Summary: Finding the Toothbrush
The speaker and his two friends George and Harris are going on a boating
holiday on the River Thames in England. They meet one evening to pack
everything. At first, the speaker offers to pack, not because he really wants
to, but because he thinks he will tell the others how to pack and they will
follow his instructions. However, his two friends sit down to relax and he
has to start the packing. After he has closed the bag, Harris reminds him
that he has to pack the boots. So he repacks the bag. Then he wonders
whether he has packed his toothbrush. He always worries about his
toothbrush when he is travelling.
This time, he reopens the bag and searches for it, finds his friends’
toothbrushes many times, but cannot find his own. Finally, it is found inside
a boot. He repacks the bag. Then he opens it to take out his pouch and
closes it again. George and Harris offer to do the rest of the packing. The
speaker thinks they are both really bad packers, so he sits back to watch
them and have fun. The other two start by breaking a cup, and then go on to
make a mess with the salt and the butter. They lose and misplace things,
smash pies and step on things. After many mishaps, the packing is finally
finished after midnight and the three friends go to sleep.
The story is told from the point of view of the first-person narrator. It is a
very funny text, and although the speaker is one of the characters in the
story, that does not mean that he only makes us laugh at his friends; many
of the jokes are on him. The humour lies in the characters and the situation.
To begin with, the three friends seem to have an absurd number of things
to pack. Packing is an easy task for some people and difficult for others, but
these friends make it look like a complicated, time-consuming and major
event.
Then there are the spoken and unspoken agreements and disagreements
between the three friends that are also very funny. The speaker offers to
pack, actually hoping that he will get to order his friends about. His friends
agree instantly, and let him do the packing. When the other two start
packing, it is the speaker’s turn to sit back, find faults with them, and have
fun. They also seem to get childish fun out of making things difficult for
each other, instead of helping each other. Little things, like losing a
toothbrush or packing butter creates laughs.
UNIT 6 FINDING THE TOOTHBRUSH
Embedded Questions 1:
The speaker says ‘That’s just like Harris’ because he knows Harris. Perhaps Harris has the habit of
behaving in this manner, so the speaker is not surprised at his words or behaviour.
Embedded Questions 2:
Suggested answer (Accept any logical answer): The toothbrush must have got inside the boot while the
speaker was packing.
Embedded Questions 3:
● not true
● true
Embedded Questions 4:
Free response
Comprehension
A. 1. b 2. a 3. c 4. b 5. a 6. c
B. 1. The speaker and his friends were going on a boating holiday on the River Thames in England. They
had to pack boots, toothbrush, soap, plates, cups, kettles, bottles, jars, pies, stoves, cakes, tomatoes,
salt, butter and strawberry jam.
2. The speaker offered to do the packing because he was proud of his packing skills. However, he did
not really want to pack. He had thought that he would boss the job, and that Harris and George
would work under his directions.
3. The speaker had to repack his bag thrice. The first time was because he had forgotten to pack the
boots. Next, he could not find his toothbrush and had to turn out everything. Finally, he reopened
it once more to take out his pouch.
4. a. George and Harris.
b. The speaker thought that it would be fun to watch them because he thought that both George
and Harris were very bad packers. Yet, they had a lot of things to pack. The speaker thought that
they would find the job difficult and would make a mess.
5. No, the other two men were not better packers. We know this because they broke a cup, dropped
salt over everything, smashed the tomato and the pies, stepped and sat on the butter, and lost
things.
6. a. The butter.
b. The salt.
c. After George picked up the butter, he and Harris tried to keep it inside a kettle. But all of the
butter would not go inside the kettle. So they had to remove it with a spoon. Then they put
down the butter on a chair. Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him. He and George went all over the
room, looking for it.
C. Suggested answers (accept any logical answer):
1. No, the three friends were not really helping each other. They could have finished the packing
sooner if, instead of watching the others make mistakes, they would have worked together. They
could have searched for the missing things together, kept note of the things to pack and shared
the work.
2. Yes, the author writes about his experience in a humorous way. Some of the funny lines from
the text are: ‘They agreed to the suggestion so readily that I was taken aback’; ‘Whenever I am
travelling, my toothbrush makes my life miserable’; ‘I found George’s and Harris’s toothbrushes
eighteen times, but I could not find my own’; and ‘I never saw two men make such a mess with so
little butter in my whole life’.
Grammar
A. 2. has cleaned 3. Have, bought 4. has played 5. have come 6. have performed
B. Suggested answers (accept any logical answer):
2. Yes, Sam has submitted his assignment.
3. No, she has not found the missing sketch pen.
4. I have played the flute for two years.
5. Pam has worked in the library for six months.
6. Yes, the teacher has collected all the answer sheets.
Vocabulary
A. 1. misunderstand 2. replay 3. misbehave 4. misspell 5. rewrite 6. rearrange
B. 1. excitement 2. payment 3. education 4. direction 5. improvement 6. solution
Writing
A. Six fire safety rules for school students—
● Do not carry matchboxes to school.
● If you see or smell smoke, report it immediately.
● If the fire alarm rings, respond at once.
● Know your local emergency number.
● Ask your school principal to organise fire drills.
● In case there is a fire, leave the place immediately.
B. Suggested answer (accept any logical answer):
Rules to follow while travelling to the seaside—
● Carry towels.
● Carry light clothes and sandals.
● Do not swim too far out into the sea.
● Do not swim alone, after dark or if the sea looks stormy.
● Keep wallets, books and valuable items away from the water.
● Keep the beach clean.
Listening
Listening text
Sea Shell
By Amy Lowell
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships, and sailor men,
And parrots, and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing of the things you know so well.
Answer:
A. 1. trees 2. again 3. caves 4. well
B. 1. Ships, sailor men, parrots and tropical trees.
2. Fishes, corals and seahorses in green caves.
3. The speaker wants to know about islands lost in the Spanish Main, which may not be found again.
4. The sea shell would know about all these things as it has lived in the sea. It will either know these
things by itself or from the other fish, birds and animals that it has met.
FINDING THE TOOTHBRUSH
A. Answer in brief.
1. What surprised the narrator when his friends readily agreed to the narrator’s offer to pack for
everyone?
Ans: The narrator proudly offered to pack as he thought he was better at packing than the others.
But he was taken aback when his friends Harris and George readily agreed and settled down to
relax without offering any help. The narrator was disappointed because he thought he would
actually boss over them and they would work under his directions.
2. What did Harris comment after the narrator finished packing? How did the narrator react to this?
Ans: After packing everything, the narrator sat on the bag and strapped it. As if waiting for him to
finish, Harris asked the narrator to pack the boots which the narrator had forgotten. The narrator
felt that it was typical of Harris to remind him of something when he would have thought he had
completed the job.
B. Answer in detail.
1. How did a tooth brush bother the narrator?
Ans: Every time the narrator packed for travel, the thought whether he had packed his
toothbrush bothered him a lot. His fear was so much that he even dreamt that he had not packed
his toothbrush. He would suddenly wake up to search for his tooth brush. He would pack it in the
morning before he used it, then unpack to take it from the bag and then forget to pack it again.
He would always rush to pick it up at the last moment and had to carry it to the railway station
wrapped up in a handkerchief. So now, when Harris reminded him to pack his boots, he wanted to
check if he had packed his tooth brush this time.
2. How did George and Harris mess up during packing?
Ans: The narrator was very tired after packing as he had to open and close the bags again and
again to keep or take out something or the other. Hence he immediately agreed when Harris
offered to complete the rest of the packing along with George. Both George and Harris were the
worst packers. All they could do was only mess up more than pack. In the process of packing, they
broke a cup, squashed a tomato, trod on the butter and smashed the pies by placing heavy things
on top. Finally, the packing finished as late as 12.50 am and absolutely exhausted the three friends
retired to bed.
C. Read the lines and answer the questions.
1. It seemed a longer job than I had thought. (Finding The Toothbrush)
a. What seemed a longer job?
b. Why was it so?
c. Did the speaker finish the job to his satisfaction?
Ans: a. The speaker had offered to pack for the group. That seemed a longer job than he
expected.
b. It could probably be because they had not planned what to take and were not organised
in their packing.
c. No, when finally he had thought he had completed the packing, Harris asked him to
pack the boots which was left behind. Further, he was not sure if he had packed his
tooth brush.
2. He and George went all over the room, looking for it.
a. Who is ‘he’ in the above line?
b. What were they looking for?
c. Were they successful in finding it?
Ans: a. ‘He’ refers to Harris in the above line.
b. They were looking for a lump of butter they had removed from the kettle.
c. We are not sure if they were successful in finding it as the butter they were looking for
was stuck on Harris’ back as he sat on the chair where they put it.
D. Answer in brief. (Think and answer)
1. Why did the narrator feel it was fun to watch his friends pack?
Ans: Harris and George offered to complete the rest of the packing. They had to pack the
hampers. The narrator wanted to see how they would pack the piles of plates, cups, kettles, bottles,
jars, pies, stoves, cakes and tomatoes as the narrator knew they both were the worst packers. He
wanted to have fun watching them.
2. How did a piece of butter create humour?
Ans: It looked as if both Geroge and Harris were playing around with the small piece of butter.
First dropping it on the slipper, then pushing it into the kettle and finally sitting on it. The most
hilarious scene was when both were searching for the butter without realising it was stuck on
Harris’ back when he sat on it.
E. Answer in detail. (Think and answer)
Do you think the narrator was justified in being proud of his packing skills. Give reasons.
Ans: The narrator first offered to pack because he felt proud of his packing skills. He thought he was
better than the other two friends in packing and that he would not forget anything. But it was not to
be so. Though from the text we understand he was a bit better than the other two, he made a lot of
mistakes himself. He had to keep opening and closing the packed bags to keep something, or search
for something or take out something. The narrator may not have been messy like the other two but
he was very forgetful. He had to search for his tooth brush and in the process he found George’s and
Harris’ tooth brush eighteen times but not his own. All this goes to prove that he was not all that
good at packing as he claimed.
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