SECTION B: PROSE SUSAN HILL: I'm the King of the Castle Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Kingshaw ignored him. He picked up the rabbit cautiously. It felt quite heavy, and rather loose, as though there were nothing holding its limbs together, inside. 'Haven't you ever touched a dead thing before?' 'No. Well - only birds. Nothing big.' 'Isn't that big!' 'It is. I mean, I've never touched an animal that was dead.' 'Haven't you ever seen a dead person, either?' Kingshaw looked up nervously. 'No.' 'Not even your father? Didn't they take you to look at him in his coffin?' 'No.' 'I saw my grandfather dead. That wasn't long ago.' 'Oh.' Kingshaw had no way of telling if this were true. He moved his fingers about in the rabbit's wet fur. 'Oh, chuck it away, Kingshaw. But he was reluctant. He liked the feel of it. He had not known how it would be to hold a dead thing. Now he knew. He nursed it to him. Hooper said, 'It's only dead. Dead things are finished, they don't matter.' 'Yes, they do. Well – dead people do, anyway. 'Of course they don't. There's no difference.' 'There is, there is.' 'How is there?' 'Because – because it's human bodies.' 'Humans are only animals.' 'Yes - only ... only they're not. They're different.' Hooper sighed. 'Look, when you're breathing, you're alive aren't you? Everything is. And when you stop breathing, your heart stops, and then you're dead.' Kingshaw hesitated, worried about it, uncertain how to argue. Hooper's eyes opened very wide. 'I suppose you don't believe all that guff about souls and ghosts and everything, do you?' 'Not ghosts ...' 'When you're dead you're dead, you're finished.' 'No.' 'Look you can see. Hooper poked his finger at the rabbit. Its head flopped heavily sideways. 'It's dead,' he said. Kingshaw stared at it miserably. He could not think clearly. What Hooper said must be true, and yet he knew that it was not true. 'If you believe all that about souls, you believe in ghosts and spooks.' 'No, I don't.' 'Ghosts are supposed to be people, after they're dead, aren't they?' 'I don't know.' 'Well, they are.' 'You just said that when you were dead you were finished.' 'Oh, I don't believe in any old ghosts. But you do. You've got to, if you believe that other.' Kingshaw said nothing. But he was still anxious about it. 'So you'd better watch out, hadn't you? But it's all guff, really.' [from Chapter 7] How does Hill's writing make this moment in the novel revealing and significant?

1. full_questionHow does Hill's writing make this moment in the novel revealing and significant?[25]