Composition, by Clifford Ashworth

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

I had never been to Scarborough, but by the time Mr Pickering handed back the compositions I had been there so often in my head that I could have drawn you a map. I had given us a room at the Belvedere Hotel on Queen’s Parade, with a balcony and a gong for dinner. I had given my father a striped blazer and my mother a sunhat with cherries on the brim. I had given myself a donkey called Major. In fact we had spent August in Attercliffe, because the works were on short time, and the nearest I had come to the sea was a tin of pilchards.

‘Ten out of ten,’ said Mr Pickering, ‘and a gold star. Stand up, Norman, and read it to the class.’

I stood up. I want to be honest about this: for the first two paragraphs I enjoyed myself. The room went quiet in the way it only went quiet for a good story, and I could feel thirty-eight pairs of eyes on me, warm as the sun I had invented. When I reached the donkey, Brenda Brigstock laughed out loud. I was a king. I was a liar, but I was a king.

It was Alan Firth who put his hand up. He had only been at the school a fortnight, and nobody yet knew what he was like.

‘Please sir, my auntie keeps a boarding house on Queen’s Parade. There isn’t a Belvedere.’

There is a particular silence that follows a remark like that. It is not like the silence of listening. It is thicker, and it has a smell, of chalk dust and wet gaberdine and something burning. I looked at the paper in my hands and the words had become strangers. Major the donkey looked back at me, ashamed of himself.

‘It may have changed its name,’ said Mr Pickering mildly, and he did not look at me, which was a kindness I have never forgotten and never forgiven.

I sat down. The gold star was still on the page, bright as a coin. On the way home I scratched at it with my thumbnail until it came away, and then I put it in my pocket, because I could not quite bring myself to throw it in the gutter.

How does the writer show Norman’s thoughts and feelings when his lie is discovered?

You should consider:

• what the writer says about Norman
• the writer’s use of language to show his thoughts and feelings

You must refer to the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.