The Crabbing Contest

Text 1: Bacon Rind, by Lydia Penhaligon

An original short story extract.

The rules of the Great Crabbing Contest had been agreed at breakfast: one line each, bacon rind for bait, and whoever had the most crabs when the ice-cream van came would sit in the front seat all the way home. Archie, who was eight, had caught eleven. Nell, who was twelve and should have been better at everything, had caught two, and one of those had let go halfway up the wall.

She lay on her stomach on the warm granite and stared down into the green water until her eyes ached. Weed swayed there like hair. Her line hung straight and still, mocking her. Beside her, Archie hummed tunelessly and hauled up another, a fat brown crab waving its claws at the sky like a tiny furious boxer. ‘Twelve,’ he said, to nobody.

Nell gritted her teeth. She wound in her line, re-tied the bacon with a double knot and lowered it again, slowly, slowly, right down to the old iron ring where the shadows were darkest. A tiny tug. Then a heavier one. She drew the line up hand over hand, gentle as lifting a sleeping baby, and over the edge came not one crab but three, clinging to each other in a scrabbling, clicking knot. Far off, the ice-cream van began to play its tune.

How does Lydia Penhaligon use language and structure to show Nell’s determination to win the contest?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.