Adapted from "An albatross too many"
"Got a mower now, I see, Jim."
"Yes. It's not new."
"Just new-fangled. Takes petrol, does it?"
"That's right, Bridget. Petrol."
(5) Bridget sighed. Bridget is a woman, and bouncy.
She was preceded by a male child carrying a sack. Bridget waved a fishing knife.
"Help yourself," I said. Peter and I grow the best flax around. It hides Kiri's cottage and acts as
a windbreak, in places impenetrable.
(10) "I want to make some baskets for the hangi on Saturday."
I said to Bridget i didn't know there was to be a hangi on Saturday. Bridget smiled to herself
and attacked the flax along the boundary; I added some fuel to the tank of the mower and went
on mowing.
Slyly I watched her. In ten minutes Bridget had felled a swathe about ten metres long. I had to
(15) stop her. Our privacy was going.
Bridget and her solicitor husband, refugees from Auckland, rent one of the more vernacular
structures on the Heapy's ridge while they wait from planning permission to build their own. They
have a boat. Bridget sails it. She camps, cooks, weaves flax, sails, fishes and can shoot a rabbit
with one hand and breast-feed an infant with the other, although her three children have
(20) outgrown that some years ago. Bridget is a modern young woman. Flax-cutting at an
end, she looks around noting the additions since she was last here, the railed fence, the biscuit-
tiled porch, enlarged storage shed, writing studio. She turns a silent eye upwards towards a
shiny black wind-vane Dan and I installed last week above the fireplace, on top of the outside
chimney.
(25) Bridget says, with a smile of faint damnation, "You've bee busy, I see. And you've got
television."
"I must say," she adds, before I can think of a rejoinder, "when I heard the sound of the mower,
I thought, I will have to watch it. It's creeping up on him."
She looked at the television set in the living room and smiled to herself.
(30) I said nothing. She makes me feel inadequate. Presently, Bridget hefted the sack with the flax
in it on her back, and departed.
And she washed up the bloody tea things.
Questions:
1. Identify one example reason why "and" is italicised in line 32 (A)
2. Explain what the writer is trying to say about Bridget's personality when he says, "She turns a silent eye upwards towards a shiny black wind-vane in lines 22-23 (A/M/E)
3. Explain why the writer uses a lot of direct speech in the first ten lines of the passage (A/M/E)
ANSWERS
(NCEA Level 1 English revision guide. 2006 edition, Really Useful Resources, pg. 41)
"Yes. It's not new."
"Just new-fangled. Takes petrol, does it?"
"That's right, Bridget. Petrol."
(5) Bridget sighed. Bridget is a woman, and bouncy.
She was preceded by a male child carrying a sack. Bridget waved a fishing knife.
"Help yourself," I said. Peter and I grow the best flax around. It hides Kiri's cottage and acts as
a windbreak, in places impenetrable.
(10) "I want to make some baskets for the hangi on Saturday."
I said to Bridget i didn't know there was to be a hangi on Saturday. Bridget smiled to herself
and attacked the flax along the boundary; I added some fuel to the tank of the mower and went
on mowing.
Slyly I watched her. In ten minutes Bridget had felled a swathe about ten metres long. I had to
(15) stop her. Our privacy was going.
Bridget and her solicitor husband, refugees from Auckland, rent one of the more vernacular
structures on the Heapy's ridge while they wait from planning permission to build their own. They
have a boat. Bridget sails it. She camps, cooks, weaves flax, sails, fishes and can shoot a rabbit
with one hand and breast-feed an infant with the other, although her three children have
(20) outgrown that some years ago. Bridget is a modern young woman. Flax-cutting at an
end, she looks around noting the additions since she was last here, the railed fence, the biscuit-
tiled porch, enlarged storage shed, writing studio. She turns a silent eye upwards towards a
shiny black wind-vane Dan and I installed last week above the fireplace, on top of the outside
chimney.
(25) Bridget says, with a smile of faint damnation, "You've bee busy, I see. And you've got
television."
"I must say," she adds, before I can think of a rejoinder, "when I heard the sound of the mower,
I thought, I will have to watch it. It's creeping up on him."
She looked at the television set in the living room and smiled to herself.
(30) I said nothing. She makes me feel inadequate. Presently, Bridget hefted the sack with the flax
in it on her back, and departed.
And she washed up the bloody tea things.
Questions:
1. Identify one example reason why "and" is italicised in line 32 (A)
2. Explain what the writer is trying to say about Bridget's personality when he says, "She turns a silent eye upwards towards a shiny black wind-vane in lines 22-23 (A/M/E)
3. Explain why the writer uses a lot of direct speech in the first ten lines of the passage (A/M/E)
ANSWERS
(NCEA Level 1 English revision guide. 2006 edition, Really Useful Resources, pg. 41)