Back to front
...is new stepfather. It’s clear that he wants some attention, and that it why he act like he does at the police station. Making up lies about steeling and stuff, and that is seen before in real life. Often children aren’t having enough attention from parents, and then they are making up lies and do different kind of things. I think that is relevant for the story, and also one of themes. Okay, Nick is different from the real world, but the writer gives the “attention thing” a totally new perspective. Nick is this, I can say, wired new born child. And when I say wired, it’s because he is different from the other kids, very different. But only on the inside, only back to front on the inside, not on the outside. He is, if we ignore his not so typical inside, a typical example of that kind of children, who miss the attention from home, and that is clearly why he acts like he does. Of course also if you’re classmates tease you, insult you and hate you at the same time, you pretty fast will loose you self confidence. But normally you miss attention at home if you’re not very special, if you’re a clean normal child, but in his situation, it’s all back to front again. He is not normal, and because of that, you would probably think, that he had too much attention. No. His mother Grace is very hard to describe. She doesn’t say that much and we don’t hear so much about her and from her, which probably can be connected with Nick’s search of attention from his mum, she isn’t there. We heard that she remarried his stepfather Thomas Siswele, and from that moment, papers and cookbooks about groundnut stew with plantain were even more interesting than Nick. Then he goes meet Lyndon at the police station, where Nick tries to making up lies so he can go to jail, and have the necessary attention. Lyndon, who for days and hours now had been denying and recanting, in his own mind, to the coppers, that he did an armed robbery at H. Samuels, something about jewellers. But...