Chapter 10- Reading guide

SPIES- CHAPTER 10

A) AT THE BARNS

TRUE OR FALSE? JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWERS

1. The man has a clear German accent
2. The man calls Keith´s parents by their first names
3. Stephen is as inarticulate as usual.
4. The man asks about Milly and her mother.
5. The man links Stephen´s fears and failure to his own story
6. The man cries and explains the only thing that keeps him sane are the regular sounds of the trains.
7. Keith is still worried about germs when he crouches to give the man the food he has brought.
8. In the darkness of the pit where the man lives, Keith can spot the man´s dark tangle of hair and beard.

ANSWER

1. What does the man reveal about his relationship with Mrs Hayward?
2. What message and token does he give Stephen for Mrs Hayward?
3. Why do the man´s last words sound like a key turning on a lock for Stephen?

B) IN THE LOOKOUT

1. What is different? Who has been there?
2. What´s going on at the Haywards´?
3. What is Mrs Hayward wearing?
4. Summarise what happens when Keith goes to the lookout

C) AT STEPHEN´S HOUSE

Describe:

1. Stephen´s parents attitude to their injured son
2. Stephen´s behaviour
3. Geoff´s theory about what has happened

D) THAT NIGHT

1. Why does Stephen wake up in a panic?
2. What is strange?
3. Where does he want to hide the man´s scarf?
4. What does he see?
5. How does he feel?

Questions on chapter 9

Chapter 9: Spies from “The light is on...” to the end.

True or false? Explain the true statements and correct the false ones

1. Mr Hayward sits at the kitchen table to have a conversation with Stephen.
2. He delivers a clear and continuous speech on how to behave.
3. Stephen discovers he has some things in common with Mr Hayward and that adults are not so different from children after all.
4. Mr Hayward tries to get the basket by force.
5. Stephen ends up giving him the basket.
6. When Mrs Hayward enters the room and sees that Mr Hayward has the basket, she begins crying.
7. Stephen goes out of the room and stays in Keith´s room.

Answer these questions:

1. What do you imagine happens in the garage after Stephen goes out?
2. Are Mr and Mrs Wheatley presented as loving parents? Justify your answer
3. What does Stephen notice about the moon? Why does he compare himself to it?
4. What new anxiety wakes Stephen up?
5. Stephen tries to escape from his troubles by reverting to childhood. How? Does he succeed? Why(not)?
6. How does Stephen decide to help Mrs Hayward and the man at the Barns?
7. The chapter ends in a cliffhanger. Explain.

Mrs Hayward´s basket- chapter 9

1) Complete the following summary:

Barbara Berrill goes into --------------once more. She can´t take her eyes off -----------------.She has seen Mrs Hayward with Stephen and she has noticed she -------------------------.

She offers to help-----------------------------. As Stephen refuses to go with her or to tell her about the contents of the basket, Barbara accuses him of--------------------------------------------.

When Stephen confesses he hoped they could be friends, she stops being aggressive and shows him------------------that she has taken from-------------------------------.They smoke it together.

Barbara Berrill takes out-----------------------------------. Among them, she finds ------------------, which she wants to open. Stephen opposes the idea, but Barbara leans forward and ------------------------. Then, she takes –------------------from the trunk and slits the –--------------open.

At that moment, Stephen realises there is somebody peering through the leaves. It is –-----------------, who wants to –--------------------------and also asks him to bring-----------------.

2) Which three objects are not in the basket?

Chapter 9 (up to "L...a...m...o....r...n...a...")

True or false? Justify your answer with detail from the text.

1. The beginning of this chapter brings us back to the narrative present, and to the old narrator´s walk along The Close.
2. The old narrator reflects on the young Stephen´s change of roles.
3. Mrs Hayward looks different. (Explain in what ways and account for the changes)
4. She is compared to a beggar. (Why?)
5. Mrs Haywards explains who the man in the Barns is.
6. Mrs Haywards gives some new information about the man.
7. She asks Stephen to go under the piece of corrugated iron to check if the man needs anything else.
8. Mrs Haywards starts crying.
9. Stephen thinks Auntie Dee was the first one to fall for the man, and that, later, Mrs Hayward took him away from her.
10. Stephen feels responsible for what is going on.
11. Stephen discovers adulthood and childhood are not that different after all.
12. Mrs Haywards has to leave Stephen because Keith is calling her.
13. She makes a comment on the perfume of the privets before she leaves.
14. The privets have become linked to “Lamorna” in Stephen´s imagination.

Questions on chapter 8-section 3

Chapter 8 (from "Nothing to stop her" to "Between us we´ve destroyed the evidence")

Answer the following questions:

1. How has Barbara´s mother discovered the peeping Tom?
2. What do Barbara and Stephen know about their siblings´ joint activities ?
3. What does Stephen brag about?
4. What do they find on the ground of Mrs Durrant´s house? Whose do they think it is?
5. How does Barbara get around Stephen to open his secret trunk?
6. What do they use the matches for? Comment on the roles of the children in this new experience and the reasons they want to try it.
7. Spies draws on the tradition of coming-of-age novels. Why? How is the growing up process described in this chapter?
8. How is Stephen and Barbara´s relationship changing?
9. Whose cigarette does Stephen suddenly realise it might be?

Questions on chapter 8- second section

Spies- Chapter 8 (from “`Can I see inside your secret box thing?´” to “Nothing to stop her”)

TRUE OR FALSE? CORRECT THE FALSE STATEMENTS.

1. The following day, all the children of the street are outside Auntie Dee´s because Uncle Peter has returned.
2. Auntie Dee´s ever-smiling face looks worried this time.
3. The next house the policeman visits is Trewinnick
4. When the policeman emerges to the street again, Stephen regrets his own inaction. He´s done nothing either to help or to stop Keith´s mother.

AS YOU READ THIS SECTION, UNDERLINE QUOTATIONS THAT SHOW THE CHANGES IN STEPHEN´S RELATIONSHIP WITH KEITH AND WITH BARBARA BERRILL.

Quick revision on chapter 8- first section

SPIES- Chapter 8 (up to “`Can I see inside your secret box thing?´”)

TRUE OR FALSE?

1. Stephen feels shut out of the Haywards´world.
2. He decides to tell what´s going on to an adult
3. Barbara Berrill intrudes in the hideout again
4. Keith is the one who does the shopping for his mother and his aunt now.
5. Compared to Stephen, Barbara seems to have a greater understanding of what is going on at the Haywards'
6. Mr Hayward seems to guard his wife closely now. (Justify your answer explaining what the children see from Braemar.)
7. Mrs Haywards refrains from asking  for Stephen´s help because she sees he is with Barbara.

SUMMARISE BARBARA BERRILL´S HYPOTHESIS ABOUT WHO THE “PEEPING TOM” IS

Spies- Chapter 7

True or false? Underline a quotation in the book that justifies your answer

1. The narrator wonders about the way in which he understood what was happening at the time the events took place.
2. Stephen didn´t dare go to the Haywards'
3. Stephen and Keith only played together at Braemar now
4. The old Stephen stares at a pot of geraniums that stand today at the same spot where his former self used to sit in the lookout.
5. The narrator imagines how a boy who is looking out of the window interprets his behaviour.
6. This boy interprets the narrator´s intentions correctly, showing that children can see through adult´s inner conflicts perfectly well.
7. Stephen realised he had betrayed Mrs Hayward´s trust
8. However, he thought he had done nothing wrong
9. He had the impression things in the world were more complex than he had supposed.
10. It was easier for Stephen to order his thoughts when he was far away from Keith´s influence.
11. Stephen realised Mrs Hayward was behaving as suspiciously as a spy
12. He was firmly convinced she was a German
13. He believed the hidden man was a German
14. He believed the hidden man was a tramp
15. He believed the hidden man was an old German tramp
16. He believed the hidden man was Auntie Dee´s boyfriend
17. He believed the hidden man was Mrs Hayward´s lover

Answer these questions:

1. When Stephen steps into the Haywards´hall, he feels “the old familiar order recomposes itself (...)” “everything is back to what it was”. Does this prove true when he enters Keith´s room? How is Keith´s behaviour different? How does Stephen interpret his behaviour? In your opinion, what other reasons may he have for not wanting to continue their investigation?
2. How would you describe Mr Haywards´s behaviour? Look for a simile in the text. Pay attention to the way he speaks, to his words and his gestures.
3. How does Keith behave? Do you feel sympathy for him? What clue(s) are there that this kind of canning is usual practice at the Haywards´?
4. How does Stephen want to help Keith?
5. How far do you agree with Stephen´s view: “The game´s not over. It´s simply become a more terrible kind of game.”
6. Why is the sharpening of the bayonet such a frightening event?
7. In what ways is Stephen´s decision to look for Mrs Hayward similar/different to his previous behaviour?
8. What do the last two lines of the chapter show about Mrs Hayward´s behaviour?

Chapter 6 (from “We hurry forward” to the end)- Guiding questions

They follow Mrs Hayward´s up the Lanes, past the Cottages until the path ends. That place is called “-------------------”, although there are no ------------ to be seen, “only a desolation of overgrown brick footings and collapsed sheets of black corrugated iron”. They remember there was –------------------ living there somewhere.

1. What do they start doing out of boredom?
2. What do they discover?
3. What do they do to the piece of corrugated iron?
4. Do they have any response from the tramp?
5. What are their feelings once they´ve stopped? What do they do?

When they get to Keith´s house, Mr Haywards is worried because--------------------------------------------------------------.

When she finally turns up,

6. What does she tell Mr Hayward she´s been doing?
7. What does she tell Stephen at the end of the chapter?
8. What are your hypotheses about what´s going on?

Summarise what we learn in this chapter about…

• Stephen and Keith´s relationship
• Mr and Mrs Hayward´s relationship
• Mrs Haywards.

Chapter 6 (up to "We hurry forward") - Guiding questions

Spies: Chapter 6 (up to “We hurry forward”)

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

Stephen plucks up courage and goes out in the middle of the night.

1. How is he feeling?
2. Why does he do it?
3. What does he find out?

Stephen returns to the Close

4. Who are looking for him?
5. How does he feel and behave?
6. What has he still got in his hands?

At the Haywards´...

7. Why isn't the fruit of Stephen´s night excursion celebrated by Keith?
8. What hypothesis does Stephen have in order to explain it?
9. What hypotheses does he have to discard due to the new evidence?
10. How does Stephen´s private conversation with Mrs Hayward makes him understand her words to them when they announce they are going out in a different way?

Stephen and Keith are on the other side of the tunnel discussing Stephen´s night excursion.

11. In what ways has Stephen failed (from Keith´s point of view)?
12. How does Keith taunt Stephen?
13. How does Stephen feel at his failure to earn Keith´s respect?
14. How do you feel for Stephen?

Stephen is about to go home and leave Keith when they hear footsteps in the tunnel.

15. Who do they think it is?
16. How do they both react?

When the footsteps fade, they scramble hurriedly towards the wire, and they start running in opposite directions.

17. Where do each of them head for?
18. How does Stephen feel when he realises Keith can´t go on his own?

Guiding questions (Chapter 5)

Spies- chapter 5 (up to “(...) one single familiar letter: X")

Guiding questions:

1. Comment on the first sentence. Where has it appeared before? What does the sentence announce the narrator is going to  do in the following paragraphs?
2. At the beginning of this chapter, is Stephen still focusing on his childhood memories or has he shifted onto the narrative present?
3. Was the Close old when Stephen was a child?
4. How had the village been born? What used to be there before?
5. What was there at the end of the Close when you turned right?
6. What was there at the end of the Close when you turned left? Does the landscape there look the same as in Stephen´s childhood?
7. What about the tunnel? How did it use to look? How does it look today?
8. What was it like to cross the tunnel and visit the world beyond it?

After describing the place, the narrator shifts to the memories of his childhood adventures again.

1. What did Stephen and Keith find out about Mrs Haywards´ outings? Where did she go? What evidence did they have? What hypotheses did they come to in order to explain those trips to themselves?
2. What did they finally see with their own eyes? What did they find hidden in the undergrowth? What was there inside?