Hey, You Down There Chapter Notes | Year 7 English IGCSE (Cambridge) - Class 7 PDF Download

Calvin and Dora

Morning Routine

Extract 1: Breakfast Scene
The story begins with Calvin Spender finishing his coffee and burping loudly, a crude gesture that sets the tone for his rough character. Across the table, Dora Spender, his wife, sits with her breakfast barely touched, indicating her lack of appetite or perhaps her preoccupation. She coughs lightly before asking Calvin if he plans to dig in the well that morning. Calvin, ignoring her question, fixes his small, red-rimmed eyes on her and orders her to start the chores immediately, as she will be hauling up dirt.

His dismissive tone and the way he clears his throat, causing his Adam’s apple to move under his loose red skin, highlight his abrasive personality. Dora responds meekly with a whispered “Yes, Calvin,” showing her submissive role in their relationship. As Calvin leaves the kitchen, he kicks a tawny cat lying on the doorstep, revealing his cruelty. Dora watches him and reflects on a recurring thought: Calvin reminds her of something non-human, though she cannot pinpoint what it is. This thought lingers as she hurries to her chores, certain that one day the answer will come to her.

Extract 2: The Well
Halfway between the house and the barn lies a doughnut-shaped mound of earth surrounding a deep hole, the well Calvin is digging. He approaches it with distaste, driven only by necessity, as his well has been dry for two weeks. Previously, he hauled water from Nord Fisher’s farm half a mile away, but Nord’s hints about payment have made this chore increasingly unpleasant. Calvin has driven a heavy iron stake into the ground a few feet from the hole, attaching a crude rope ladder for access.

He estimates the well’s depth at fifty or sixty feet and hopes he won’t need to dig much deeper. To aid the task, Calvin lowers a bucket tied to a long rope into the hole, which Dora must haul up after he fills it with dirt from the bottom. This backbreaking work underscores Dora’s physical burden. As Calvin descends, Dora rushes to finish her chores, reaching the hole just as Calvin’s muffled shout signals the bucket is full. She summons all her strength to haul it up, empties it, and lowers it again. Examining the first bucket’s contents, she notes no water seeps from it, indicating the well remains dry.

Down the hole

Eerie illumination

Extract 3: A Terrifying Incident
Dora, deeply religious in her own way, prays at every tenth bucket, hoping for water to spare her the labor of hauling dirt. On this morning, as she lowers the bucket for the tenth time, she prays fervently for something to change. Almost immediately, her prayer seems answered when a scream of terror echoes from the hole, and the rope ladder jerks violently. Dora falls to her knees, peering into the darkness and calling out to Calvin to check if he’s alright.

Suddenly, Calvin emerges, his face no longer red but a sickly yellowish-green, trembling and struggling to breathe. Dora initially thinks he’s had a heart attack, feeling a surge of joy she tries to suppress. Calvin, lying on the ground and panting, eventually speaks, an unusual act given his typical silence toward Dora. He explains that the bottom of the hole dropped out, leaving him standing on air. He grabbed the ladder’s last rung to save himself, estimating the hole’s depth at a thousand feet. Dora, amazed at how her prayer was answered, realizes that with no bottom, she may no longer need to haul dirt.

Extract 4: Exploring the Depths
Calvin, determined to investigate the hole’s sudden drop, ties a flashlight to a line, switches it on, and lowers it into the well. At a hundred feet, the light is a feeble glimmer, revealing nothing. At two hundred feet, it’s a mere speck. He continues lowering the line, reaching nearly a thousand feet, but the light vanishes, and the ball of twine is nearly depleted.

Whispering in awe, Calvin decides to pull the line up, but it resists, growing taut. Suspecting it’s caught, he gives a sharp jerk, only to feel a downward tug that nearly tears the line from his hands. Shocked, he yells that the line jerked, hinting at something active and unknown below.

Gold!

Treasure Trove

Extract 5: The Discovery of Gold
Confused, Calvin muses aloud about what could exist a thousand feet underground. Tentatively pulling the line, he retrieves a small white pouch made of a leather-like substance. Inside, he finds a bar of yellow metal and a folded piece of parchment. The metal, heavy for its size, yields to his jack-knife, confirming it’s gold.

Excited, Calvin declares it a pound of gold, worth far more than the flashlight he sent down. He dismisses the parchment’s fine writing as “foreign,” assuming it’s from a secret government project. Ignoring Dora’s question about how people could be so deep without mines, he orders her to guard the hole and heads to town to buy more flashlights, believing the underground dwellers need them desperately.

Extract 6: Dora’s Initiative
After Calvin discards the parchment, Dora picks it up, puzzled by the strange writing. She wonders if the underground dwellers are unaware of English speakers above. Rummaging through Calvin’s desk, she finds paper, a pencil, and a ragged dictionary.

At the kitchen table, she writes a note asking who the dwellers are, why they’re underground, and why they paid so much for a flashlight. Thinking they might be hungry, she wraps a loaf of bread and a piece of meat in a dishtowel, including the dictionary. Lowering the bucket with these items takes time, and she waits, tugging the line gently to check for a response.

Glar the Master

Extract 7: Waiting by the Hole
Sitting by the hole, Dora enjoys the warm sunlight and the rare chance to rest, unburdened by Calvin’s usual chores. She doubts he’ll return soon, expecting him to stay in town until morning. After half an hour, she tugs the line, but it doesn’t yield. Content to wait, she tugs again after another half hour, feeling a sharp answering jerk. Hauling the bucket up, she finds it heavier, containing a dozen yellow metal bars. A new parchment note, written in English, surprises her. She reads it slowly, amazed at the response from below.

Extract 8: Glar the Master’s Letter
The note, signed by Glar, the Master, reveals that Dora’s dictionary allowed the underground scholars to decipher her language, which they call barbaric. They are astonished that surface-dwellers exist, as their legends spoke of such a race, though they doubted it until now. Their instruments confirm the hole leads to the “deadly light” of the surface.

Dismissing the flashlight as a clumsy death ray of no value, they sent gold as a courtesy. The bread is inedible to them, but the meat is priceless, and they offer double the gold for more. Dora buries the gold bars in the soil. Hearing a car speeding by, she discovers four dead chickens hit on the road. Fearing Calvin’s reaction, she gathers the bodies and, inspired by the hole, decides to send them down to the dwellers.

Back down the hole

Extract 9: The Chicken Feast
After sending the chickens, Dora sits to relax, savoring the rare idleness. An hour later, she feels a response from the line and hauls up an extremely heavy bucket, fearing the line might break. Inside are several dozen gold bars and a note from Glar. The dwellers’ scientists identify the flesh as chicken, calling it the supreme food. They send a bonus payment and, referencing the dictionary, demand turkey, believing it similar to chicken. Dora, shocked they ate the chicken raw, wonders where she could find a turkey.

Extract 10: Calvin’s Plan
Calvin returns the next morning, hungover and disheveled, his loose neck skin reminding Dora again of something she can’t name. He surveys the hole glumly and backs his truck to it, revealing a winch with a steel cable. Ordering Dora to prepare food, he sets up an oil drum on the cable, supported by a steel rod across the hole. He places boxes of flashlights—bought for fifty-nine cents each—into the drum, chuckling that one gold bar could buy thousands. Dora, realizing the dwellers have no use for flashlights, fears the consequences as Calvin lowers the drum, oils the cable, and waits an hour for the dwellers to load gold.

Turkey

Extract 11: The Flashlight Fiasco
The next day, Dora follows Calvin to the hole as the winch reels up the drum. Calvin’s grin fades to disbelief when he sees the drum filled with dented and broken flashlights. His rage erupts as he kicks the flashlights, bawling like a lost calf. A note attached to one, which he doesn’t notice, lands at Dora’s feet. She reads it, learning the dwellers rejected the flashlights as useless death rays and demanded turkey. Calvin, screaming threats into the hole, vows to make the dwellers regret double-crossing him.

Extract 12: Calvin’s Descent
Enraged, Calvin decides to confront the dwellers, placing his gun in the oil drum and climbing in. He instructs Dora to lower him and bring him up after an hour. Dora prays he won’t find and harm the dwellers. When she raises the drum, it’s heavy, but Calvin is gone. Instead, she finds scores of gold bars and a note from Glar. The dwellers mistook Calvin for a live turkey, finding him even more delicious than chicken. They send a bonus payment and request more “turkey.” Dora, reading the note twice, expresses wonder at the bizarre outcome.