better for
African Americans?
Kelli,
Hartford, Connecticut
We knew that they had to get better! The
South had suffered under the unjust laws
280 Look Beyond
of segregation far too long. It was time
for something to happen to turn things
around.
During my childhood years, I had been
bothered by the fact that White children
had privileges that I did not. I was deeply
hurt by the hate that some White people,
even children, felt toward me and my people
because of our skin. But my mother and
grandmother taught me to continue to
respect myself and stay focussed on making
myself ready for opportunity. They felt that
a better day had to come, and they wanted
me to be a part of it. But it was up to us to
make it better.
As an adult, I would go home thirsty on
a hot summer day rather than take a drink
from the “coloured only” fountain. I would
not be a part of an unjust system that was
designed to make me feel inferior.
I knew that this type of system was
wrong and could not last. I did not know
when, but I felt that the people would rise
up and demand justice. I did not plan for
that point of change to begin with my
actions on the bus that evening in 1955.
But I was ready to take a stand.
Dear Mrs. Parks,
I wonder, will there ever be a time when all
people will be treated equally? I believe that
we as a people and the world are divided. I

am fearful. Today, there are racial epithets
painted on people’s property and students’
lockers based on skin. What do you see for
us today, and what is your message to help
us as we prepare ourselves for the next
century?
Lindsey,
Detroit, Michigan
I understand your frustration and pain as
you grow up in this world.
We Blacks are not as fearful or divided as
people may think. We cannot let ourselves,
the human race, be so afraid that we are
unable to move around freely and express
ourselves. If we do, the gains we made in
the Civil Rights movement have been for
naught. Love, not fear, must be our guide.
My message to the world is that we must
come together and live as one. There is only
one world, and yet we, as a people, have
treated the world as if it were divided. We
cannot allow the gains we have made to
erode. Although we have a long way to go,
Activities
1. As a class, discuss what you know about
the Civil Rights Movement in the United
States. What were the main aims of the
movement? When was it most active? Who
were its members? Who was its leader?
2. Prepare a newspaper or radio report
about the arrest of Rosa Parks on
I do believe that we can achieve Dr. King’s
dream of a better world.
From time to time, I catch glimpses
of that world. I can see a world in which
children do not learn hatred in their homes.
I can see a world in which mothers and
fathers have the last and most important
word.
I can see a world in which one respects
the rights of one’s neighbours.
I can see a world in which all adults
protect the innocence of children.
I can see a world in which people do not
call each other names based on skin colour.
I can see a world free of acts of violence.
I can see a world in which people of all
races and all religions work together to
improve the quality of life for everyone.
I can see this world because it exists today
in small pockets of this country and in a
small pocket of every person’s heart. If we
will look to God and work together—not only
here, but everywhere—then others will see
this world, too, and help to make it a reality.
December 1, 1955. Try to capture the
issues and attitudes of that time.
3. Imagine that Rosa Parks is running for
political office and you are her public
relations manager. Create an election
brochure that persuades people to vote for
her, based on her character and experience.
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End-of-unit Activities
1. Many of the selections in this unit
describe visionary points of view that
look beyond the usual view of things.
Choose one of these selections and, in
the form of a letter to the author, explain
why you find it inspiring.
2. Personal reflections are often highly
selective. Choose one of the selections in
this unit and retell it from the point of
view of another character, showing how
events might have been different.
3. Role-play a dialogue between Rosa
Parks and any one of the following:
Nasa Begum (“Snow White”), one of the
characters in “Five Minutes to Change the
World,” or the narrator of “Banu.” Think
carefully about the types of issues the
characters might discuss and how they
might relate to one another.
4. Write a poem about an environmental
issue of your choice. Your poem should
recommend a solution that demonstrates
your ability to be forward-looking.
282 Look Beyond
5. Work in a group to choose an issue where
injustice seems to prevail. The issue
might be related to the environment, to
discrimination of some form, or to any
other topic of your choice. Create a
campaign to bring this issue to the
attention of the public. Your campaign
must include a visual representation
of some form, an audio or audiovisual
component, a dramatic testimonial,
and annotated references to texts and
resources that would help educate
the general public about the problem.
Present your final campaign to a class
in your school.
6. Produce an advertisement promoting
this anthology, to be shown to next
year’s Grade 7 students at the start of
the year. You can choose to focus on
your favourite selections, on the themes
you found most interesting, or on the
book as a whole.