Oh-Oh Dad's in charge!

My student, K, is 9 but has pretty good English. She's a bit of a geek, but I don't have any problem with that as I think I have a secret geek side too. Hell, I blog don't I?! Anyway, as I said, her English is good for her age and we can have a conversation, although she makes a lot of mistakes. She normally gets to the school about 15 minutes before the lesson; this is pretty unusual for a student.

Today she was a minute late and came in panting. I said, 'K, you're out of breath and late! What happened?'

Ever hopeful of a straight answer she began: 'At the weekend we going ski.' . I considered maybe she'd chosen to ignore my question and repeated what she said to clarify we were on the same page (she often mixes up her tenses). Once I'd called her on it, she started again: 'At the weekend we went ski [me: "skiing"] skiing and my mum really likes skiing and is very good but doesn't like high slopes and she was skiing and look like bushes and look like this [shows with hand mum going down hill then vering off at a 45 degree angle] and she hit tree. [me: huh? Is she okay? (and presuming that if mother was dead or in a coma, that K wouldn't be sitting in my classroom, although her dad takes her learning so seriously I really couldn't be sure)].

K continued: 'I go [me: 'went'] I went and got patrol. [By now I've concluded I'll never find out why she was late] And she had a broken 'here' [points to rib. Me: rib]. Yes. Two. And she hurt to lie down and can only sit and my dad have to cook, and I have to wash clotheses [me: clothes] and my sister has to clean the house. '

Me: 'Is that why you're late? Because your dad is in charge?'
K: 'Yes' [giggles]
Me: 'For how long?'
K: 'For two months.' [giggles]

PHEW!