lyc-rivalain

They’re in the girls’ room when they hear the first dot-dot-dot of semi-automatic gunfire. It sounds phony and far away, and they keep doing what they’re doing – brushing their hair looking at their reflections on the mirror …

Dot-dot-dot […]

Dot-dot-dot.

“What is that?”

The blond stuffs her hairbrush, which is now spun with gold and black silk (a miniature angel’s nest) back into her backpack next to her anthology of English literature. The pages of that anthology are so thin, they’re like dead girls’ dreams, translucent skin. On them it seems that everything that has ever been thought has been written.

Knock, knock, knock.

This time it’s followed by a soft and gurgling scream. The scream of someone slipping suddenly into a warm bath.

“Shit,” one of the girls says.

“What the hell – ‘’

One of the girls starts towards the door, but the other grabs her elbow. “Don’t go,” she says. “What if?”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” She drops her friend’s elbow.

“It’s just a prank. It’s probably Ryan Asswipe…”

Dot, dot.

So loud this time – close and mechanically bright – that both girls scream. Their screams are followed by a silence that sounds foolish, cold and hard as the tile on the girls’ room walls. One says in a whisper, “It’s Michael Patrick. Yesterday, in trig, he told me he was going to bring a gun to school, that he was going to kill …”

“Who? Kill who?”

“Everybody.”

“What?”

“’All you fuckheads,’ he said. I thought he was joking, you know what a freak “

“Why didn’t you tell anybody?”

“I…”

On the other side of the door to the girls’ room, there’s another scream. It sounds desperate and pointless as music, and it’s followed by a man asking for help.

“Help,” is all he says.

Mr. McCleod?

Then silence, except that one of the girls is wearing seven silver bangles on her right wrist, and both girls gasp when they jangle. The other grabs the bangles on her friend’s wrist and holds them still with her hand.

Then he opens the door slowly, and steps in. He’s holding a big blue-black gun with both hands, pointing it in front of him aiming at nothing.

When he sees them, Michael Patrick laughs. “Hey” he says.

One of the girls, trying not to sob, swallows, then says, “Michael.”

He’s wearing a skinny shirt – a clean and pale white shirt, but they are large ugly sweat stains under his arms. There’s an angry rash under his chin, where he must have shaved to fast that morning.

Michael Patrick smiles. He’s breathing hard. He takes one of his hands off the grip of the gun and puts the hand in the pocket of his jeans. He’s wearing white shoes with blue lightning bolt on the sides, laces untied.

“So,” he says too loudly in the quiet softness of the girls’ room, and both girls flinch.

“So,” he says more softly, as if sorry to have startled them.

“Which one of you girls should I kill?”

Laura Kasischke, The Life Before Her Eyes, 2002.

Première étape: Repérages (Wh- questions). Faire un tableau avec les personnages et les informations que l’on peut trouver dessus. Demander aux élèves de faire différentes catégories.

	The two girls	Michael Patrick	Everybody
Places	In the girls’ room	In the school	In the school
Nickname	Fuckheads		Fuckheads
Physical appearance	One is blond. One is wearing seven silver bangles. Translucent skin.	He’s wearing a skinny shirt. He’s wearing white shoes with blue lightning bolt on the sides.
Action	They freshen up in the bathroom	He’s holding a gun, he wants to kill everybody.

 

Thanks to the information you got, can you say what is happening in this extract? There is a shooting in a high school/ there is a young man who plans a shooting in his high school.

Deuxième étape: Focus on the repetitions, deduce the lexical field. We can find the lexical field of the sound.

What is the nature of those words? Onomatopoeia.

Where does those sounds come from? The first noises come from the semi-automatic gun that the young man has, and the other noise is when this boy is at the door and knock the door so that to enter the room.

Pick other words which can fit in this category. See words highlighted.

What can you conclude about the atmosphere? A terrifying atmosphere, fearful, frightening, scary, anguish.

Pick out the words which show the different step of the two girls’ reactions and actions. No reaction at first (“keep doing”, l. 4); then the girls are surprised / puzzled (‘‘‘Shit,’ one of the girls says”, l. 23); one of the girls is panic-stricken (“One of the girls starts towards the door”, l. 25) but the other one stops her and does not want to move (“but the other grabs her elbow. ‘Don’t go,’ she says.”, l. 25-26).

At the beginning two teenage girls, probably best friends, are in the toilets of their High School and, as they are brushing their hair and refreshing themselves, they start hearing some strange noises. Eventually they recognize the burst of gunfire (and then, scream). Little by little they become aware of the danger and get panic-stricken. All of a sudden, a boy from the school / a male classmate, known as Michael Patrick, enters the room and corners them. He is holding / waving a machine-gun and finally / lastly asks the girls which one of them he should kill. At first we are under the impression that the two girls do not pay attention to the first shootings, since they keep on brushing their hair. But the repetition of this peculiar sound makes them realize that something is going wrong outside the restrooms. They are quite in disbelief when they become aware that somebody is probably slaughtering people in the High School. One of the girls seems to be more eager to move and flee or do something while the other one prefers to stay still and tries not to move, speak or make any noise.

Why do you think he decided to do this bloodbath? 

 

Michael Patrick may have wanted to take his revenge because he was neglected and rejected / ostracized by the others in the school. Or / And he may have been bullied. He may have wanted to be in the limelight because he was excluded by the others / felt very lonely / lonesome. He may have been a misfit, somebody who didn’t belong to any group. He may have held a grudge against people or the school system and he was cold-blooded and crazy enough to go and kill his peers and his teachers. He is cynical and vicious in his demand to make the girls decide who is going to die. He likes tormenting people before killing. That’s the way he can feel powerful / almighty.