Q1. What is your name?

I have wronged you and your family most dreadfully, and your anger towards me was deserved and your hatred justifiably fierce. I do deserve no better. I ask no pardon, but to say that all I did I did for you as I trust you will one day discover. I pray you make haste to administer the elixir in the bottle to your grandmother. Delay not for I fear she has dire need of it. A few drops in her tea will suffice for a full recovery. Do it now and you will see my time spent collecting plants and herbs and all the hours in your brothers laboratory were not entirely wasted. Your humble and most affectionate cousin, W.R. The liquid in the bottle was of a dark, mushy green colour, as much like pond water as anything else. I did not think twice about it. I put it at once into my skirt pocket and made my way along the corridor to my Gran’s room. I went on my tip-toe as the kitchen was right below, and I could hear Mother still sobbing quietly and Father trying to comfort her. Gran lay propped up on a bank of pillows, her face as white as her hair. Her eyes were closed. The tea was still warn in the cup by her bed. She had not drunk any. As I tried to release a few drops the bottle trembled in my hand and too much came out at once. ‘Come on Gran,’ I whispered, shaking her shoulder gently. Her eyes opened. ‘You’ve got to have a cup of tea. You know you like a nice cup of tea.’ She shook her head. ‘It’ll do you good. I made it especially for you. “Waste not want not”. That’s what you always tell me, remember.’ A suggestion of a smile moved her lips and that was enough to encourage me. I put my arm around her neck and helped her drink it down. She spilt some down her nightie, but she took almost half a cup before she fell back against the pillows. ‘That was nice, dear,’ she said. And she closed her eyes again. I left her and went back to my bedroom. I opened the bottle and smelt it. It smelt like minty cough mixture. I pondered again over the note. I do not know why, but I had absolute and complete faith in my friend Walter. I never doubted, not for one minute, that his medicine, his ‘elixir’, would work.

Q3. ‘For I fear she has dire need of it..’ What does the word ‘dire’ suggest about grandmother’s illness?

Q4. ‘I could hear Mother still sobbing quietly…’ What does the word ‘sobbing’ suggest about how Mother was feeling?

Q5. ‘The bottle trembled in my hand…’ What does the word ‘trembled’ suggest about how Bess is feeling?

Q6. I pondered again and again over the note.’ What does the word ‘pondered’ suggest about what Bess is doing with the note?