What happens in each chapter + Quotes
Part 1:
Chapter One: We’re introduced + Tommy has a tantrum.
‘My name is Kathy H’
‘they say (…) she always chooses her own kind.’
‘it feels just about right to be finishing at last come the end of the year.’
‘I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know about his feelings for the
polo shirt.’
Chapter Two: Tommy gets a personality transplant + Exchanges are explained
‘This was all a long time ago so I might have some of it wrong.’
‘how much you were liked and respected, had to do with how good you were at
creating.’
Kathy: ‘and the strange thing was, we all thought it was fine.’ Ruth: ‘why shouldn’t
it? Poetry’s important’
‘Miss Geraldine was everyone’s favourite guardian when we were that age. She was
gentle, soft-spoken, and always comforted you when you needed it.’
‘as soon as you were trying to sneak off for a secret talk, the whole place seemed to
sense it within minutes, and you’d have no chance.’
‘You notice everything, don’t you, Kath?’
Chapter Three: The Pond Talk + Madam is scared of children.
‘It wasn’t, though, a good place for a discreet conversation- not nearly as good as the
lunch queue’ – Tommy isn’t a secret keeper.
‘What’s the link? Why did she bring up donations? What’s that got to do with you
being creative?’
‘Outside, out there, they sell everything.’
‘We called her Madame because she was French or Belgian- there was a dispute as to
which.’
Ruth knows ‘she’s scared of us.’
‘She was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders.’
‘it’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and
suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.’
Chapter Four: Miss Emily is odd + the token controversy + the Sales are explained.
‘I have to admit I’ll welcome the change to rest- to stop and think and remember.’
Miss Emily ‘made us all feel so safe at Hailsham.’
‘Ruth took offence, saying “She was never like that! How could have Hailsham have
been the way it was if the person in charge had been a potty?”’
‘but then suddenly, for no reason I could see, Ruth brought it all to an end.’ – the
horse game.
Chapter Five: Secret Guard + spooky woods + chess + pencilgate
The woods – ‘safest was the front of the main house’
, ‘I never said out loud that she didn’t know how to play- disappointed as I was, I knew
not to go that far.’
‘if I’m driving on a long grey road (…) why was I so hostile to Moria B?’
‘Of course, officially, guardians weren’t supposed to show favouritism’.
‘All this effort, all this planning, just to upset my dearest friend?’
‘didn’t we all dream from time to time about one guardian (…) a spontaneous hug, a
secret letter, a gift?’
‘Ruth walked off into the rain.’
Chapter Six: Kathy sucks up to Ruth + Madam cries + the tape goes missing and Ruth regifts.
‘it’s something of a lost corner.’
‘when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could
always go up and find it again in Norfolk.’
‘You’re students. You’re… special.’
‘a woman who’d been told she couldn’t have babies, who’d really, really, wanted
them all her life.’
‘and the odd thing was she was crying (…) then I would have known how to behave
(…) sobbing and sobbing.’
‘Except this time there was something else, something extra in that look I couldn’t
fathom.’
‘by then, of course, we all know something I hadn’t known back then, which was that
none of us could have babies.’
‘we didn’t do things like hug each other much as Hailsham.’
‘especially now Ruth has gone, it’s become one of my most precious possessions.’
Chapter Seven: The Revelation + Tommy’s elbow
‘the earlier years- the ones I’ve just been telling you about- they tend to blur into each
other as a kind of golden time (…) I can’t help feeling a sort of glow.’
‘I can’t listen to you any more and keep silent!’
‘you’ve been told and not told.’
‘none of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will
be working in supermarkets (…) before you’re old, before you’re even middle aged.’
‘out there people were even fighting and killing each other over who had sex with
whom.’
‘we had to behave like them.’
‘he was looking at me in complete innocence.’
‘it never occurred to us to say or do anything to support her.’ – Miss Lucy
Chapter Eight: Miss Lucy is unstable + Kathy prepares to have sex.
‘I had a secret game (…) this place wasn’t crawling with students (…) where I lived
with just five or six others.’
‘if you asked me to define just what I was so upset about, I wouldn’t have been able
to explain.’
Sex as ‘a very beautiful gift’ vs ‘impossible for any of us to actually do much without
breaking rules.’