Read Online Dance On My Grave by Aidan Chambers - Free Book Online

baggage handler there.’
    ‘Does the idea appeal?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘What does?’
    ‘That’s the trouble. Nothing specially.’
    ‘What about staying on at school?’
    ‘I wouldn’t mind. I quite like it here. But there’s something of the same problem. What to take. And what to do with it afterwards.’
    Ozzy stood up. ‘This is my two pennorth, Robinson, and then I’ll say no more. Should you decide you would like to stay on I would be happy to have you in my English Sixth. You have an aptitude for the subject and I think you are developing a taste for it. You would certainly, inmy view, be an asset to the school. So I would support your staying on. I also think, for what it is worth, that you need time to mature and sort yourself out before deciding on a career. In your case you would do that better at school than in some stop-gap job.’
    I managed to mumble, ‘Thanks for telling me, sir.’
    He gave me one of his predatory shark grins. ‘I think I should add that specializing in English literature is a very foolish thing to do.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Because it qualifies you for little else than teaching English literature. Do you want to teach?’
    ‘I don’t think so. I’ve thought about journalism though.’
    ‘I should have thought even you could see from one glance at any newspaper that most journalists know little if anything about English and nothing at all about literature. The best of them are specialists in some other subject. Politics—the twentieth-century fag end of religion—or industry, for instance. No, if you have any sense, you’ll enjoy the delights of the science labs or indulge yourself in the intricacies of computer technology. Are you good at such matters?’
    ‘I enjoy some science. But I wouldn’t say I was any good at it.’
    He led the way into the corridor.
    ‘Well, be sure to think carefully before you take my advice. Come in and talk again if you feel the need.’
    He swept off with the kind of confident stride that always makes me feel tired. Today I felt punch-drunk as well. A capsize, Mrs Gorman, Barry, and now Osborn. Maybe I should have looked at my horoscope before I got up this morning.
    I say that, but really I was zinging with excitement. Apart from anything else, it isn’t every day that Osborninvites—actually
invites
—someone to join his Sixth. Usually he tells people he wouldn’t have them if they were the last students left on earth. Not that you’re safe once you’re in. He usually starts with about ten and weeds those down to half that in the first term, either from intellectual and emotional exhaustion or by summary banishment. When Nicky Blake dropped out last year he said he would rather go through a term of torture by the KGB than a week of Ozzy’s English seminars.
    The idea of staying on and taking English hadn’t occurred to me for a minute. I thought about it as I strolled home. Sure, I was flattered to be asked. But I didn’t get any closer to making a decision. Except that I’d try the idea on Barry that evening.

PART TWO
    Once, and but once found in thy company
    All thy supposed escapes are laid on me.
    John Donne
    JKA.
RUNNING REPORT
: Henry Spurling ROBINSON 19th Sept. Home Visit.
    The Robinsons live in one of the smaller, older houses on Manchester Drive. I visited just after they arrived in Southend when Mrs Robinson experienced some difficulties as a result of the move from her home area. She felt lonely and distressed by the loss of her friends and relatives, on whom she had obviously always relied a, lot for company and support.
    The house was just as I last saw it. Neat and tidy, well cared for. The sort of home that always puts me slightly to shame because I feel it must be spring-cleaned every week and repainted inside and out twice a year.
    Mrs Robinson, a little woman, thin and now disturbed by her son’s trouble, was as nervous as when I first met her eighteen months ago. The doctor has recently increased her dosage