he cared about anyone but himself, then maybe this wouldn’t be happening to him. Then again, maybe none of this wouldbe happening at all.
If he
did
care about anyone but himself, he’d probably remember that the redheaded girl who sat behind him in Year 10 English was called October Thomas, not Autumn.
AIDEN
L YING AWAKE, ALL I can think of is an English lesson, a weirdly sunny February morning last year. Mock exams are coming up, and we’re looking through a past paper, talking through the questions. We’ve got held up halfway through, on the question about
An Inspector Calls
:
How successfully is the idea of collective responsibility explored in this play?
‘Isn’t that the point?’ KatieJupe says. ‘That’s the whole point of the play? They’re all to blame?’ Everything Katie Jupe says is a question.
‘Yeah,’ Harry Yates chimes in, looking down at a page in his book where he’s clearly scrawled everything Mrs Gerber has ever said about
An Inspector Calls
. ‘“We’re all responsible for each other”’.
‘No man is an island,’ Ollie Birchall says. Smugly.
And it is. It is the point.A girl is killed. A girl kills herself. A girl is gone, forever. And each and every person has played a part.
‘Well, yes,’ Mrs Gerber says. ‘But how successful is it? Do you agree that they’re all to blame? And how has Priestley presented each character, their language, their directions, their reactions, to make you feel that way?’
This sets off little pools of conversation, which Gerber loves.
An Inspector Calls
was the text we all liked the most, really, or the one that started the most discussions, anyway.
Probably, nine times out of ten, nobody would’ve heard what Lizzie said. But it just happens to be one of those moments when, as if by magic, there’s a gap in everyone’s conversations and everything goes quiet.
‘Gerald,’ she says, quietly but fiercely. ‘Gerald’s to blame.’
‘Whaaaat.’ Kieron Decker, from the back. Not really like Kieron to volunteer an opinion on literature, but what Lizzie’s said
is
controversial. Gerald’s part in the play is pretty small, over early. He’s not even part of the Birling family, the ones who have all, without realising, contributed to the girl’s suicide. Even if you don’t buy into the idea that everyone is equally responsible for thewelfare of the people they come across in the world, however small that meeting might seem to them – and that is the point of the play, Katie Jupe’s right – even if you do think some of the cast are more responsible than others, Gerald’s probably the last person you’d accuse.
‘Interesting, Lizzie,’ Gerber says, her face neutral. ‘What makes you say that?’
Everyone is listening now, and thesun comes through the greasy old window and makes Lizzie look gold again, just like her Ophelia moment.
‘He made her love him,’ she says. ‘And that’s where it all went wrong.’
I KNOW SOMETHING is up as soon as I get into our form room. I’m not late for once, which is especially rare on a Monday, but when Radclyffe looks up and sees me, his face changes from its usual confused owl smile to something harder, something that looks almost… anxious. There’s still a couple of minutes until the bell for registration, and there’s only Jorgie Mitchell and Kirsty Allison in theroom. They’re both pretty wrapped up in their phones, perched on the windowsill, and Radclyffe beckons me over to his desk.
‘This is for you,’ he says, sliding a slip of paper to me.
I look at him before I look at it.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he says, but if he convinces himself, he definitely doesn’t convince me. I look down at the slip. It’s typed, and at the top is the school logo. Besideit is a crest which, when I look closer, reads ‘Hertfordshire Constabulary’. It says that I’m required for an interview today during first period in the headmaster’s office. And it says that my mother has been
If he
did
care about anyone but himself, he’d probably remember that the redheaded girl who sat behind him in Year 10 English was called October Thomas, not Autumn.
AIDEN
L YING AWAKE, ALL I can think of is an English lesson, a weirdly sunny February morning last year. Mock exams are coming up, and we’re looking through a past paper, talking through the questions. We’ve got held up halfway through, on the question about
An Inspector Calls
:
How successfully is the idea of collective responsibility explored in this play?
‘Isn’t that the point?’ KatieJupe says. ‘That’s the whole point of the play? They’re all to blame?’ Everything Katie Jupe says is a question.
‘Yeah,’ Harry Yates chimes in, looking down at a page in his book where he’s clearly scrawled everything Mrs Gerber has ever said about
An Inspector Calls
. ‘“We’re all responsible for each other”’.
‘No man is an island,’ Ollie Birchall says. Smugly.
And it is. It is the point.A girl is killed. A girl kills herself. A girl is gone, forever. And each and every person has played a part.
‘Well, yes,’ Mrs Gerber says. ‘But how successful is it? Do you agree that they’re all to blame? And how has Priestley presented each character, their language, their directions, their reactions, to make you feel that way?’
This sets off little pools of conversation, which Gerber loves.
An Inspector Calls
was the text we all liked the most, really, or the one that started the most discussions, anyway.
Probably, nine times out of ten, nobody would’ve heard what Lizzie said. But it just happens to be one of those moments when, as if by magic, there’s a gap in everyone’s conversations and everything goes quiet.
‘Gerald,’ she says, quietly but fiercely. ‘Gerald’s to blame.’
‘Whaaaat.’ Kieron Decker, from the back. Not really like Kieron to volunteer an opinion on literature, but what Lizzie’s said
is
controversial. Gerald’s part in the play is pretty small, over early. He’s not even part of the Birling family, the ones who have all, without realising, contributed to the girl’s suicide. Even if you don’t buy into the idea that everyone is equally responsible for thewelfare of the people they come across in the world, however small that meeting might seem to them – and that is the point of the play, Katie Jupe’s right – even if you do think some of the cast are more responsible than others, Gerald’s probably the last person you’d accuse.
‘Interesting, Lizzie,’ Gerber says, her face neutral. ‘What makes you say that?’
Everyone is listening now, and thesun comes through the greasy old window and makes Lizzie look gold again, just like her Ophelia moment.
‘He made her love him,’ she says. ‘And that’s where it all went wrong.’
I KNOW SOMETHING is up as soon as I get into our form room. I’m not late for once, which is especially rare on a Monday, but when Radclyffe looks up and sees me, his face changes from its usual confused owl smile to something harder, something that looks almost… anxious. There’s still a couple of minutes until the bell for registration, and there’s only Jorgie Mitchell and Kirsty Allison in theroom. They’re both pretty wrapped up in their phones, perched on the windowsill, and Radclyffe beckons me over to his desk.
‘This is for you,’ he says, sliding a slip of paper to me.
I look at him before I look at it.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he says, but if he convinces himself, he definitely doesn’t convince me. I look down at the slip. It’s typed, and at the top is the school logo. Besideit is a crest which, when I look closer, reads ‘Hertfordshire Constabulary’. It says that I’m required for an interview today during first period in the headmaster’s office. And it says that my mother has been
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