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stx-ENG/B-<br />
<strong>Engelsk</strong> B<br />
Studentereksamen<br />
1. delprøve, uden hjælpemidler<br />
kl. 09.00 - 10.00<br />
Tirsdag den . maj <br />
kl. . - .
Nedenstående rubrikker udfyldes.<br />
Side 1 af 9 sider<br />
Efter prøven afleveres dette hæfte med din besvarelse til en tilsynsførende.<br />
Skolens/kursets navn:<br />
Elevens/kursistens navn:<br />
Klasse/hold:<br />
Elevens/kursistens nummer:<br />
Elevens/kursistens underskrift:<br />
Tilsynsførendes signatur:<br />
1stx121-ENG/B-29052012<br />
Denne delprøve besvares uden brug af hjælpemidler.<br />
Besvarelsen afleveres kl. 10.00
Side 2 af 9 sider<br />
Besvar opgaverne i A-D<br />
Ret fejlene i følgende sætninger og forklar på dansk dine rettelser. Der er kun én<br />
fejl i hver sætning. Skriv den korrekte sætning på linjen nedenunder.<br />
1. News about important events are always posted on the website.<br />
2. When Harry Potter is admitted to Hogwarts, meets he new friends, but also new<br />
enemies.<br />
A
Side 3 af 9 sider<br />
3. After all, the former Prime Minister of this country was a very responsibly person.<br />
4. I sleeped so badly that night that I had to call in sick the next day.<br />
5. I simply can’t remember were I left my sunglasses this morning.
Side 4 af 9 sider<br />
6. On my way to school I came across a cat whose leg and tail was broken.<br />
7. Gerard has a daughter, Lucy, which is eight years old.
B<br />
Side 5 af 9 sider<br />
De markerede verber (udsagnsord) nedenfor skal sættes i præsens (nutid).<br />
Skriv præsensformen i skemaet, og forklar kort kongruensen (overensstemmelsen)<br />
mellem subjekt og verballed (grundled og udsagnsled). Skriv dit svar på dansk.<br />
The New Sun newspaper [to appear] with a manifesto that [to attempt] to set out a fresh<br />
start to replace the News of the World.<br />
The newspaper [to claim] to be “fearless and fun” after the scandals that [to have]<br />
rocked Britain.<br />
One of the first pages [to show] an exclusive interview with the Britain’s Got Talent<br />
judge Amanda Holden. A picture of Holden cradling her daughter [to accompany] the<br />
story, in which she [to describe] how she was “moments from death”.<br />
Verbum<br />
to appear<br />
to attempt<br />
to claim<br />
to have<br />
to show<br />
to accompany<br />
to describe<br />
Præsensformen Forklaring af kongruensen<br />
www.guardian.co.uk, 2012
Side 6 af 9 sider<br />
Beskriv ligheder og forskelle mellem de to tekster nedenfor med hensyn til sætningsopbygning<br />
og ordvalg. Underbyg dit svar med eksempler fra begge tekster.<br />
Skriv dit svar på dansk.<br />
TEXT 1<br />
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C<br />
TIME TO SPARKLE<br />
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You will create the legendary “Tiffany Experience” with your impeccable customer<br />
service and natural graciousness which makes our luxurious store environments<br />
memorable. Your understanding of our brand will shine through in your immaculate<br />
standard of presentation.<br />
In return, you will enjoy competitive hourly rates, commission potential, the opportunity<br />
to work in our elegant environment and be part of our legendary brand.<br />
TEXT 2<br />
To discover more about our Central London opportunities, please visit<br />
TiffanyCareersUK.com<br />
Please note that short-listed candidates will be invited to an interview in Central<br />
London on Thursday 14 October 2010.<br />
Tiffany & Co.<br />
At Tiffany & Co. we believe a diverse workforce makes a difference.<br />
Equal Opportunity Employer.<br />
1 berømt smykkeforretning.<br />
CAR MECHANIC<br />
required for busy<br />
private garage in Vauxhall.<br />
Reasonable experience<br />
required in diesel engines.<br />
Salary negotiable.<br />
Call 020 XXXX 5151 ext<br />
2036 or 2055<br />
Evening Standard, September 30, 2010
Side 7 af 9 sider
Side 8 af 9 sider<br />
Oversæt følgende sætninger til engelsk.<br />
1. Bemærk venligst, at kontoret er lukket på mandag.<br />
D<br />
2. Efter at hun havde ringet til politiet, blev hun helt rolig og satte sig ned for at vente.<br />
3. Folk vil gerne rejse så nemt og billigt som muligt nu til dags.
Side 9 af 9 sider<br />
4. Efter at have fundet Troy Davis skyldig i mord, idømte retten ham dødsstraf.
Opgaven er produceret med anvendelse af kvalitetsstyringssystemet ISO 9001 og miljøledelsessystemet ISO 14001
stx-ENG/B-<br />
<strong>Engelsk</strong> B<br />
Studentereksamen<br />
2. delprøve<br />
kl. 09.00 - 14.00<br />
Tirsdag den . maj <br />
kl. . - .
Answer either A or B<br />
A<br />
Side 1 af 12 sider<br />
The texts in section A focus on the UK riots in August 2011. Write a paper (700-1000<br />
words) in which you answer the following questions. Answer the questions separately.<br />
1. Give an outline of the views on what caused the UK riots presented in texts 1 and 2.<br />
2. Characterise the tone and style used in text 3. Illustrate your answer with examples<br />
from the text.<br />
3. Taking your starting point in one of the texts, discuss how society can prevent<br />
similar problems in the future.<br />
Texts Page<br />
1. Al Pessin, “Experts Cite Underlying Causes for UK Riots”, a news report<br />
from Voice of America website, August 10, 2011 ....................... 2<br />
2. Camila Batmanghelidjh, “Caring costs – but so do riots”, an article<br />
from The Independent website, August 9, 2011 ......................... 4<br />
3. “The Fightback”, an editorial from The Sun website, August 10, 2011 ....... 6<br />
B<br />
Write an essay (700-1000 words) in which you analyse and interpret Viv McDade’s short<br />
story “A Gift for My Mother”. Your essay must include the following points:<br />
- a characterisation of the narrator<br />
- the setting<br />
- the main character’s relationship to her parents<br />
- the main theme<br />
Text Page<br />
Viv McDade, “A Gift for My Mother”, a short story, 2011 ..................... 8
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TEXT 1<br />
A<br />
Al Pessin<br />
Experts Cite Underlying Causes for UK Riots<br />
London was largely calm Wednesday, but the rioting that engulfed the British capital for<br />
the past four nights has spread to other cities, including Manchester and Birmingham.<br />
British Prime Minister David Cameron authorized police to use water cannons, which is<br />
a first for the British mainland, saying a “fightback” is under way to restore law and order<br />
to Britain’s streets.<br />
Observers say the rioting was not based on specific political or economic demands, but<br />
they acknowledge there are underlying reasons that so many young people are willing to<br />
take part in looting, arson and vandalism – on a scale the country has not seen in many<br />
years.<br />
In London and other British cities, young people burned cars and buildings, looted<br />
stores and fought with police.<br />
The riots broke out after a still-unresolved shooting by police 1 in a poor North London<br />
neighborhood. However, that was just the spark. Many Londoners initially assumed the<br />
violence was a backlash from chronic unemployment, slow economic recovery and cuts<br />
to public service spending by the country’s new government.<br />
But there were no slogans, no chanting, no demands. And it soon became clear to many<br />
that this was something different.<br />
Geography Professor Chris Hamnett, of King’s College, lives in North London, not far<br />
from some of the worst rioting.<br />
“Essentially, what we’ve seen is rioting for fun and profit. This is not people expressing<br />
their anger against an oppressive state,” said Hamnett. “This is people thinking it would<br />
be nice to get a slice of the action.”<br />
The riots were concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Caribbean populations,<br />
which have a history of tension with the police. Hamnett said those Londoners<br />
generally have less education, more unemployment and higher crime rates than other<br />
Britons.<br />
“There’s a racial dimension to the rioting and the looting, but it’s not one of racial<br />
oppression. But there is undoubtedly a quite strong class and economic element,” said<br />
Hamnett.<br />
Not far from the professor’s house, police stood guard as crews worked to clean up the<br />
damage from the previous night’s rioting. Basani Mabyalane lives in the neighborhood.<br />
1 the death of a young man during an arrest.
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“I feel there is maybe more that could be done to empower the young people because,<br />
from what I saw yesterday, to me it looked like they don’t have much to do,” said Mabyalane.<br />
“They have got the time. They have got the energy. But they are using that energy<br />
on negative things.”<br />
In the North London neighborhood of Haringey, some young people are trying to do<br />
something positive, through a group called HYPE – “Haringey’s Young People Empowered.”<br />
One of them is Erica Lopez.<br />
“To be honest, I think at the moment it’s mainly to do with looting. A majority of people<br />
are just looting to loot, with no reason, just because they want to do it. Simple as that,”<br />
said Lopez.<br />
Lopez said she does not condone the violence, but understands and shares the pent up<br />
anger many of her young neighbors feel about a lack of job opportunities and cuts in government<br />
funding to youth services.<br />
“The government really needs to actually take time and listen to these young people<br />
because for a long time they have been crying in silence saying, ‘This is what matters to<br />
me.’ They have really been crying for a long time,” she said.<br />
But on Wednesday, after cutting short his vacation, meeting with police officers and<br />
chairing 1 two emergency government meetings to deal with the unrest, the British prime<br />
minister was not showing any sympathy toward those who engaged in violence and looting.<br />
Cameron attributed the unrest to selfishness, lack of responsibility, poor discipline in<br />
schools and bad parenting.<br />
“It is all too clear that we have a big problem with gangs in our country. For too long<br />
there’s been a lack of focus and a complete lack of respect shown by these groups of thugs.<br />
I’m clear that they are in no way representative of the vast majority of young people in our<br />
country, who despise them, frankly, as much as the rest of us do. But there are pockets of<br />
our society that are not just broken, but frankly sick.”<br />
Cameron promised tougher police tactics, harsh punishment for those convicted of<br />
crimes during the riots, and that looters caught on film, whose pictures have been published<br />
online and in British newspapers, would be arrested and prosecuted.<br />
Officials are determined to regain control, regardless of the reasons for the violence.<br />
1 leading.<br />
(2011)
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TEXT 2<br />
Camila Batmanghelidjh<br />
Caring costs – but so do riots<br />
These rioters feel they don’t actually belong to the community. For years, they’ve felt cut<br />
adrift from society.<br />
Shops looted, cars and buildings burnt out, young adults in hoods on the rampage.<br />
London has woken up to street violence, and the usual narratives have emerged – punish<br />
those responsible for the violence because they are “opportunist criminals” and “disgusting<br />
thieves”. The slightly more intellectually curious might blame the trouble on poor<br />
police relations or lack of policing.<br />
My own view is that the police in this country do an impressive job and unjustly carry<br />
the consequences of a much wider social dysfunction. Before you take a breath of sarcasm<br />
thinking “here she goes, excusing the criminals with some sob story”, I want to begin by<br />
stating two things. First, violence and looting can never be justified. Second, for those of<br />
us working at street level, we’re not surprised by these events.<br />
Twitter and Facebook have kept the perverse momentum going, transmitting invitations<br />
such as: “Bare shops are gonna get smashed up. So come, get some (free stuff!!!!)<br />
F... the feds 1 we will send them back with OUR riot! […] So if you see a brother... SALUTE!<br />
If you see a fed... SHOOT!”<br />
If this is a war, the enemy, on the face of it, are the “lawless”, the defenders are the lawabiding.<br />
An absence of morality can easily be found in the rioters and looters. How, we<br />
ask, could they attack their own community with such disregard? But the young people<br />
would reply “easily”, because they feel they don’t actually belong to the community. Community,<br />
they would say, has nothing to offer them. Instead, for years they have experienced<br />
themselves cut adrift from civil society’s legitimate structures. Society relies on<br />
collaborative behaviour; individuals are held accountable because belonging brings personal<br />
benefit. Fear or shame of being alienated keeps most of us pro-social.<br />
Working at street level in London, over a number of years, many of us have been concerned<br />
about large groups of young adults creating their own parallel antisocial communities<br />
with different rules. The individual is responsible for their own survival because the<br />
established community is perceived to provide nothing. Acquisition of goods through<br />
violence is justified in neighbourhoods where the notion of dog eat dog pervades and the<br />
top dog survives the best. The drug economy facilitates a parallel subculture with the<br />
drug dealer producing more fiscally efficient 2 solutions than the social care agencies who<br />
are too under-resourced to compete.<br />
The insidious flourishing of anti-establishment attitudes is paradoxically helped by the<br />
establishment. It grows when a child is dragged by their mother to social services scream-<br />
1 (her): strisserne.<br />
2 økonomisk fordelagtige.
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Side 5 af 12 sider<br />
ing for help and security guards remove both; or in the shiny academies which, quietly,<br />
rid themselves of the most disturbed kids. Walk into the mental hospitals and there is<br />
nothing for the patients to do except peel the wallpaper. Go to the youth centre and you<br />
will find the staff have locked themselves up in the office because disturbed young men<br />
are dominating the space with their violent dogs. Walk on the estate stairwells with your<br />
baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best<br />
outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped.<br />
The border police arrive at the neighbour’s door to grab an “over-stayer 1 ” and his kids are<br />
screaming. British children with no legal papers have mothers surviving through prostitution<br />
and still there’s not enough food on the table.<br />
It’s not one occasional attack on dignity, it’s a repeated humiliation, being continuously<br />
dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the<br />
ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned<br />
to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped. Savagery<br />
is a possibility within us all. Some of us have been lucky enough not to have to call<br />
upon it for survival; others, exhausted from failure, can justify resorting to it.<br />
Our leaders still speak about how protecting the community is vital. The trouble is, the<br />
deal has gone sour. The community has selected who is worthy of help and who is not. In<br />
this false moral economy where the poor are described as dysfunctional, the community<br />
fails. […]<br />
It costs money to care. But it also costs money to clear up riots, savagery and antisocial<br />
behaviour. I leave it to you to do the financial and moral sums.<br />
1 (her): illegal immigrant.<br />
(2011)
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Side 6 af 12 sider<br />
TEXT 3<br />
The Sun 1 says<br />
The Fightback<br />
Parliament meets tomorrow in emergency session to discuss the riots. What should it do?<br />
Expressing outrage is not enough.<br />
MPs must ask how they can help police defeat the anarchy engulfing our cities.<br />
The Sun demands decisive action.<br />
The law on rioting must be toughened. Our brave police must be given a free hand to<br />
smash the mobs whatever it takes.<br />
Wearing masks on the street should be made illegal. Let’s reduce overseas aid and<br />
reverse police cuts.<br />
The courts must be ruthless. The maximum sentence for riot is ten years. So let’s see it<br />
applied.<br />
Jailed thugs must serve every day. And no let-off for young rioters.<br />
MPs must also demand the Home Office 2 provide more prison spaces.<br />
As The Sun has warned, we have not built enough jails. If the cells are full, deport foreign<br />
criminals. Too bad about human rights laws.<br />
Rioting morons must be put behind bars, and the nastier the conditions the better.<br />
Terrorised<br />
You can help. If you recognise a thug from our Shop A Moron 3 pictures today, call<br />
Crimestoppers.<br />
Parliament must also think about popular social networking sites.<br />
Yesterday, they had a positive role as decent Londoners used Twitter and Facebook to<br />
arrange clean-up squads and support the police.<br />
1 British tabloid newspaper.<br />
2 Indenrigsministeriet.<br />
3 opfordring til at indsende billeder af formodede bøller til offentliggørelse.
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Side 7 af 12 sider<br />
But these sites were also used to co-ordinate riots. Site bosses must hand all such messages<br />
to cops.<br />
As for water cannon, Sun readers overwhelmingly demand their use.<br />
We’re told they are not used in mainland Britain. But they are acceptable in Northern<br />
Ireland. Crazy. Surely a thug is a thug, whether in London or Londonderry.<br />
Parliament must not be squeamish about tear gas and plastic bullets. They are there to be<br />
used.<br />
Above all let’s not see tomorrow’s Commons 1 debate descend into cynical political<br />
point-scoring.<br />
We’ve had enough of that from Labour’s Red Ken Livingstone 2 , ably supported by BBC<br />
toadies trying to blame evil crimes on “the cuts”.<br />
Order must be restored and justice delivered for those who have been terrorised and<br />
robbed, those who have been burned out of house and home, and those who have seen<br />
their businesses torched and a lifetime’s hard work destroyed.<br />
Britain looks to Parliament to rise to the occasion and provide the leadership we<br />
have been lacking.<br />
1 House of Commons.<br />
2 Ken Livingstone, British Labour politician. His nickname is ”Red Ken”.<br />
(2011)
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B<br />
Viv McDade<br />
A Gift for My Mother<br />
In the year I turned ten I picked my mother a bunch of wild flowers in the bushveld 1<br />
behind our house, tiny star-shaped flowers with white on the top and pink underneath,<br />
daisies the colour of egg yolks and a sprig from a lucky bean creeper.<br />
“They’re beautiful,” she said, turning the little bunch to look at the shape and colour of<br />
each flower, the red and black lucky beans snug in their dry brown pod. She arranged the<br />
flowers in a jar of water and put them on the windowsill beside the stove so she could see<br />
them while she was cooking.<br />
“I love a fresh flower in the house,” she said in her dreamy voice. “If I had my time<br />
over, Lucy, I’d have everything just perfect, nothing but the best.” I knew she was thinking<br />
about the houses on the other side of the railway line, houses with hallways and moulded<br />
skirting boards and neighbours who didn’t go down to the shops with chiffon scarves over<br />
their curlers. But that evening they weren’t on her mind long enough to make her angry or<br />
sad and after a little while she moved the jar of flowers along the windowsill into the last<br />
of the sunlight, and she was humming when she wiped down the sink.<br />
I sat at the kitchen table doing my maths homework until I heard Dad’s car and ran out<br />
to meet him. He opened the door and leaned out to kiss me. “Hello, my precious.” My<br />
mother hates that. “For God’s sake, it’s a wonder the child hasn’t grown up thinking her<br />
name was My Precious.”<br />
“I was the only one who could spell illiterate,” I tell him.<br />
“Fantastic. You’re the best speller I know.”<br />
“I’m stuck with a maths problem. If eight men dig a ditch in two hours how many eighthour<br />
days will it take two men to dig the same ditch?”<br />
“We’ll work it out when we put our minds to it.”<br />
He’s very good at explaining things and never makes you feel nervous or stupid. My<br />
mother thinks his job at the garage isn’t much, but he’s a far better teacher than Mrs<br />
Emmerson.<br />
He wiped his shoes on the mat before we went into the kitchen. “Hello,” he said, as if<br />
he was asking a question, and my mother’s voice was tired and small when she answered<br />
him. He took a deep breath and slapped the little brown envelope of wages down on the<br />
table.<br />
“How much is there this week?” asked my mother, and she gave a little laugh.<br />
“As much as I’ve earned, that’s how much.”<br />
“What you’ve earned isn’t enough for us to live on.”<br />
“Then die on it,” he said, walking out of the kitchen, “because it’s all there is.”<br />
My mother snatched a pot from the cupboard, banged it into the sink and opened the<br />
1 well-grassed plains in South Africa.
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Side 9 af 12 sider<br />
tap so wide the water ran over the top. After she switched off the tap she looked out the<br />
window for a long time.<br />
It was getting dark outside when she told me to set the table. I switched on the light,<br />
and she pulled the curtains closed, leaving the jar of flowers in the darkness.<br />
Next day after school I went around the back of the supermarket and searched for a box<br />
in the yard. Most were cardboard and too big or too deep but in the end I found a shallow<br />
wooden peach box that was perfect.<br />
At home I put tins of water in the box, changed into old clothes and went out the back<br />
gate with the box and scissors from the kitchen. The paths that led through the bush over<br />
to the factories on the road to the airport were sharp and clear but I chose an overgrown<br />
path. The leaves of the msasa 1 trees were shiny, and the sun made it look as if there were<br />
diamonds on the big granite boulders.<br />
After a while my arms got tired holding the box so I sat on the edge of the path and<br />
watched a line of polished black ants follow each other into the long yellow grass and<br />
listened to birds calling pttt pttt from the trees. I left the box in the shade of a boulder. The<br />
ground felt hot through my sandals and the long dry grass scraped my legs. There were all<br />
kinds of daisies: tiny and white, and yellow and orange ones as big as my hand. I cut the<br />
stems as long as I could and took each handful back to the box to put them in water. I was<br />
reaching over a clump of blackjacks to cut off their flowers and they’d scattered their tiny<br />
black spikes on my T-shirt and shorts when I spotted my first flame lily, its wavy sweptback<br />
petals bright red at the top and yellow at the bottom exactly as if it was on fire. Mrs<br />
Emmerson had shown us a picture and told us it was illegal to pick them and you were<br />
very lucky if you saw one. I longed to give my mother something so beautiful and precious<br />
but shivered at the thought of becoming a criminal. I was lucky to find a big bush<br />
full of tiny white candle-shaped flowers with yellow tips and trumpets of witch weed 2<br />
with black spots in their hearts. […]<br />
By the time I got home the long grass was making shadows across the path and I’d<br />
worked out everything I needed to do. I laid out the flowers and divided them into ten<br />
bunches – some all one kind of flower, others different flowers but shades of the same<br />
colour and others I mixed up. I made daisy chains out of string and used them to tie up the<br />
flowers before arranging the bunches in the tins of water and putting my purse in the box<br />
beside them.<br />
On the street I decided not to start with the du Toits or the Thompsons because they<br />
lived beside us and might tell my mother. Instead I walked five streets away and went to<br />
the house at the end. It felt safer to start with strangers.<br />
There was a tricycle in the garden and a puddle of water around the sprinkler in the<br />
middle of the yellowy lawn. A safety chain held the front door slightly open and inside a<br />
voice on the radio was talking about a shop that had been burgled and a man who was<br />
helping the police with their investigations.<br />
A woman’s voice called out, “I’m telling you for the last time, put those toys away.”<br />
I knocked on the door, a soft knock at first and then louder. I was thinking about leav-<br />
1 African trees.<br />
2 African plants.
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Side 10 af 12 sider<br />
ing and going next door when I heard flip-flops slapping to the door. A woman carrying<br />
a baby, so small its head had hardly any hair and its cheek was squashed against her shoulder,<br />
looked through the gap in the doorway. “Good afternoon,” I said. “Would you like to<br />
buy some flowers for sixpence a bunch?”<br />
A telephone started ringing in the house, and she hesitated for a moment as if she might<br />
go to answer it, then changed her mind. “Flowers?” she said. “You must be joking!” She<br />
turned her head. “I’m not going to say it again. Put those toys away this minute.” Then she<br />
looked at me again, took the chain off and opened the door.<br />
“Does your mother know what you’re doing, pet?”<br />
“No,” I said. “I’m going to surprise her.”<br />
“Well, your flowers are beautiful. It cheers me up just looking at them.”<br />
She took one of the mixed bunches into the house, and when she came back she gave<br />
me a sixpence and four toffees in waxy white paper with blue writing. “You be careful<br />
crossing the road with that box,” she said.<br />
On the way out I put down the box and closed the gate, then opened it again when I<br />
remembered that was how I’d found it.<br />
In the garden two houses down a man was pruning a creamy rose bush beside his<br />
veranda, standing back a little to look at it and pinching his cheek slowly before he cut off<br />
each branch. He turned when he heard the click of the gate latch and put his head to one<br />
side as he walked down the drive to meet me.<br />
“Those look nice,” he said.<br />
“Do you think you might like some?”<br />
“Of course I would like some,” he said. “What are you charging?”<br />
“Sixpence a bunch,” I said, and immediately wished I’d lowered my price. “Bring them<br />
up here,” he said, going onto the veranda. “I’ll go in and get my wife so we can choose<br />
together.”<br />
His wife was round and quick with a smile that took up her whole face. “What will you<br />
do with the money you get from the flowers?”<br />
“It’s going to be a surprise.”<br />
“That’s nice,” said the man.<br />
“For my mother,” I said.<br />
His wife loved all the flowers but the little white daisies were her favourite because she<br />
said “Definitely these” when her husband asked “What’ll we get?”<br />
In the end they bought three bunches: daisies for the kitchen and two mixed bunches<br />
for the lounge. The man fetched his wallet and gave me two shillings.<br />
“There you go,” he said, “and you can keep the change.” When I looked back from the<br />
gate he held up his thumb and called out, “Good luck.”<br />
I could feel the purse in my pocket and I knew the flowers were even more beautiful<br />
than I’d thought. People were friendly and interested to know my name and where I lived<br />
and if my mother was at home, and although the bunches with longer stems went first,<br />
nearly everyone found it hard to know which ones to choose.<br />
At one house a boy with pimples and a black T-shirt that had “So what?” in pink writing<br />
on the front, came to the door with a cigarette in his hand.
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He looked at the two bunches I had left. “So how much money have you made?”<br />
“Four shillings and sixpence so far,” I said.<br />
“Cool. Almost enough to buy yourself some wheels. Look here, my old lady’s out at the<br />
moment but if she wasn’t I reckon she’d buy.”<br />
In less than an hour I’d sold the ten bunches and went home with the purse full of<br />
money. I emptied it onto the kitchen table and made a little tower of each kind of coin. Five<br />
and sixpence: five shillings for the flowers, and the extra sixpence from the people who’d<br />
bought three bunches.<br />
I thought about boiling the kettle and setting out the cups. I’d make the tea when I heard<br />
the bus, and when we were settled at the table I’d casually show her the money. But I was<br />
too excited to stick to the plan so I washed my face and legs, changed into fresh shorts and<br />
my lace-collar blouse, ran down the road to the bus stop and sat on the verge, jiggling my<br />
leg against the fat purse in my pocket.<br />
The bus pulled in and my mother was sitting right at the front. As soon as she got up<br />
from her seat she saw me and waved, and hugged me against her when she came down the<br />
steps. “That blouse is lovely,” she said. “You’re a good girl to come down to the bus in it.”<br />
I took the shopping bag from her and saw there was milk and a packet of meat. “Are we<br />
having chops?” I asked.<br />
“Chops?” she said. “Where would the money come from for chops?”<br />
“I’ve got a present for you.”<br />
“A present?” she said. ”Have you really?”<br />
In the kitchen I opened the purse and emptied it onto the table. “It’s for you. It’s the<br />
present.”<br />
She looked at the money and then at me.<br />
“Where did this money come from?”<br />
“I got it from flowers, flowers like the ones I gave you.”<br />
“What are you talking about, Lucy?”<br />
I started to tell her about the peach box I’d found in the yard behind the supermarket,<br />
the daisy chains and the flowers, but before I could finish she slapped the table hard with<br />
both hands. “Are you telling me, are you really telling me that you went around the neighbourhood<br />
selling bits of flowers you got from the bush?” She sat down like an old woman<br />
and put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. A big sob came out of her, and<br />
when she looked up her face was twisted and wet. “People will think I sent you, they’ll<br />
think I dressed you up and sent you out to sell flowers from the bush.”<br />
“I didn’t dress up,” I said. “I dressed up for you.”<br />
“Look at you!” She pressed her fingers against her eyes and shook her head. “I want<br />
you to go back. Go and give the money back. Tell them your mother won’t let you keep it.”<br />
“I don’t want to keep it,” I said. “It’s for you.”<br />
“Listen to what I am saying, Lucy. You are to say your mother will not allow you to<br />
keep the money. That’s what you must say.”<br />
I went back with my purse to each of the houses and told the people I had to give back<br />
the money. “Well, if that’s what your mother wants,” some said. Others asked why I had<br />
to give it back but I wasn’t able to tell them. The man and his wife who had bought the
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three bunches weren’t at home so I left the money on the mat in front of their door.<br />
The last person I went to was the woman who’d bought the first bunch and given me<br />
the toffees. “Look,” she said. “I don’t know what all this is about but you can tell your<br />
mother I will not give back the flowers. If she’s not happy with that, she can come up here<br />
to me and we’ll talk about it.” I walked home thinking about how everyone else had taken<br />
back their money as though it had nothing to do with the flowers.<br />
“Well,” said my mother, “What did they say? Did you tell them your mother wouldn’t<br />
let you keep the money?”<br />
I put the sixpence on the table. “One woman wouldn’t take it. She said you can go and<br />
see her about it.”<br />
“What woman?”<br />
“I don’t know. She lives in the big yellow house near the shop.”<br />
My mother reached across the table for her handbag. “I have nothing to say to her, or<br />
to any of them,” she said. She put the coin in her purse and then went over to the sink. Her<br />
knife was sharp and fast against the potatoes, and the water splashed when she threw<br />
them into the pot.<br />
(2011)
Anvendt materiale (til brug for Copydan):<br />
Cass Jones. “Rupert Murdoch: ‘Sun on Sunday will be fearless, fun … and ethical’”. The Guardian website,<br />
February 26, 2012, viewed February 2012. (www.guardian.co.uk)<br />
Evening Standard, September 30, 2010.<br />
Al Pessin. “Experts Cite Underlying Causes for UK Riots”. Voice of America website, August 10, 2011,<br />
viewed August 2011. (www.voanews.com)<br />
Camila Batmanghelidjh. “Caring costs – but so do riots”. The Independent website, August 9, 2011,<br />
viewed August 2011. (www.independent.co.uk)<br />
“The Fightback”. The Sun website, August 10, 2011, viewed August 2011. (www.thesun.co.uk)<br />
Viv McDade. “A Gift for My Mother”. New Irish Short Stories. Ed. Joseph O’Connor. London: Faber and<br />
Faber, 2011.
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