Source A: The folded map

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

By eight forty-five, I had already decided that showing the new pupil around would ruin my day. I had a science test after break, football trials at lunch and exactly seven minutes before registration in which to copy the homework date from the board. Then my form tutor placed a hand on my shoulder and introduced Amir.

He stood beside her with his coat fastened to the top, although the classroom was warm. In one hand, he held a school map that had been folded and unfolded so many times that its edges were as soft as cloth.

“Could you look after Amir today?” she asked.

I heard myself say, “Of course,” in the bright voice people use when they mean the opposite.

Outside the classroom, the corridor swept us into its current. Shoes struck the floor, lockers slammed and voices bounced from the walls. I moved quickly, calling the names of rooms over my shoulder: library, laboratory, dining hall. Amir followed without speaking. Whenever I looked back, the gap between us had widened.

At the stairs, he stopped to study his map.

“You won’t need that,” I said. “It’s easy once you know it.”

The moment the words left my mouth, I realised how useless they were. Everything is easy once you know it.

By lunchtime, I had shown Amir six classrooms but had learned almost nothing about him. In the dining hall, he stood holding his tray in front of his chest like a shield. Around him, chairs scraped, cutlery clattered and groups closed themselves into noisy circles. He looked from the payment machines to the crowded tables and then down at the coins in his hand.

“Where do I go?” he asked.

It was the first question he had asked me all morning.

For a second, I was eight years old again, standing at the entrance to a different school while hundreds of unfamiliar faces streamed past. I remembered pretending to tie my shoelace because I did not know where to sit. I remembered how enormous the room had seemed and how small I had felt inside it.

I took Amir to the payment machine and explained which button to press. This time, I did not rush. We found two places at the end of a table, away from the busiest part of the room. At first, our conversation came in careful pieces. He told me that he liked football but had never played on a full-sized pitch. I told him about the trials. His answers grew longer; the school map remained folded beside his plate.

After lunch, I walked at his pace. The corridors had not become quieter, but they no longer seemed to carry us apart. Amir noticed a narrow staircase I had never used and asked where it led. We followed it and discovered that it came out beside the science rooms, saving several minutes.

“You can show me that way tomorrow,” I said.

At the end of the day, Amir slipped the map into his bag without opening it. When we reached the gate, he thanked me for helping him. I nearly replied that it had been no trouble, but that would not have been true. It had interrupted my plans, slowed me down and made me late for football trials.

It had also reminded me that knowing where you are going is not the same as noticing who has been left behind.

How does the writer use language and structure to present the narrator’s changing attitude towards helping Amir?

In your answer, you should consider:

• the language used to describe Amir and the school
• how the narrator’s thoughts and behaviour change from the beginning to the end.

Support your answer with detailed examples from the text, including brief quotations.