Slam
! While reading: visualise the characters.
GLOSSARY to his horror til sin forskrekkelse / til si forskrekking
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Sam is 16 and has, to his horror, just discovered that his ex-girlfriend Alicia is pregnant. Sam is himself the result of a teen pregnancy, and has grown up with a single mother who is now 32, only 16 years older than him. His mother has always been terrified by the thought of history repeating itself, and Sam has been warned all his life of the consequences of a teen pregnancy. With his life and future planned out, his initial reaction to Alicia’s news was to panic and run away. He eventually comes to his senses and joins Alicia in informing her parents about the pregnancy. Her parents were far older than Sam’s mum when they had Alicia, they are well off and live in a house that is far bigger than the flat that Sam shares with his mother. In their eyes, Sam is obviously to blame for the entire mess. ‘What’s on your mind?’ said Alicia’s dad. Alicia looked at me. I cleared my throat. Nobody said anything. ‘I’m going to have a baby,’ I said. I don’t think I need to tell you that I wasn’t trying to be funny. It just came out wrong. I think it was because Alicia had given me that little lecture about how everything had to be ‘we’ from now on. I’d taken it too seriously. I knew the baby wasn’t just hers, but now I’d overdone it, and made it so that the baby was just mine. Whatever the reason, we couldn’t have had a worse start. Because Alicia made a kind of snorting sound, which was her trying not to laugh. I’d said something stupid because I was nervous, and Alicia had wanted to laugh because she was nervous, but her dad didn’t take any notice of our nerves. He just went nuts. ‘You think this is FUNNY?’ he shouted, and I realized that they had guessed. In films, and I think probably in life too, people go quiet when they hear bad news. Or they repeat the last word. You know, ‘A baby?’ But he didn’t do that. He just started shouting. Alicia’s mum wasn’t shouting, though. She started crying and sort of slumped on the kitchen table with her arms over her head. ‘And we’re keeping it,’ said Alicia. ‘I’m not getting rid of it.’ ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ said her dad. ‘You can’t care for a baby at your age. Either of you.’
Before reading: read the title, what could the novel be about?
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by Nick Hornby (2007)
terrified livredd consequences konsekvenser/ konsekvensar initial første comes to his senses tar til vettet / tar til vitet well off rik mess rot give someone a lecture lekse opp for noen / lekse opp for nokon snorting prustende/prustande slumped falt/fall obsessions tvangstanker/ tvangstankar
About the Author
Nick Hornby The previous teacher and now fulltime English writer Nick Hornby (1957–) has had huge success with his novels. His moving, funny and insightful fiction explores topics such as football, books, music, relationship break-ups, obsessions and insecurity. Slam is his first young adult novel.
The United Kingdom
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