Anthology 6
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Contents Sequence 1: Fiction: Tom’s Midnight Garden
6
Sequence 1: Fiction: Trouble Half-Way
9
Sequence 1: Fiction: The Snow Globe
11
Sequence 2: Fiction: The Discontented Fish
14
Sequence 2: Fiction: The Tortoise and the Eagle
17
Sequence 3: Non-fiction: Laughter Land
20
Sequence 4: Non-fiction: Climate Change, What Climate Change?
28
Sequence 4: Non-fiction: Fragile Earth
32
Sequence 4: Non-fiction: Global Warming
34
Sequence 5: Poetry: Shut Your Mouth When You’re Eating
36
Sequence 5: Poetry: Crack-a-Dawn
37
Sequence 6: Poetry: The Song of Hiawatha
39
Sequence 6: Poetry: Hiawatha’s Fishing
42
Sequence 7: Poetry: The Listeners
49
Sequence 7: Poetry: The Highwayman
51
Sequence 8: Non-fiction: Warning: Oil Supplies are Running Out Fast
54
Sequence 8: Non-fiction: Save It!
60
Sequence 8: Non-fiction: What If We Run Out of Oil?
62
Sequence 9: Non-fiction: The Heart
64
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Sequence 9: Non-fiction: Deserts
66
Sequence 10: Poetry: Views of Winter
68
Sequence 10: Poetry: Christmas Landscape
69
Sequence 10: Poetry: Snow and Snow
71
Sequence 11: Fiction: Nightmare
73
Sequence 11: Fiction: The Phantom Tollbooth
82
Sequence 11: Fiction: Alice in Wonderland
84
Sequence 12: Fiction: The Railway Children (1)
87
Sequence 12: Fiction: The Railway Children (2)
90
Sequence 13: Fiction: Gulliver’s Travels (1)
93
Sequence 13: Fiction: Gulliver’s Travels (2)
95
Sequence 14: Fiction: Macbeth
98
Sequence 14: Fiction: Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 3
100
Sequence 14: Fiction: Compere Lapin and Compere Tig
104
Sequence 15: Non-fiction: Virginia Hall: World War II Spy
107
Sequence 15: Non-fiction: Wild Swans
109
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Anthology 6
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Year 6, Se quence 1
Fiction From
Tom’s Midnight Garden
by Philippa Pearce
Exile If, standing alone on the back doorstep, Tom allowed himself to weep tears, they were tears of anger. He looked his good-bye at the garden, and raged that he had to leave it – leave it and Peter. They had planned to spend time here so joyously these holidays. Town gardens are small, as a rule, and the Longs’ garden was no exception to the rule; there was a vegetable plot and a grass plot and one flower-bed and a rough patch by the back fence. In this last the apple-tree grew: it was large, but bore little fruit, and accordingly the two boys had always been allowed to climb freely over it. These holidays they would have built a tree-house among its branches. Tom gazed, and then turned back into the house. As he passed the foot of the stairs, he called up, ‘Good-bye, Peter!’ There was a croaking answer. He went out onto the front doorstep, where his mother was waiting with his suitcase. He put his hand out for it, but Mrs Long clung to the case for a moment, claiming his attention first. ‘You know, Tom,’ she said, ‘it’s not nice for you to be rushed away like this to avoid the measles, but it’s not nice for us either. Your father and I will miss you, and so will Peter. Peter’s not having a nice time, anyway, with measles.’ ‘I didn’t say you’d all be having a nice time without me,’ said Tom. ‘All I said was – ‘
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Year 6, Se quence 1
‘Hush!’ whispered his mother, looking past him to the road and the car that waited there and the man at its driving-wheel. She gave Tom the case, and then bent over him, pushing his tie up to cover his collar-button and letting her lips come to within a few inches of his ear. ‘Tom, dear Tom – ‘ she murmured, trying to prepare him for the weeks ahead, ‘ remember that you will be a visitor, and do try – oh, what can I say? – try to be good.’ She kissed him, gave him a dismissive push towards the car and then followed him to it. As Tom got in, Mrs Long looked past him to the driver. ‘Give my love to Gwen,’ she said, ‘and tell her, Alan, how grateful we are to you both for taking Tom off at such short notice. It’s very kind of you, isn’t it, Tom?’ ‘Very kind,’ Tom repeated bitterly. ‘There’s so little room in the house,’ said Mrs Long, ‘when there’s illness.’ ‘We’re glad to help out,’ Alan said. He started the engine. Tom wound down the window next to his mother. ‘Good-bye then!’ ‘Oh, Tom!’ Her lips trembled. ‘I am sorry – spoiling the beginning of your summer holidays like this!’ The car was moving; he had to shout back: ‘I’d rather have had measles with Peter – much rather!’
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Tom waved good-bye angrily to his mother, and then, careless even of the cost to others, waved to an inflamed face pressed against a bedroom window. Mrs Long looked upwards to see what was there, raised her hands in a gesture of despair – Peter was supposed to keep strictly to his bed – and hurried indoors. Tom closed the car window and sat back in his seat, in hostile silence. His uncle cleared his throat and said: ‘Well, I hope we get on reasonably well.’ This was not a question, so Tom did not answer it. He knew he was being rude, but he made excuses for himself: he did not much like Uncle Alan, and he did not want to like him at all. Indeed, he would have preferred him to be a brutal uncle. ‘If only he’d beat me,’ thought Tom, ‘then I could run away home, and Mother and Father would say I did right, in spite of the quarantine for measles. But he’ll never even try to beat me, I know; and Aunt Gwen – she’s worse, because she’s a child-lover, and she’s kind. Cooped up for weeks with Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a poky flat …’ He had never visited them before, but he knew they lived in a flat with no garden. They drove in silence.
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Year 6, Se quence 1
Fiction From
Trouble Half-Way
by Jan Mark
Amy’s father has died and her mother’s new husband has moved in. For a start, Amy never knew what to call him. She would not, like Helen, call him Daddy and she knew he did not expect her to, but Step-Daddy sounded daft, and she could hardly call him Mr Ermins. Mum did not like her calling him Richard. ‘You never called your Dad Michael, did you?’ Mum has said unreasonably. Usually she just made a mumbling noise. It was easier for him: she was Amy to everyone. No one would ever have called her daughter – not Dad, not Richard. Mum was folding the napkins into even smaller squares ready for ironing. ‘What d’you want to iron nappies for?’ Richard would ask sometimes. ‘Helen won’t know any different.’ ‘Oh, I don’t know – it looks … nicer,’ Mum would say. ‘But no one can see them.’ ‘I can see them,’ Mum would retort, looking at the tottering pile of flattened napkins on the table, like a stack of sandwiches waiting to be cut into quarters. Richard would be looking at the laundry basket on the floor, full of things still waiting to be ironed. ‘Life’s too short,’ he would say. Now he was looking at the elastic bandage around Amy’s knee. ‘How’s your leg?’ Mum was looking at her socks but not saying anything. The socks were gyving round her ankles because she kept tugging at them during lessons and the stretchy part was giving way. Mum ironed socks, too.
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Year 6, Se quence 1
‘It’s not too bad,’ Amy said, meaning her knee, and added carefully, because it was Richard who had asked, ‘thank you.’ ‘What do you mean, not too bad?’ Mum said quickly. ‘Has it been hurting?’ ‘It twinged a bit this morning when I knelt down in assembly.’ ‘You be careful – you want it right for Thursday. Perhaps I ought to write a note and ask Miss Oxley to let you off games and that for the start of next week.’ ‘But I’ve got to practise,’ Amy said. ‘Anyway, Miss Oxley won’t let me do anything I shouldn’t. She says I’m the best chance we’ve got if Debra isn’t better.’ ‘What’s wrong with Debra?’ ‘She turned her ankle on the beam on Wednesday. She came down too heavy.’ Amy noticed that Richard was staring at her over the rim of his mug. ‘Kneeling?’ he said. ‘In assembly?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Hands-together-eyes-closed-Our-Father-which-art-in-heaven?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Good God,’ said Richard. ‘What did you do in assembly, then?’ Mum demanded, unfolding the ironing board. ‘Stand on one leg?’
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Year 6, Se quence 1
Fiction From
The Snow Globe
by Marita Conlon McKenna
Dad and Robbie search all the boxes, wondering where the movers have put our Christmas decorations. They find one box with some lights and our stockings and a few baubles but the rest have gone missing. We hang what we have on the tree and Ted puts the angel on top but it looks bare … like the house. “We’ll buy some more,” says Mum as we switch on the lights. “Doesn’t it look wonderful? It’s as if these old bay windows were meant for Christmas trees.” I say nothing. “Cass, don’t you think it’s so exciting having a first Christmas in our new house?” “I’d much prefer Christmas in our old house with our friends and the neighbours,” I say. Mum looks upset. “Cass, that’s quite enough!” Dad warns. “Listen, why don’t you and Robbie walk over to the square? There’s a big open-air Christmas market there. Buy a few presents, and for heaven’s sake try to get in the Christmas spirit?” He passes us each some money. “Thanks, Dad.” My older brother grins, putting the cash in his pocket. “Thanks,” I say. On the way to the square we pass gangs of shoppers carrying bags and two groups of carol singers. The streets are busy and it is really cold … so cold it might even snow. Eyre Square is all lit up and it really is Christmassy with wooden stalls and even a big log cabin. There is a café with red-and-white tablecloths and lots of chairs and some braziers burning. We buy long German hot dogs and have them with mustard and cabbage and they taste so good. One stall is selling giant pretzels and another has yummy hot doughnuts. “We’ll get one later,” Robbie promises as we walk on. “I want to get Dad a present.”
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He stops at a stall that has a collection of knitted hats and scarves. Rob pulls on a camouflage army one, and I try a cute pink stripy one. We wonder if Dad would like the dark green one. He could wear it when he goes to matches – Dad’s mad on football and rugby. We decided it’d be perfect, so Robbie pays for it and then goes off in search of more presents. “We should split up,” he says, and I guess that he wants to find something for me. I head off in another direction. It has begun to snow lightly, the flakes floating in the air like feathers and tumbling gently to the ground before melting. There are stalls full of toys and games and people selling jams and sauces and home-made cakes and biscuits. I walk towards the back. One lady is selling printed scarves. They look pretty … I wonder if Mum would like one. Then I see it. There is an old woman with a stall full of bric-a-brac. Old Dinky cars still in their boxes, stiff porcelain dolls with white painted faces. They look kind of scary but a lady picks up one and pays for it. I watch as the old woman wraps it in tissue carefully. “Her name is Violet,” she says. “And she is a very special doll … remember that.” The old woman has white hair scrunched up with a silver comb and eyes so dark they are like two black beetles. I look at the brooches and the bracelets, and an old snakes-andladders game, and then I see it, right at the back of the stall … a snow globe. I pick it up. It is heavier than I expected. The glass is thick and the dark wood base is patterned with silver holly leaves and berries.
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Year 6, Se quence 1
Inside the glass orb there is a girl with dark hair and a red dress and beside her a tree and a deer. I shake the globe and like magic the snow appears and the trees sparkle and the girl’s dress seems to glow and the deer is covered with falling snowflakes. It’s beautiful. I shake it again. As the snow falls I notice a small rabbit peeping out from behind the tree and a small robin in its branches. It’s so pretty. I look at the price … Far too much. “It’s Victorian,” the old woman says, standing in front of me. “Antique.” “It’s beautiful.” A man pushes in beside me. He wants to buy the red velvet box with four dice in it. “These dice will bring you luck!” says the old woman as he passes her the money. I shake the globe again. It’s so unusual, special. I watch as the snow slowly begins to fall again, sprinkling the girl’s long dark hair and red dress and covering the branches of the pine tree, a snowflake landing on the rabbit’s nose … I really, really want it … “How much money do you have?” the woman asks, standing so close to me that I can smell her old-fashioned lavender-scented perfume. Before I know it I have agreed to buy the precious snow globe and given her all my money and she is wrapping it up in lots of paper and passing me a plastic bag.
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