Class 12 English · Original EZT practice
On the Face of It - Susan Hill (Class 12 English, Vistas, Chapter 5)
On the Face of It is Chapter 5 of Class 12 Vistas, Susan Hill's one-act play in three scenes. Derry, fourteen, whose face 'got acid all down that side', climbs into old Mr Lamb's garden - though 'The gate's always open.' Mr Lamb, whose own leg was 'blown off, years back', talks to him about crab apples, weeds, singing bees and the man who hid from the world until 'A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him.' This page walks through all three scenes with fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 25 October 2026:
1. The play at a glance
Scene One, the garden: Derry climbs the wall into a garden he thought was empty; Mr Lamb startles him with 'Mind the apples!' Derry expects the usual reaction - 'People are afraid of me.' The face and the leg: Derry 'got acid all down that side of my face and it burned it all away'; Mr Lamb's 'Real one got blown off, years back. Lamey-Lamb, some kids say.' - and it 'Doesn't trouble me.' The weed lesson: 'Why is one green, growing plant called a weed and another 'flower'? ... It's all life.... growing. Same as you and me.' The bees: 'when you listen to bees for a long while, they humm....and hum means 'sing'. I hear them singing, my bees.' The locked-room story: a man afraid of everything locks his door and gets into bed - 'A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him.' Derry laughs a lot. The open house: no curtains - 'I like the light and the darkness, and the windows open, to hear the wind.' And the warning: 'Acid only burns your face.' - 'You can burn yourself away inside.' Scene Two, home: Derry's mother has 'Been told. Warned.' about the old man; Derry answers, 'if I don't go back there, I'll never go anywhere in this world again' - 'I want the world....I want it....I want it....' Scene Three, the ladder: Mr Lamb is pulling down crab apples - 'Steady....that's....got it' - when the ladder falls back with him. Derry runs in too late: 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.' The promise kept: Mr Lamb had said of his visitors, 'They never do, though. Not them. Never do come back.' Derry is the one who does - too late.
2. Key details and what they signal
'The gate's always open.' Mr Lamb's welcome is literal and constant; Derry climbing the wall shows a boy who expects rejection everywhere - 'If you'd seen me, you'd not have come in.' 'It's all relative. Beauty and the beast.' Derry has had the fairy tale thrown at him before - 'Handsome is as handsome does' - and rejects it; Mr Lamb never offers that comfort, only company and work. The bus-stop cruelty: a stranger whispers 'that's a terrible thing. That's a face only a mother could love.' Derry hears everything; his mother kisses 'the other side of my face'. 'People are never just nothing. Never.' Mr Lamb's creed in one line - he asks for no 'particulars' in 'a filing box' before calling Derry a friend. Mr Lamb alone: 'I'll come back. They never do, though.' The loneliness under the welcome is what makes Derry's return - and its timing - hurt.
3. Theme
Disability and isolation: the play 'is on the themes of disabilities' - a burned face and a tin leg isolate both characters, but only Derry has locked himself away. Acceptance without pity: Mr Lamb never pretends the face is not there, never says others are worse off; he simply keeps the gate open. Friendship as risk: 'You'd have to take the risk. So would they.' The world's whole face: 'the world won't. The world's got a whole face, and the world's there to be looked at.'
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Enter the garden
Choose the method: Wall, then gate.
EZT practice question
How does Derry enter the garden, and what does Mr Lamb say about the gate?
Show the worked solution
- The entry: Derry climbs over the wall, expecting the place to be empty.
- The surprise: Mr Lamb's first words are 'Mind the apples!' - not 'who are you' or 'get out'.
- The gate: 'The gate's open. All welcome.' - and later, 'The gate's always open.'
Answer: Over the wall - and 'The gate's open. All welcome.'
Check: The wall climb, 'Mind the apples!', the always-open gate.
Watch for this: Do not miss what the wall says about Derry - he climbs because he expects rejection everywhere: 'If you'd seen me, you'd not have come in.'
Now try it yourself
Why does Mr Lamb never ask Derry to use the gate next time?
Check your answer
He does not need to - stating that it is always open undoes the wall without scolding the climbing boy.
The welcome is constant precisely because it is never made into a lesson.
Compare the face and the leg
Choose the method: Acid, then tin.
EZT practice question
What happened to Derry's face, and to Mr Lamb's leg?
Show the worked solution
- The face: 'I got acid all down that side of my face and it burned it all away.'
- The leg: 'Real one got blown off, years back.' - Mr Lamb wears a tin leg.
- The shrug: 'Lamey-Lamb, some kids say.' - and it 'Doesn't trouble me.'
Answer: Acid burned one side of Derry's face away; Mr Lamb's real leg was 'blown off, years back' and he wears a tin one.
Check: The acid, the burned-away side, the blown-off leg, the tin.
Watch for this: Do not treat the two injuries as equal in effect - both isolate, but only Derry has let the injury lock him away; Mr Lamb keeps the gate open.
Now try it yourself
Why does Mr Lamb mention 'Lamey-Lamb' himself?
Check your answer
Naming the taunt first takes its power out of other mouths - he shows Derry a way to carry a name without being carried by it.
The old man demonstrates the attitude the boy has never seen modeled.
Make something of the garden
Choose the method: Apples, then honey.
EZT practice question
What does Mr Lamb make from crab apples, and from honey?
Show the worked solution
- The apples: the garden is full of crab apples - 'Mind the apples!'
- The jelly: 'I make jelly.'
- The honey: from his singing bees - 'I make toffee with honey.'
Answer: Jelly from the crab apples - 'I make jelly.' - and toffee from honey: 'I make toffee with honey.'
Check: The crab apples, the jelly, the bees, the toffee.
Watch for this: Do not skim the making as small talk - turning sour apples into jelly is the play in miniature: what the world calls useless still feeds someone.
Now try it yourself
How do jelly and toffee argue the weed lesson?
Check your answer
A weed garden still gives jelly; a tin-legged old man still gives toffee - worth is in the making, not the label.
The garden's produce is the argument, served sweet.
Tell the locked-room story
Choose the method: Fear, then picture.
EZT practice question
What story does Mr Lamb tell about the man who locked himself in a room?
Show the worked solution
- The fear: a man afraid of everything - of being robbed, of death - locks his door and gets into bed.
- The hiding: he stays in the room, safe from every danger outside.
- The ending: 'A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him.'
Answer: Afraid of everything, he locked the door and got into bed - 'A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him.'
Check: The locked door, the bed, the falling picture.
Watch for this: Do not laugh and move on as Derry first does - the story is aimed at Derry's own locked room, the face he hides behind.
Now try it yourself
Why does Derry laugh a lot at this story?
Check your answer
Because it is told as a joke, and laughing is easier than admitting he is the man in the room - the recognition comes later, at home.
The joke is the gentlest possible mirror.
Answer the warning at home
Choose the method: Forbidden, then going.
EZT practice question
What does Derry's mother forbid in Scene Two, and what is Derry's answer?
Show the worked solution
- The warning: his mother has 'Been told. Warned.' about the old man and says 'You'll stop here.'
- The stakes: Derry answers, 'if I don't go back there, I'll never go anywhere in this world again'.
- The want: 'I want the world....I want it....I want it....' - and he goes.
Answer: She has been 'told. Warned.' and says 'You'll stop here.' - Derry goes anyway: 'if I don't go back there, I'll never go anywhere in this world again.'
Check: The warning, the 'stop here', the never-go-anywhere answer.
Watch for this: Do not read this as teenage defiance - it is the first time Derry chooses the world over his hiding place; the garden has already changed him.
Now try it yourself
Why does the play put this scene between the two garden scenes?
Check your answer
So we watch the change happen off the garden - what Mr Lamb planted in one afternoon survives contact with home.
Scene Two is the proof that Scene One worked.
Reach the ladder too late
Choose the method: Creak, then return.
EZT practice question
What happens as Mr Lamb pulls down the crab apples in Scene Three?
Show the worked solution
- The work: Mr Lamb is up the ladder pulling down crab apples - 'Steady....that's....got it'.
- The fall: 'A creak. A crash. The ladder falls back, Mr Lamb with it.'
- The return: Derry runs in too late - 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.'
Answer: 'A creak. A crash. The ladder falls back, Mr Lamb with it.' - Derry arrives too late: 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.'
Check: The ladder, the crash, the 'I did come back'.
Watch for this: Do not call the ending simply sad - Mr Lamb said visitors 'Never do come back', and Derry is the one who did; the friendship is proved at the moment it is lost.
Now try it yourself
Why does the play end on Derry's words rather than on the fall?
Check your answer
Because the return is the point - the old man's one victory over loneliness is the boy standing in the garden saying he came back.
The last line belongs to the promise, not the accident.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. How Derry enters, and the gate?
Show answer and reason
Over the wall - 'The gate's always open.'
The climbing boy expects rejection; the gate undoes it.
2. The face and the leg?
Show answer and reason
Acid 'burned it all away' - 'Real one got blown off, years back.'
Both isolate; only Derry has locked himself in.
3. The locked-room story?
Show answer and reason
'A picture fell off the wall on to his head and killed him.'
A joke aimed at Derry's own hiding.
4. The ending?
Show answer and reason
'A creak. A crash. The ladder falls back' - 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.'
The boy who returns is the play's answer to 'They never do.'
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain how 'The gate's always open' and Derry climbing the wall together introduce the play's whole argument.
- Contrast the weed lesson ('It's all life.... growing') with the locked-room story - one opens the world, one closes it; trace both to Derry's choice in Scene Two.
- Explain in your own words why the play ends on 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.' rather than on Mr Lamb's fall.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote On the Face of It?
- Susan Hill. The Vistas 'About the Book' note says the play 'is on the themes of disabilities'; it is Chapter 5 of the Class 12 supplementary reader.
- What is On the Face of It about?
- A withdrawn fourteen-year-old, Derry, whose face was burned by acid, climbs into old Mr Lamb's garden. Mr Lamb, who lost a leg in the war, welcomes him without pity, and Derry leaves determined to return - and does, moments after Mr Lamb falls from his ladder.
- Why does Derry climb the wall when the gate is open?
- He expects to be unwelcome - 'If you'd seen me, you'd not have come in.' Mr Lamb's answer is that the gate is always open: 'They come and sit here. And in front of the fire in winter... Anybody comes.'
- What does the ending of On the Face of It mean?
- Mr Lamb falls from the ladder just before Derry gets back; the boy who 'never' returns becomes the one who did - 'I came back. Lamey-Lamb. I did.....come back.' The friendship is proved at the moment it is lost.
- Where is On the Face of It in the Class 12 book?
- Chapter 5 of Vistas, the Class 12 English supplementary reader, by Susan Hill.