Lady with the purple eye (school edition). François Bloemhof

to Angela and off they went. Chris watched them walk away. Marley suddenly looked very young. If there were people around who weren’t regular, Marley would be an easy victim, he thought.

      Then he noticed the short guy with the shaved head. The boy was standing a few metres away, all by himself. The sun shining on him made his scalp gleam like a pink light bulb.

      Chris looked away, wondering how he would have felt if it had been him standing there, shaved and all alone. He again had a brief stab of guilt for laughing at that guy the previous day.

      “Let’s head for the entrance, Bert,” he said.

      The last few minutes of school the next day seemed endless. The weather outside was better than ever, but thirty-two grade nines were trapped behind their desks, and the only possible entertainment was a history lesson.

      When the intercom crackled, it wasn’t a moment too soon, and everyone perked up. “Boys and girls, we have the following announcements,” came the headmaster’s voice.

      One of the school rules was that you had to watch the intercom while the headmaster made the announcements. But Chris found it difficult to act interested today.

      Something had been wrong with Bert all day. He looked the same as ever with that shock of red-brown hair. But he just sat there, as if frozen. The teachers had eventually given up on getting any reaction from him, and so had Chris.

      That morning at the gate, Bert had scarcely greeted him. His dad hadn’t dropped him and Angela off as usual.

      “What’s the matter?” Chris had asked.

      “Nothing,” Bert had replied, turning his eyes away and swallowing hard.

      But Chris could tell that something was wrong, and he could hear it in Bert’s voice. He was whispering!

      “Did you get some bad news?” Chris had persisted.

      “No!”

      When someone said no like that, it meant yes.

      Chris had stopped himself from asking any more questions.

      For the rest of the day, Bert had worn a worried look on his face, a kind of what’s-going-to-become-of-me expression, and moved around as if in a trance.

      Fortunately the school day was now over. The bell rang and everybody started packing away their books.

      Bert didn’t seem to have heard or noticed.

      “Hey, we can go now.” Chris punched his shoulder lightly.

      When they walked down the passage, most of the learners were already outside.

      “Don’t you think maybe you should …” But Chris fell silent; he suspected he was beginning to irritate Bert.

      The next minute his friend drew in his breath and stopped dead.

      “Now what?” Chris asked.

      Bert’s voice was thin. “It’s nothing.”

      Chris looked in the direction where Bert had been staring and saw Miss Badman disappear around a corner. Her movements were furtive, like a hunter stalking its prey.

      “Did she scare you?”

      “No!”

      Bert’s answer didn’t convince Chris.

      “Bert …”

      “Leave me alone!” Bert cried out and scurried off quickly.

      Chris was still shaking his head when he reached his mom’s car. He was so lost in thought that he barely acknowledged her.

      When Marley got into the car, she said: “Angela was acting funny all day, she didn’t want to speak to me – she was walking around like a zombie.”

      Chris frowned. “Something’s up with Bert too.”

      “It’s them over there, right?” Their mom pointed at the two as they trudged along. “Maybe there’s trouble at home. Perhaps their parents are getting divorced? It happens so often these days.”

      But that wouldn’t explain Bert’s reaction at seeing Miss Badman. The back of Chris’s neck tingled as he remembered what Marley had said: Miss Badman isn’t a regular person.

      Their mom wound down her window as she drove up behind Bert and Angela. “Can we give you a lift?”

      Angela was very pale. “We’re not allowed to speak to anyone.”

      Bert quickly put his hand on her shoulder and looked worried. “She’s just joking, but thank you. We’d rather walk.”

      Chris’s mom pulled away. “That’s rather strange,” she frowned, watching the two in her rear-view mirror.

      Chris turned and looked at Bert and Angela through the back window. Something about them made him think of the book Marley had taken out of the library – they looked every bit as scared as Hansel and Gretel, lost in the woods.

      Post reading

1.	If you had experienced what Marley had just experienced, would you also have gone to speak to your brother immediately or would you have waited to speak to him after school (or not at all)? Why?
2.	At first Chris laughs off Marley’s confession. What makes him reconsider?
3.	In what type of story might someone “know that something’s wrong” and no one believes him or her?
4.	When Chris sees the bald boy again he feels:
a)	amused
b)	guilty
c)	sympathetic
d)	empathetic
5.	Quote evidence from the text that implies that Chris wasn’t the only one to feel like the day had gone on forever.
6.	Bert and Angela’s dad hadn’t dropped them off at school that morning, and now Bert is unresponsive. Suggest what might have happened.
7.	For what normal reason might children not be allowed to speak to any­body?
8.	Does it seem likely that this is the reason that Angela and Bert are not allowed to talk to anyone? Explain.