Source passage
Never Trust a Parrot.
The parrot had come from Jamie’s aunt, who had seen him in a pet shop. Aunt Cleo was immediately seduced by the parrot’s fabulous colouring, the black glitter of his eyes and the wonderful way in which he greeted Cleo’s entrance in the shop. ‘Hail to her Majethty, Empweth of the Fowetht!’
Aunt Cleo bought the parrot on the spot despite the fact that she was always going away on business and so couldn’t be around to look after it much. She gave it to Jamie’s family to care for instead. Aunt Cleo was like that. She was always buying animals and then giving them to Jamie’s family. So far they had a giant lop-eared rabbit (Cleo: ‘It’s got ears like blankets!’), a chameleon (Cleo: ‘You’ll never have another fly in the house!), a llama they kept in the garden (Cleo: ‘A Llama is the best burglar deterrent you can have, in fact it’s a burglar allarma!’), and now a parrot.
But Nemesis was different. For a start he could speak, and then there were those dark eyes, as dark as the depths of a tropical rain forest by night; a darkness haunted by the soft footfall of the passing tiger, and the silent slither of the anaconda. There was something of the night in Nemesis, especially the way he skulked in his cage, cracking open sunflower seeds and spitting the shells at Jamie while he slept. Then he’d whisper, ‘I am your fwend.’
Jamie tried to teach Nemesis some new words. In revenge for the bite on his finger Jamie began with, ‘Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran.’ This of course came out as, ‘Awound the wagged wocks,’ which was as far as Nemesis got, before clicking his tongue in disapproval and hanging upside down. Jamie had already learnt that this was usually a warning that the bird was about to have a temper tantrum. Sometimes the parrot seemed more human than bird.
Three days after the arrival of Nemesis, Jamie felt his injured finger itching and scratched it. That was when he first noticed the tiny fluff that had gathered round the edge of the bruising. He showed it to his mother.
‘When your skin itches like that, it’s a good sign. It shows that the cut is healing,’ she said.
‘My finger wasn’t cut. It was just sort of – squeezed, very hard,’ Jamie pointed out. ‘By a parrot.’
His mother smiled brightly. ‘I’m sure it’s on the mend,’ she insisted, and she clicked her tongue, as if to underline everything.
It was not long after Nemesis bit Jamie that other things began to happen.
Based on an extract from Never Trust A Parrot by Jeremy Strong
Writing task
Part B: Writing
Spend about 30 minutes on your writing. Remember to leave time to check your work carefully
This is an extract from Never Trust A Parrot. Do not worry if you have read the book or not. You will be marked on the quality of your writing, not your knowledge of the book.
Continue the story, making up things that began to happen to Jamie after the parrot bit him. Do not introduce any new characters.
Practise this exact question with personalised feedback on your writing.
Understand the task
Jamie and the Parrot Bite: Continue the story from the excerpt of Never Trust a Parrot, imagining what happens to Jamie after a parrot bites him. Use only the existing characters.
- narrative invention
- source continuity
- cause and effect
- controlled suspense
Requirements to keep in mind
About 30 minutes writing; Continue the story from the excerpt of Never Trust a Parrot, imagining what happens to Jamie after a parrot bites him. Use only the existing characters.
Plan your response
- Make the bite matter to what happens next.
- Do not introduce new people.
- Keep the original character and setting in view.
- Make the sequence clear and engaging.
Check your response against the task requirements. Leave time to review sentence clarity, punctuation and spelling.
Original atoply example response
Written by atoply, not an official school answer or mark scheme. Other successful responses are possible.
Reveal example and teaching notes
Jamie's wrist stung where the parrot had bitten him. He drew his hand away and studied the tiny red mark. For an instant he thought the room had become strangely quiet. Then he heard a whisper from the cage. The parrot was looking straight at him, but its beak did not move. Jamie blinked and stepped closer. The whisper came again, though this time he realised it sounded remarkably like his own thoughts. He tried to tell himself he was imagining things. He had read enough strange stories to know that fear could play tricks on people. Yet when he silently wondered whether the bird understood him, its head tilted and it gave a sharp, deliberate nod. Jamie stood perfectly still. The bite, it seemed, had changed something.
Learn from the example
- The response reconnects with the source characters and situation instead of retelling the extract. This helps the new writing feel like part of the same scene.
- Compare the narrator, tense and first action with the passage's final moment. Keep any compulsory opening and paragraph limit when writing your own continuation.