Explicit and Inferred
RL.4.1
Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Water Came Up (told by Nell)
I was the one who said it was nothing. The river had been over the path before. Twice that winter. Both times it went down by morning, so when Dad started moving the boxes upstairs I told him he was making a fuss. I went to bed. At two o'clock I woke because my slippers were floating. Everything after that is in pieces. Dad on the stairs with the cat. Water the colour of tea. The sound the fridge made when it went over. We sat on the landing until it got light. Nobody said anything about the boxes. That was worse than if they had.
- 1. How many times had the river been over the path that winter?
- 2. What woke Nell at two o'clock?
- 3. Where did the family sit until it got light?
Mill Lane, February
The houses on Mill Lane were built in 1840, close to the water because the mill was the work. On the night of the flood, eleven of the fourteen households had moved possessions upstairs by midnight. Three had not. The water rose fastest between one and three in the morning. It reached a metre in the lowest houses. By dawn the fire service had brought everyone out. Nobody was hurt. Four families were out of their homes until August. At the meeting afterwards, the argument was not about the river. It was about why the warning, which had been issued at six that evening, had reached some doors and not others.
- 1. When had the warning been issued?
- 2. What can you infer about the three households that had not moved things upstairs?
- 3. When were the houses on Mill Lane built?
LessonPrint · RL.4.1 · Set 21 · free to copy for classroom use