STAGE

Dead Man’s Island

2 John Escott

Introduction

This ungraded summary is for the teacher’s use only

and should not be given to students.

The story
Carol Sanders is growing up happily in Hong Kong
when her favourite pop star, Jake Rosso, and then her
father both die. She is very unhappy and starts getting
into trouble so her mother takes her back to England.
There her mother gets a temporary job as a secretary
on a Scottish island although Carol overhears Greta
Ross, the interviewer, telling someone on the phone
not to worry because they have been out of the
country for seven years.
Mrs Sanders is going to be the secretary of Greta’s
husband, a businessman who never leaves the island
and who doesn’t like visitors. The mysterious Mr Ross
is a sad-looking young man with short hair, moustache
and glasses.
One day Carol sees a face at the window of the
house watching her. Her mother tells her that all the
money and property in Mr Ross’s business is in his
wife’s name. When Carol accidentally takes a photo of
Mr Ross, the gardener takes the film: Mr Ross doesn’t
like having his picture taken. Carol sees a half-hidden
door in the house and is told sharply that it’s private.
Two nights later, Carol sees Mr Ross come out of
the locked room and hide the key. In the morning she
goes into the room.
It is full of Jake Rosso memorabilia. Carol realizes
that Mr Ross is Jake Rosso. But he has followed her.
He tells her that when he was a pop star he caused the
death of a young girl. So he faked his own death and
then came to live with his family on this island. Carol
decides to keep the secret. She needs to begin a new
life too. Later she gets a job on a farm but sometimes
thinks about the ‘dead man’ on the island.
It is also a story about the emotional development
of the teenager, Carol Sanders. At the beginning of
the story, she is an ordinary middle class teenage girl
growing up in Hong Kong. Then the deaths in fairly
quick succession of her pop idol and of her father lead
her into unhappiness and a new set of friends which
almost gets her into trouble with the police. So she
can identify closely with the parallel experience of
Jake Rosso (real name James Duncan) who got so
involved in drink and drugs that he caused the death
of a fifteen-year-old girl; and with his feelings after
the car accident which caused her death. Both Carol
and Ross have to rebuild their lives as best they can.
Carol benefits from the healing influences of the island
– healthy open-air work in a beautiful environment,
horse riding and swimming, and kind people (who
are actually members of Ross’s family) but perhaps
above all from the recognition that the problems of
Ross – who, as Jake Rosso, she had idolised when
she was younger – are more difficult and permanent
than her own. She is thus able to learn an important
lesson about herself and about other people, to go
on to college at the end of the summer and then to a
fulfilling job.

Background to the story

This is an adventure story which takes us from
Hong Kong via London to the Scottish islands; and a
progressive accumulation of events – Greta’s phone
call, the Keep Out signs as they approach the island
for the first time, the face at the window, and so on
– build up the mystery until the climax in the room full
of Jake Rosso memorabilia when Carol discovers Mr
Ross’s true identity.

33 © OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
 STAGE
Dead Man’s Island
2 Pre-reading activity

Match the words with the pictures

1 8 a Suddenly I saw a face at

one of the windows.
b ‘Mr Ross doesn’t like
visitors to the island,’
Tony said.
c I knew my mother was
angry but I didn’t care.
2 3
d ‘Hey! What are you
doing?’ I said. ‘You’ll spoil
my film.’
9 e Greta Ross was waiting
for us.
f London was interesting
and exciting, and I began
to forget the bad times in
Hong Kong.
4 5
g Greta Ross looked angry.
‘That room is private,’
she said.
h I was happy in
10 Hong Kong.
7
i Mr Ross hid the key in the
plant pot next to the door.
6
j ‘Who does he look like?’
I thought.

To the teacher

Aim: To familiarize students with the setting
Time: 10–20 minutes
Organization: Give one copy of the worksheet to
each student or to each pair of students. When they
have matched the pictures and the captions, ask
the following questions. How many different people
appear altogether in the pictures? Who are they or
what are the relationships between them?
Key: Carol, Mrs Sanders, three of Carol’s friends in
Hong Kong; Greta Ross, Tony Duncan; Mr Ross;
Mr Duncan. (The students will discover finally that Mr
Duncan is the father of Mr Ross and Tony.)
Then ask the students to look again at the pictures
and re-order them as they think they occur in the
story (tell them that picture number 1 is also first in
the sequence). Next ask students to tell the story
from the pictures. There is no right or wrong answer
to this activity. The stories need only be plausible.
Key: 1h, 2g, 3e, 4i, 5c, 6j, 7a, 8f, 9d, 10b

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 STAGE
Dead Man’s Island
2 While reading activity

Character matching

Match the pictures with the names and sentences.

.L]ZW>LYOP]^
........................................ ........................................ .......................................

a b c
Greta Ross
Jake Rosso
Mr Duncan
Mrs Sanders
Mr Ross
Carol Sanders
Tony Duncan

N$#
N N N N N N N N N N N
........................................ ........................................ ........................................ .......................................

d e f g

N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N
1 Is about thirty. 12 Was married to a 20 Wears a hat and boots
2 Carol liked him. businessman in at work.
3 Is brown from the sun. Hong Kong. 21 Owns a business.
4 Has short hair. 13 Takes people to the island. 22 Was a singer.
5 Liked the Rolling Stones. 14 Is about thirty. 23 Likes horse riding.
6 Has a teenage daughter. 15 Likes swimming and 24 Married to the
7 Has dark hair. painting. housekeeper.
8 Is a businessman. 16 Is a gardener. 25 Takes Carol’s film.
9 Likes gardening. 17 Is a secretary. 26 Husband died in a
10 Looks like Mr Ross. 18 Died in a car accident. plane crash.
11 Had long hair. 19 Wears glasses. 27 Has long dark hair.
28 Father died in an air crash.

To the teacher

Where: At the end of Chapter 3 Key: a: Carol Sanders, 5, 9, 23, 28; b: Jake Rosso,
Aim: To focus on descriptions of characters 2, 11, 18, 22; c: Tony Duncan, 3, 7, 10, 13; d: Mrs
Time: 10–20 minutes Sanders, 6, 12, 17, 26; e: Mr Ross, 4, 8, 14, 19; f: Mr
Organization: Give worksheets to pairs or groups of Duncan,16, 20, 24, 25; g: Greta Ross,1, 15, 21, 27
students. Ask them to match the descriptions with
the characters.

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 STAGE
Dead Man’s Island
2 After reading activity

Order puzzle

Number the events in the story in the right order.

EVENT ORdER

a They went to the Savoy Hotel at 11 o’clock.

b Carol saw a face at one of the windows.
c Carol and her mother went back to England.
d He hid the key in the plant pot.
e She had to leave the college.
f They went on a train to Scotland.
g She got a job on a farm.
h Carol’s father died in a plane crash.
i She saw a door with a large plant pot outside it.
j She stopped doing her work at the college in Hong Kong.
k He pushed his car over a cliff.
l They had dinner with Mr and Mrs Duncan and Tony.
m There was a storm in the middle of the night.
n They looked at the Tower of London.
o His family hid him for months.
p There were clothes, posters and three guitars in the room.
q Carol heard Greta’s voice speaking on the phone. 
r He took her hand and they walked out of the room.
s Mr Ross told Carol that she could work on the farm.
t Carol went to college in Britain.
u She saw Mr Ross come out of the locked room.
v She took a photograph of the house.
w Jake Rosso killed a young girl in a car crash. 
x He said the pictures were of his brother.
y He didn’t stop driving the car.
z They left the island at the end of the summer.

To the teacher

Aim: To order, revise, remember what has been read,
and to summarize
Time: 10–20 minutes
Organization: Give out worksheets to pairs or
groups of students. Ask them to put the twenty-six
incidents in order without looking at the book (they
can check later). Once they have done this, you
can also ask students in groups to tell the story in
the order in which the events actually took place,
beginning with the death of the fifteen-year-old girl.
Key: a10, b15, c8, d20, e7, f12, g26, h5, i17, j6, k3,
l13, m18, n9, o4, p21, q11, r23, s14, t25, u19, v16,
w1, x22, y2, z24

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