When Will There Be Good News?

When Will There Be Good News?

by

Kate Atkinson

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on When Will There Be Good News? makes teaching easy.
Ms. MacDonald was Reggie’s classics teacher at “the horrible posh school.” She quit working after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She also “got religion,” joining a fringe, Rapture-obsessed Christian church. She is a rather bitter person, but she is good to Reggie and loves her dog, Banjo. She tutors Reggie in exchange for errands and dog-sitting. On her way home from a prayer meeting, Ms. MacDonald is killed when she drives onto the train track, which causes the Musselburgh train crash. Reggie takes responsibility for her remains and her funeral, since Ms. MacDonald had no one else. Ms. MacDonald leaves half of the proceeds from her house sale to Reggie, allowing Reggie to go to college.

Ms. MacDonald Quotes in When Will There Be Good News?

The When Will There Be Good News? quotes below are all either spoken by Ms. MacDonald or refer to Ms. MacDonald. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma, Survival, and Reckoning with the Past Theme Icon
).
Funny Old World Quotes

Reggie opened the front door and stuck her head out into the wind and rain. “A train’s crashed,” a man said to her. “Right out back.” Reggie picked up the phone in the hall and dialed 999. Dr. Hunter had told her that in an emergency everyone presumed that someone else would call. Reggie wasn’t going to be that person who presumed.

“Back soon,” she said to Banjo, pulling on her jacket. She picked up the big torch that Ms. MacDonald kept by the fuse box at the front door, put the house keys in her pocket, pulled the door shut behind her, and ran out into the rain. The world wasn’t going to end this night. Not if Reggie had anything to do with it.

What larks, Reggie!

Related Characters: Joanna Mason Hunter (Dr. Hunter), Regina “Reggie” Chase, Ms. MacDonald, Banjo
Related Symbols: Dogs
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Reggie Chase, Girl Detective Quotes

This was the third dead body Reggie had seen in her life. Ms. MacDonald, Mum, and the soldier last night. Four if you counted Banjo. It seemed a lot for a person of so few years.

She’d identified a dead body, had her flat vandalized, and been threatened by violent idiots, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Reggie hoped the rest of the day would be more uneventful.

Related Characters: Regina “Reggie” Chase, Ms. MacDonald, Jackie Chase, Banjo
Related Symbols: Dogs
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:
Reggie Chase, Warrior Virgin Quotes

She picked it up. Same neat hole cut into its center. She ran a finger around the sides of the little paper coffin. Was someone hiding secrets inside Ms. MacDonald’s Loeb Classics? All of them? Or only the ones that she needed for her A level? The cutout hole was the work of someone who was good with his hands. Someone who might have had a future as a joiner but instead became a street dealer hanging around on corners, pale and shifty. He was higher up the pyramid now, but Billy was someone with no sense of loyalty. Someone who would take from the hand that fed him, and hide what he took in secret little boxes.

Reggie didn’t mean to cry, but she was so tired and so small and her face hurt where the book had hit it and the world was so full of big men telling people they were dead. “Sweet little wife, pretty little baby.”

Where did a person go when they had no one to turn to and nowhere left to run?

Related Characters: Joanna Mason Hunter (Dr. Hunter), Regina “Reggie” Chase, Gabriel Joseph Hunter (“the baby”), Ms. MacDonald, Billy Chase
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire When Will There Be Good News? LitChart as a printable PDF.
When Will There Be Good News? PDF

Ms. MacDonald Quotes in When Will There Be Good News?

The When Will There Be Good News? quotes below are all either spoken by Ms. MacDonald or refer to Ms. MacDonald. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma, Survival, and Reckoning with the Past Theme Icon
).
Funny Old World Quotes

Reggie opened the front door and stuck her head out into the wind and rain. “A train’s crashed,” a man said to her. “Right out back.” Reggie picked up the phone in the hall and dialed 999. Dr. Hunter had told her that in an emergency everyone presumed that someone else would call. Reggie wasn’t going to be that person who presumed.

“Back soon,” she said to Banjo, pulling on her jacket. She picked up the big torch that Ms. MacDonald kept by the fuse box at the front door, put the house keys in her pocket, pulled the door shut behind her, and ran out into the rain. The world wasn’t going to end this night. Not if Reggie had anything to do with it.

What larks, Reggie!

Related Characters: Joanna Mason Hunter (Dr. Hunter), Regina “Reggie” Chase, Ms. MacDonald, Banjo
Related Symbols: Dogs
Page Number: 136
Explanation and Analysis:
Reggie Chase, Girl Detective Quotes

This was the third dead body Reggie had seen in her life. Ms. MacDonald, Mum, and the soldier last night. Four if you counted Banjo. It seemed a lot for a person of so few years.

She’d identified a dead body, had her flat vandalized, and been threatened by violent idiots, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Reggie hoped the rest of the day would be more uneventful.

Related Characters: Regina “Reggie” Chase, Ms. MacDonald, Jackie Chase, Banjo
Related Symbols: Dogs
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:
Reggie Chase, Warrior Virgin Quotes

She picked it up. Same neat hole cut into its center. She ran a finger around the sides of the little paper coffin. Was someone hiding secrets inside Ms. MacDonald’s Loeb Classics? All of them? Or only the ones that she needed for her A level? The cutout hole was the work of someone who was good with his hands. Someone who might have had a future as a joiner but instead became a street dealer hanging around on corners, pale and shifty. He was higher up the pyramid now, but Billy was someone with no sense of loyalty. Someone who would take from the hand that fed him, and hide what he took in secret little boxes.

Reggie didn’t mean to cry, but she was so tired and so small and her face hurt where the book had hit it and the world was so full of big men telling people they were dead. “Sweet little wife, pretty little baby.”

Where did a person go when they had no one to turn to and nowhere left to run?

Related Characters: Joanna Mason Hunter (Dr. Hunter), Regina “Reggie” Chase, Gabriel Joseph Hunter (“the baby”), Ms. MacDonald, Billy Chase
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis: