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　　Making friends
　　Mr Roy, the holiday master, worked the children hard, because that was hisjob. He coached them the whole of the morning, going over and overeverything patiently, making sure it was understood, demanding, andusually getting, close attention.
　　At least he got it from everyone except Jack¹. Jack gave close attention tonothing unless it had feathers.
　　‘If you studied your geometry as closely as you study that book on birds,you’d be top of any class,’ complained Mr Roy. ‘You exasperate² me, JackTrent. You exasperate me more than I can say.’
　　‘Use your handkerchief,’ said the parrot impertinently.
　　Mr Roy made a clicking noise of annoyance³ with his tongue. ‘I shallwring that bird’s neck one day. What with you saying you can’t work unlessKiki is on your shoulder, and Philip harbouring all kinds of unpleasantcreatures about his person, this holiday class is rapidly getting unbearable⁴.
　　The only one that appears to do any work at all is Lucy-Ann, and she hasn’tcome here to work.’
　　Lucy-Ann liked work. She enjoyed sitting beside Jack, trying to do thesame work as he had been set. Jack mooned over it, thinking of gannets andcormorants which he had just been reading about, whilst Lucy-Ann triedher hand at solving the problems set out in his book. She liked, too,watching Philip, because she never knew what animal or creature wouldwalk out of his sleeve or collar or pocket. The day before, a very large andpeculiarly coloured caterpillar⁶ had crawled from his sleeve, to Mr Roy’sintense annoyance. And that morning a young rat had left Philip’s sleeve ona journey of exploration and had gone up Mr Roy’s trouser-leg in a mostdetermined manner.
　　This had upset the whole class for ten minutes whilst Mr Roy had tried todislodge the rat. It was no wonder he was in a bad temper. He was usually apatient and amiable⁷ man, but two boys like Jack and Philip were disturbingto any class.
　　The mornings were always passed in hard work. The afternoons weregiven to preparation for the next day, and to the writing-out of answers onthe morning’s work. The evenings were completely free. As there were onlyfour boys to coach, Mr Roy could give them each individual attention, andtry to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. Usually he was a most successfulcoach, but these holidays were not showing as much good work as he hadhoped.

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