[Pommeroy is reading to the class from the 1954 short story "The Destructors" by Graham Greene]
Karen Pommeroy: "There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the betting at the all-in wrestling and the Barrow Boys would hear with respect of how Old Misery's house had been destroyed. It was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his 15th year crystallized with the pain of puberty." What is Graham Greene trying to communicate with this passage? Why did the children break into Old Misery's House? Joanie?
Joanie James: They wanted to rob him.
Karen Pommeroy: Joanie, if you had actually read the short story, which, at a whopping 13 pages, would have kept you up all night, you would know that the children find a great deal of money in the mattress, but they burn it.