Words That Allude to Myth
RL.4.4
Read the text, then answer the questions.
The Lost Ledger
Mr Kaur ran the shop on the corner for forty-one years and never used a till roll. He kept a ledger. Every debt in the village was in it, in pencil, and every settlement crossed out. Nobody ever asked to see it. Nobody ever queried it. When he retired he handed the ledger to his daughter, who was taking over. She found eleven debts outstanding, some six years old, totalling more than she took in a fortnight. She thought about it for a week. Then she went through the book, tore out those pages, and started a new one with a card machine on the counter. She never told him. He never asked.
- 1. "He never asked" — what does this short final clause carry?
- 2. The story is called "The Lost Ledger". In what sense is it lost?
The Clock That Was Wrong
The church clock in our village had been four minutes fast for thirty years. Everybody knew. The bus timetable was written around it. Weddings started on it. My grandmother set her oven by it, four minutes back. Then the council paid a specialist to come and correct it. He was there two days. When he left, the clock was exact. Within a month, three people had missed the bus, the choir arrived late twice, and my grandmother burned a cake she had made two hundred times. The vicar wrote to the council. In March they set it four minutes fast again.
- 1. "The bus timetable was written around it" — is this literal?
- 2. "The clock that was wrong" — in what sense was it wrong, and in what sense was it right?
LessonPrint · RL.4.4 · Set 19 · free to copy for classroom use