Q.1
"It was hot and I could feel beads of sweat and fear threading themselves into a necklace of guilt, just where my itchy flesh met the collar of my starched cotton dress"
  • Syal compares the discomfort of guilt to the physical sensation of "itchy" flesh caused by wearing a "starched" cotton dress
  • Syal compares the discomfort of guilt to the physical sensation of "itchy flesh" caused by wearing a "starched cotton dress"
  • Syal compares the discomfort of guilt to the physical sensation of itchy "flesh" caused by wearing a starched "cotton dress"
  • Syal compares the discomfort of guilt to the physical sensation of itchy flesh caused by wearing a starched cotton dress
Q.2
"I held out my crumpled bag of stolen sweets. She peered inside disdainfully, then snatched the bag off me and began walking away as she ate. I watched her go, confused. I could still hear my parents talking inside, their voices now calmer, conciliatory. Anita stopped momentarily, shouting over her shoulder, 'Yow coming then?'"
  • Anita's contradictory attitude towards Meena, simultaneously condescending and needy, is expressed in her invitation to the younger girl, when she "stopped momentarily, shouting over her shoulder, 'Yow coming then?'"
  • Anita's contradictory attitude towards Meena, simultaneously condescending and needy, is expressed in her invitation to the younger girl, when she "stopped momentarily, shouting over her shoulder, Yow coming then?"
  • Anita's contradictory attitude towards Meena, simultaneously condescending and needy, is expressed in her invitation to the younger girl, when she stopped momentarily, shouting over her shoulder, "Yow coming then?"
  • Anita's contradictory attitude towards Meena, simultaneously condescending and needy, is expressed in her invitation to the younger girl, when she "stopped momentarily", shouting over her shoulder, "Yow coming then?"
Q.3
"Mama tried to be a careful motorist, but drove so slowly that the amount of blood pressure she provoked in anyone unlucky enough to be stuck behind her, cancelled out all her good intentions. I had seen her having lessons from papa around the village, caught glimpses of her crawling around a gentle corner or tackling a minor slope as if it were the north face of the Eiger, whilst papa sat impassively next to her, his fingers gripping the dashboard in a parody of a fighter pilot bracing himself for a blast of G-force"
  • Meena worries that people unlucky enough to be stuck behind her mother while driving might have increased "blood pressure"
  • Meena describes her dad's calm approach to teaching her mother how to drive: he sits impassively next to his wife while she learns
  • Meena compares her mother's overly cautious driving to dangerous activities such as mountain climbing or flying a jet
  • All of the above
Q.4
"'I'm getting a pony for Christmas,' Anita said airily. She was wearing one of her old summer dresses and a cardigan I guessed must have been her mum's as it hung off her in woolly folds. I felt babyish and cosseted; wrapped up in my hooded anorak and thick socks and realised Anita must have been a lot older than I had previously thought"
  • Meena does not realise that Anita's old "summer" dress and cast-off "cardigan" show how neglected she is
  • Meena does not realise that Anita's old summer dress and cast-off cardigan show how neglected she is
  • Meena sees herself as "babyish and cosseted" in comparison to her more grown-up friend, oblivious to the poverty implied by Anita's ill-fitting and insufficiently warm clothing
  • Meena sees herself as babyish and cosseted in comparison to her more grown-up friend, oblivious to the poverty implied by Anita's ill-fitting and insufficiently warm clothing
Q.5
"I opened my mouth to allow the story sitting on my lips to fly out and dazzle my papa, but stopped myself when I saw how furious he was. Both his eyebrows had joined together so he had one angry black line slashing his forehead like a scar and his usually light brown eyes were now black and impenetrable, glowing dark like embers. Then the enormity of what I had done hit me"
  • Meena's papa's transformation makes him almost unrecognisable to his daughter, as his eyes change colour, becoming "impenetrable" to her
  • Meena's papa's transformation makes him almost unrecognisable to his daughter, as his "eyes change colour", becoming "impenetrable" to her
  • Meena's papa's eyes become impenetrable, making him appear almost as a stranger to his daughter
  • Meena's papa's "eyes become impenetrable", making him appear almost as a stranger to his daughter
Q.6
"I did not realise quite how starved we were of seeing ourselves somewhere other than in each other's lounges until Reita Faria, the reigning Miss India, won the Miss World contest"
  • Meena recollects how infrequently Indians were represented on television, and how starved she, her parents, and their friends were by this lack of representation
  • Meena recollects how infrequently Indians were represented on "television", and how "starved" she, her parents, and their "friends" were by this lack of representation
  • Meena recollects how infrequently Indians were represented on television, and how "starved" she, her parents, and their friends were by this lack of representation
  • Meena recollects how infrequently Indians were represented on television, and how "starved she, her parents, and their friends were" by this lack of representation
Q.7
"Anita was still lying on the ground. Trixie had ambled over and was snuffling at clumps of her hair that lay about her head like a broken halo"
  • Anita's fall from grace as Meena's idol is foreshadowed by the image of her "broken" halo, formed from hair torn out of her head during the "fight"
  • Anita's fall from grace as Meena's idol is foreshadowed by the image of her broken "halo", formed from "hair" torn out of her "head" during the fight
  • Anita's fall from grace as Meena's idol is foreshadowed by the image of her broken halo, formed from hair torn out of her head during the fight
  • Anita's fall from grace as Meena's idol is foreshadowed by the image of her "broken halo", formed from hair torn out of her head during the fight
Q.8
"I had expected Anita to undergo some sort of emotional crisis since Deirdre's departure but she remained as brassy and belligerent as ever, somehow managing to delegate her trauma workload to her little sister, Tracey"
  • Meena sees that Tracey bears the most obvious burden of grief at the sisters' abandonment by their mother, believing that Anita "somehow manag[ed] to delegate her trauma workload to her little sister"
  • Meena sees that the "emotional crisis" from which she expected Anita to suffer has been imposed as a burden on Tracey
  • Meena can see that Anita's apparent lack of grief at being abandoned by her mother has been transferred instead to Tracey
  • All of the above
Q.9
"But the rest of my body went into emotional shock upon realising that I had been prone in this bed for over six weeks, that summer had handed over to autumn and that winter was standing in the wings sucking a throat lozenge and waiting for his cue"
  • Meena, as narrator, is shocked by the nearness of winter, personifying the season as an actor "waiting" for his cue to come on stage
  • Meena, as narrator, is shocked by the nearness of winter, personifying the season as an actor "waiting for his cue" to come on stage
  • Meena, as narrator, is shocked by the nearness of winter, personifying the season as an actor waiting for his cue to "come on stage"
  • Meena, as narrator, is shocked by the nearness of "winter", personifying the season as an "actor waiting for his cue" to come on stage
Q.10
"I saw that Tollington had lost all its edges and boundaries, that the motorway bled into another road and another and the Bartlett estate had swallowed up the last cornfield and that my village was indistinguishable from the suburban mass that had once surrounded it and had finally swallowed it whole. It was time to let go and I floated back down into my body which, for the first time ever, fitted me to perfection and was all mine"
  • In Meena's vision, while Tollington loses "all its edges and boundaries", she, by contrast, fits the boundaries of her own body "to perfection"
  • In Meena's vision, while Tollington loses all its "edges and boundaries", she, by contrast, fits the "boundaries" of her own body to perfection
  • In Meena's vision, while Tollington loses all its edges and boundaries, she, by contrast, fits the boundaries of her own body "to perfection"
  • In Meena's vision, while Tollington loses "all its edges and boundaries", she, by contrast, fits the boundaries of her own body to perfection
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