Chapter two begins with Buddy trying to walk to school without walking on cracks. He thinks that if he does this, he will not get in to trouble for wearing jeans and that he would not dies before he was sixty. We learn that he does not have enough money for the bus.
Buddy is fascinated with the topic of death and is worried that he is going to die. He thinks that his name is jinxed as he is named after Buddy Holly, his dad’s favourite singer, who died at twenty-two.
Buddy is on his way to school, with jeans instead of grey trousers, a shirt that was dirty and an old plastic bad instead of a schoolbag, highlighting how little money his dad had. Despite this, we learn that Buddy has been promoted to the ‘E’ class, which was the express class, which shows that Buddy is intelligent. Buddy was delighted to be promoted to the class but hated it now because they all had money and spoke differently to him.
We are introduced by Mr Normington, who is Buddy’s teacher and through their dialogue, we learn that Mr Normington gives Buddy a hard time about his uniform. Buddy has not told him about his mum leaving and lies to him about her. We learn that Mr Normington is racist towards Buddy’s two friends, Charmian and Julius Rybeero and makes fun of their skin colour. Buddy is friends with the Rybeero twins as they are also outcasts in the express class.
The day goes badly for Buddy as he does badly in his biology test and he thinks it’s because he laughed along with the others about his friends. The day goes from bad to worse when Mr Normington makes him clean up the litter in the classroom. “Since you speak and look like a dustman, you can do a dustman’s job.”
Questions:
- What is your impression of Mr Normington from reading chapter two? PQE (Two adjectives)
- What is Buddy’s biggest fear?
- Why does Buddy feel so out of place in the Express Class?
- Do you think Buddy is treated by fairly by his teacher? Explain your answer.
- Would you like to be in this class? Explain your choice.
- Why was Buddy forced to pick up the litter? How did you feel when he was told to do this?
Enda's English Notes 
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