Private Peaceful PDF

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo Five past Ten They’ve gone now, and I’m alone at last. I have the whole night ahead of me, and I won’t waste a single moment of it. I shan’t sleep it away. I won’t dream i...

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo Five past Ten They’ve gone now, and I’m alone at last. I have the whole night ahead of me, and I won’t waste a single moment of it. I shan’t sleep it away. I won’t dream it away either. I mustn’t, because every moment of it will be far too precious. I want to try to remember everything, just as it was, just as it happened. I’ve had nearly eighteen years of yesterdays and tomorrows, and tonight I must remember as many of them as I can. I want tonight to be long, as long as my life, not filled with fleeting dreams that rush me on towards dawn. Tonight, more than any other night of my life, I want to feel alive. Charlie is taking me by the hand, leading me because he knows I don’t want to go. I’ve never worn a collar before and it’s choking me. My boots are strange and heavy on my feet. My heart is heavy too, because I dread what I am going to. Charlie has told me often how terrible this school-place is: about Mr Munnings and his raging tempers and the long whipping cane he hangs on the wall above his desk. Big Joe doesn’t have to go to school and I don’t think that’s fair at all. He’s much older than me. He’s even older than Charlie and he’s never been to school. He stays at home with Mother, and sits up in his tree singing Oranges and Lemons, and laughing. Big Joe is always happy, always laughing. I wish I could be happy like him. I wish I could be at home like him. I don’t want to go with Charlie. I don’t want to go to school. I look back, over my shoulder, hoping for a reprieve, hoping that Mother will come running after me and take me home. But she doesn’t come and she doesn’t come, and school and Mr Munnings and his cane are getting closer with every step. “Piggyback?” says Charlie. He sees my eyes full of tears and knows how it is. Charlie always knows how it is. He’s three years older than me, so he’s done everything and knows everything. He’s strong, too, and very good at piggybacks. So I hop up and cling on tight, crying behind my closed eyes, trying not to whimper out loud. But I cannot hold back my sobbing for long because I know that this morning is not the beginning of anything – not new and exciting as Mother says it is – but rather the end of my beginning. Clinging on round Charlie’s neck I know that I am living the last moments of my carefree time, that I will not be the same person when I come home this afternoon. I open my eyes and see a dead crow hanging from the fence, his beak open. Was he shot, shot in mid-scream, as he began to sing, his raucous tune scarcely begun? He sways, his feathers still catching the wind even in death, his family and friends cawing in their grief and anger from the high elm trees above us. I am not sorry for him. It could be him that drove away my robin and emptied her nest of her eggs. My eggs. Five of them there had been, live and warm under my fingers. I remember I took them out one by one and laid them in the palm of my hand. I wanted them for my tin, to blow them like Charlie did and lay them in cotton wool with my blackbird’s eggs and my pigeon’s eggs. I would have taken them. But something made me draw back, made me hesitate. The robin was watching me from Father’s rose bush, her black and beady eyes unblinking, begging me. Father was in that bird’s eyes. Under the rose bush, deep down, buried in the damp and wormy earth were all his precious things. Mother had put his pipe in first. Then Charlie laid his hobnail boots side by side, curled into each other, sleeping. Big Joe knelt down and covered the boots in Father’s old scarf. “Your turn, Tommo,” Mother said. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was holding the gloves he’d worn the morning he died. I remembered picking one of them up. I knew what they did not know, what I could never tell them. 1. How old is the narrator? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. What two things does the narrator describe as heavy? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. What does Big Joe do all day? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. What won’t the narrator waste? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Describe the meaning of these words, use a dictionary to aid you if needed. a) fleeting b) raging c) reprieve d) carefree 6. Why is the narrator apprehensive about going to school?(2) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. What was the robin doing? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Look at the phrase, ‘his raucous tune scarcely begun.’ What does this tell you about how the crow communicates? (1) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. How does the author create mystery towards the end of the story? (2) _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ 10. Using evidence from the text, explain what you think the narrator could never tell? (3) _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. How old is the narrator? (1) Nearly eighteen. 2. What two things does the narrator describe as heavy? (1) Their boots and his heart. 3. What does Big Joe do all day? (1) He sits in his tree singing Oranges and Lemons. 4. What won’t the narrator waste? (1) The narrator will not waste the night. 5. Describe the meaning of these words, use a dictionary to aid you if needed. a) fleeting – lasting for a very short time. b) raging – showing rage or with great force and intensity. c) reprieve – to cancel or postpone the punishment of someone. d) carefree – free from anxiety and responsibility. 6. Why is the narrator apprehensive about going to school?(2) 2 of the following; Charlie has told them that it is an awful place. Mr Munnings awful rages The cane. 7. What was the robin doing? (1) The robin was sat under a bush, pleading not to take her eggs. 8. Look at the phrase, ‘his raucous tune scarcely begun.’ What does this tell you about how the crow communicates? (1) The crow died before it could begin i’s loud harsh song. 9. How does the author create mystery towards the end of the story? (2) By mentioning seeing the father in the bird’s eyes and by revealing that the narrator knows a secret they cannot tell. 10. Using evidence from the text, explain what you think the narrator could never tell? (3) Various answers.