Lektüre Coast to Coast

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Cooper is going to meet him the next day after school. At his house again, Cooper goes to bed, he is very tired, but he cannot sleep. Questions run through his mind and Cooper feels a strange connection to Bashir. The next morning, Cooper is going to school. He is not able to concentrate on his tasks and is always checking the time with his mobile phone. Right after the school lessons, he talks to his best friend Kate. Both has known each other for a long time. Cooper tells her about Bashir and their encounter at the beach. Kate listens carefully but, in the end, she finds that Cooper must tell the story to his dad. To summarize everything, you can say the novel is about the (further) decisions of Cooper, which have become more difficult due to the hiding of Bashir. I have the information about the year of publication from Wikipedia. 2. The relationship between Cooper and his father has changed over years. They used to get along very well, they went canoeing together, and Cooper saw him as a kind of role model. He believed everything his father said (compare page 11, line 7/8), which indicates a good relationship with trust. But now everything is different. Their relationship is quite difficult, and Cooper argue a lot with his father. Both have two different opinions on many topics and especially politics is a "sensitive issue" (page 12) between them. In addition, Cooper's dad does not really care about his son's life, as long as he does not paint a bad image of him (for example hanging out with losers like Graham Barton (page 11, line 21/22)) and does not ruin his mayoral election, he is happy. Another page that shows how broken and destroyed their relationship to each other is, is page 18. Cooper tells Kate about Bashir, an immigrant from Afghanistan, but he does not tell his dad, because he does not trust him. 3. Cooper is the main protagonist in this story. He lives with his family in Australia, in Darwin. There are many beaches and Cooper often visits the beach Casuarina, where you go when you want to be alone. Cooper is a friendly and helpful boy, when he saw Bashir lying half-died at the beach, he immediately helped him and shook his legs, so Bashir gets enough oxygen (page 13). He is also very empathetic. After Bashir told him, that he fled from Afghanistan, Cooper brought him some ribs and chips given that Bashir might feel hungry (page 15). Even in the evening, Cooper still thinks about Bashir and wonders how he is doing in the moment (page 16). In my opinion, Cooper feels that connected to Bashir because he feels lonely too. The relationship to his family is quite difficult and the only person he trusts and speaks open to is Kate. In addition, Cooper is very sad and insecure, his father argues a lot with him and is always making him down and worser than he actually is (page 11/12). Even at school, Cooper often has problems. But in my view, Cooper is a very strong person. He does not care about the opinion of others; he makes what he thinks is right. And he helps Bashir even though it is against the law and could cause him many problems and make the relationship to his father even worse. This action shows how big Cooper's heart is. 4. In this story we have a fist-person narrator. Cooper tells us everything, that he feels and thinks so we know his emotions in every situation, and it is easy for us to identify with this character. Through the first-person narrator, the reader experiences the events directly together with the narrator. So, based on the reading, we know how Cooper feels when he argues with his father, what he thought when he found Bashir on the beach, and how he feels about Kate. But this perspective also has disadvantages. The reader does not know the feelings or thoughts about other persons because we are not able to look in their heads. In addition, we do not have any ratings of the author, so the reader must decide on its own if the information we got are right. I want to give you an example for what I said in the last point. During an argument between Cooper and his father, we know Cooper's thoughts and attitude, but the reader will always be on Cooper's side, because he thinks his opinion is right. His father's opinion will always seem wrong to us because Cooper thinks it is wrong. Therefore, you must be careful when rating other characters when you only see them through the narrator's eyes, through a subjective way. 5. C=Cooper B=Bashir Die Gedanken der Personen sind ohne Anführungszeichen, die wörtliche Rede ist mit. C: What now? I thought, what should I do with an illegal immigrant washed up on a beach in Australia? That does not matter now, I must take care of him. "Are you hungry?" I asked him. B: What? What has he said? I cannot understand him. What should I do now? Cooper noticed his restlessness, he did not understand him, Cooper showed with his hands what he meant. B: What is he doing now? Is he going to hurt me? No, he shows me something! Hungry. He asks me if I am hungry. Yes, I am. I would love to have some food. At least a little bit. Bashir nodded. "Yes. Hungry," he said. Cooper took Bashir to Joey's near the University and bought him some spare ribs and chips with lots of ketchup. C: Oh, god, he eats like he had not eaten for days. Probably he had not. Oh no, that must be hard. B: Yummy. It is so nice. Finally, I get something to eat, it tastes so good. Better, than my food the last months in Afghanistan. While driving on the ship, we did not have enough food. I starved for days. While Bashir was eating and Cooper watched him, there came more and more people. They stared and greedily imbricated the picture, an immigrant, and the son of the mayor-candidate. Whether it was such a good idea from Cooper? If his Dad gets to know this scene, he will get many problems. Now, Cooper noticed the staring people. "Slow down, Bashir" he told him "take it easy". It seems like Bashir understanded him. After minutes, he finished his meal. The boys headed back to Rapid Creek. It was getting late, the sky got darker and darker. Then both boys reached the footbridge. Cooper told Bashir to wait. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes," he explained him. To make sure, that he understanded him, Cooper gave Bashir his clock and showed him when he would be back. Then Cooper walked home, he took the back door and tried to go upstairs quietly. His Dad was out, and his Mum was in the living room working on her laptop. Cooper's little sister was already in her bed. "Lucky me" thought Cooper, he packed some new clothes, a soap and deodorant into a bag being carefully not to make any noises. Then he took a toothbrush, toothpaste, and his old sleeping bag. Why does it take so lang, has he forgot about me, Bashir wonders, then he looked at the watch. Four minutes to go! Back downstairs, Cooper opened the fridge, some milk, a can of spam, a tin opener, and some biscuits. That must be enough for one night. Hopefully, no one will notice the missing things. Now, back to the door. Watch out and make no noise, Cooper told himself. He reaches the footbridge, wondering that no one, especially not his mum heard him. I can be sneaky if I want to, Cooper thought. Then he saw Bashir, he looked relieved. Cooper felt a feeling of happiness. Someone is glad to see him, that was a good feeling. "Come with me," he told Bashir. I will take to my father's hut, it is a good and hided place, there he can stay without anybody finding him, Cooper thought. 6. "You have to talk to your dad," she said. "No, I don't want to, he would immediately call the police and tell them about Bashir," I answered. "Maybe, but you can not keep hiding him, he is an illegal immigrant," Kate said with a serious voice. I knew she was right, she was almost always right, but I do not want to give up on Bashir. There is, there is a crazy connection between us. It is like I understand all his feelings but actually I cannot be able to, I do not know what he had to gone through before landing in Australia, but I still have this feeling. "Hello, someone is there?" Kate snapped in my face, I shuddled together. "I asked you something," she said. I looked confused. She sighs, "What are you going to do with Bashir?". I took my time, I thought. After a minute, I answered "I will keep him here, he will stay in the hut while I will search for solution". "I will help you" told Kate. I was surprised. "What?" I asked. "I will help you," she repeated. I was not able to say anything. Kate, my Kate who had never broken a rule wants to help me. I was relieved, I could not imagine dealing with this problem alone anymore. "Thank you," I said and hugged her. She laughed. "You're my best friend, I won't let you down. But you have to promise me not making anything without my permission". "Promise" I said and hugged her harder "you are the best". "And that's why you are strangling me, I need to oxygen," she told me and took a deep breathe. "Sorry," I loosen my hug, I was so happy but suddenly I remembered that we need to talk to Bashir as well. "Kate, hurry, we have to tell Bashir about the news," I said really fast. "Calm down, Cooper, the bell rang a few seconds ago, the fifth lesson has started. First we finish school and after that we can go to Bashir". There she was the old Kate who never break a rule. But I was fine with that, from now on I will not be on my own. We ran to our classroom and arrived on time. The teacher was just coming in. Kate and I took a seat fast and looked in our books like we were sitting here for hours. "Hello, everybody," our teacher began with his lesson, "please open your books on page 54," he continued. I looked at my phone. What! I just made 30 minutes of our lesson, it felt like we already spoke about that grammar for two hours. I looked to Kate, she was answering the teacher's questions and then took some notes in her exercise book. How is she able to concentrate on anything? I am too excited and nervous to think about school. 3,2,1, the school bell rang. Finally! I did not take any grammar rule from class, but whatever. I took my bag and waited outside the room of Kate. She was the last person in class and came out of the door with the teacher. Mr. Smith looked at me. "Cooper," he said, "I noticed the last lessons that you are not following my topics. I hope that will change the next days, otherwise your grades will not be good. You know that." "Yes, I know," I answered. Shit, what should I tell my dad about it, he will get angry. Think at Bashir I told myself, you are soon going to meet him again. We said goodbye to our teacher and ran to our bikes. As fast as we could, we drove to my Dad's hut. Out of breath we arrived there 10 minutes later. "Bashir, Bashir," we shouted. Nothing moved. I panicked. What if someone has found him? But then, suddenly we saw eyes carefully looking out of the door. "It is okay," I told him, "Come out." Bashir came out, he looked afraid. But when he saw my smile, he smiled as well. A bit confused he looked at Kate. "This is my best fiend Kate," I explained, "She is going to help us." I hoped he understanded me. He did, Bashir nodded and said, "come in". I looked to Kate and we got into the hut. It smells like the deodorant and a bit like sea. Inside it was dark, so I took a candle and made some light. Kate and Bashir smiled, everybody looked relieved, and I could see a small tear in Kates's eye. She liked Bashir as well.