level 2 Teacher’s notes
Project Omega
Elaine O’Reilly
About the author
Elaine O’Reilly was born in South Africa but now lives in
Rome where she owns a bookshop and writes. She writes
mainly for children’s television. She has two dogs, three
cats and a daughter.
Summary
When wealthy businessman Charles Hatfield Baker III
disappears, the obvious answer is that he has been
kidnapped. His daughter, Julia, and the authorities wait for
a ransom demand but as the weeks turn to months and
no demand arrives, Julia begins to come to terms with
the idea that her father is not coming back. She owns
more than fifty percent of her father’s company, Hatfield
International, and she decides to do something with her
vast wealth to make life better for people.
Chapter 1: One autumn morning Charles Hatfield
Baker III, boss of Hatfield International and the richest
man in New York, leaves his apartment on the fortieth
floor to go to his office on the other side of Central Park.
It begins as a very ordinary Wednesday morning. He says
goodbye to his daughter and wishes the doorman of his
building a good day. But Charles Hatfield Baker III never
arrives at his office. The police search for him everywhere
– on the streets, at the airport, and at the train and bus
stations. The newspapers are very interested in the story.
They put the news of his disappearance on the front page
and offer a $10,000 reward for information. But nothing
happens. His daughter waits by the telephone, worrying
about her father.
Chapter 2: As winter arrives in New York, there is still
no news of the missing businessman. The newspapers
lose interest in the story and even the police stop asking
questions. Eighteen-year-old Julia Hatfield Baker decides
to stop waiting and start acting. She thinks that her father
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is trying to tell her something. She leaves the luxury
apartment and goes around the city. For the first time
in her life, she sees how many of the poor people in the
city live and she realises that she must do something with
her father’s money to improve their lives. She goes to
Hatfield International and asks to have a meeting with the
directors to find out about the company’s plans for the
future.
Chapter 3: Julia spends two days looking at the company’s
files. She learns just how powerful Hatfield International
is. At the end of the second day she comes across a red
file entitled ‘Project Omega’. The file is empty, but she can
see that her father has written ‘Never!’ inside the file. She
asks to see the papers from ‘Project Omega’, but the girl
in the office says she knows nothing about it. Julia is very
suspicious.
Chapter 4: Julia’s conversation about Project Omega
is overheard by Mr Berger, one of the directors of the
company. He tries to convince her not to look for the file,
but she insists. Finally he tells the secretary to open the
safe and show Julia the papers. As she is leaving, Julia hears
Mr Berger shouting at the secretary. Later, at home, she
receives a phone call from the secretary. The secretary
says that Julia’s life is in danger now. The directors don’t
want her to know about Project Omega!
Chapter 5: Julia reads the secret file and finds out that
the directors have plans to get even more power for
themselves. She realises that they are evil men. She
decides she must go to the police and the newspapers
to tell them about it. But as she is leaving the apartment
the next morning she almost falls to her death down the
empty lift-shaft.
Chapter 6: Luckily for Julia, a young man called Edward
West is on hand to save her from falling. He pulls her
back from the shaft just in time. Julia is very grateful
to Edward and she invites him into her flat for a cup
of coffee. She tells him about Project Omega and the
two young people make plans to give the story to the
newspapers. But just as Julia thinks her worries are over,
she realises that the file is missing.
Chapter 7: Julia and Edward realise that the police and
the newspapers will not believe them without proof.
Edward tells Julia that she must return to the offices of
Hatfield International to get another copy of the Omega
file. Julia returns to the office, but before she gets a
chance to look at the files, Edward calls her and tells her
to leave the building. She does so, and is pushed into a
car by two men wearing Father Christmas costumes. She
level 2 Teacher’s notes
Project Omega
recognises one of the men as Edward. She struggles but
the men are too strong. Julia loses consciousness.
Chapter 8: When Julia regains consciousness she is in
an aeroplane. Edward is there and he tells her he had
to kidnap her to save her life again. Edward tells her the
truth about her father – he escaped to Florida when he
found out about Project Omega and realised the directors
wanted to kill him. He didn’t go the police because he
wanted Julia to make up her own mind about the future
of the company. Julia is reunited with her father in Florida
and it looks like Julia and Edward are going to be together
for some time yet.
Background and themes
Big business: We never learn the details of Project
Omega, but the feeling that big business, as represented
by Hatfield International, is out of control is a familiar one.
Multinational corporations now wield enormous power
and influence. Globalisation and the free movement of
capital often means that corporations are more powerful
than governments The decisions often seem to be made,
like in the story, by ‘men in grey’, who are not accountable
to the people whose lives they affect.
Rich and poor: In cities such as New York, where this
story is set, great wealth and great poverty exist side by
side. The main character in the story is the daughter of
an enormously rich man who has no real idea about how
the vast majority of the population live their lives. She
lives on the fortieth floor of a luxury apartment building,
and travels in expensive cars. But she becomes aware of
the existence of poverty in the city as she travels around
trying to solve the riddle of her father’s disappearance.
Parents and children: Charles Hatfield’s daughter
loves her father very much. As she reaches the age of
eighteen, she enters the adult world in a dramatic fashion
– forced to deal with responsibilities that are totally
new to her. This is a very topical theme at a time when
expanding higher education, the rising cost of housing
and diminishing job prospects seem to be making children
remain dependent on their parents for much longer
than in the past. In this sense, the decision of Julia Baker’s
father to place her in a position to make decisions is an
interesting counter-example.
Good and evil: The theme of good and evil is
evoked through the contrast between Julia’s innocent
determination to do good, and the murky world of the
directors of the company, who are ready to kill in order
to increase their power. Julia believes that ‘the power of
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good is stronger than the power of evil’, and, fortunately
for her, she turns out to be right at the end of the story.
Discussion activities
Before reading
1 Discuss: Tell the students to imagine that they have
just inherited an enormous sum of money. The
condition is that they must do something to help
other people. Put the students into groups of four
and tell them they have fifteen minutes to decide
what to do with the money. After fifteen minutes,
each group elects a spokesperson to present their
decisions to the rest of the class. Write their suggestions
up on the board. The class votes for the best plan.
Chapter 1
After reading
2 Write: Tell the students to imagine that Mr Baker has
been kidnapped. Put them into pairs and tell them
to write a letter from the kidnappers to Mr Baker’s
daughter, asking for money. Get one member of each
pair to read their letter out to the rest of the class.
3 Role play: Tell the students to look at the picture on
page 2. Working with the whole class, get the
students to describe the picture and to say what is
happening in it. Then put the students into pairs and
tell them to write a short dialogue (five or six lines)
between the man in the hat and the thin policeman.
Go around the class helping with vocabulary if
necessary. The students then practise their dialogues
until they know them by heart. Invite some of the
pairs to perform the dialogue in front of the whole
class.
4 Write: Tell the students to look at the picture on
page 3. Write the headline on the board: ‘Millionaire
Disappears’. Elicit ideas from the class about what
information the article will contain. Make sure they
suggest all the most obvious things (Who is the man?,
When did it happen?, Who was the last person to
see him? etc.). Then put the students into pairs and
have them write the article. When they have finished,
the pairs exchange texts and check each other’s work
for factual errors and language mistakes.
5 Guess: Working with the whole group, ask the
students to suggest what they think has happened
to Mr Baker. Write their suggestions on the board.
When you have four or five suggestions, ask the class
to vote on the most likely one.
Chapter 2
6 Role play: Tell them to look at the picture on page 7.
Ask them to imagine what Julia is saying to the
directors. What does she want to do? Put their
suggestions on the board. Once you have enough
suggestions on the board, put the students into
groups of five. They are going to act out the meeting
between Julia and the directors of the company.
level 2 Teacher’s notes
Project Omega
7 Read carefully: Working individually, students make a
list of all the things that Julia had never seen before
she went into the streets of New York on page 5.
After five minutes, put the students into pairs so that
they can compare their lists.
Chapter 3
8 Pair work: Put the students into pairs and tell them
to write out the conversation between Julia and
Miss Bentley on page 9 as if it were a stage play. Then
each pair performs the dialogue until they can do it
without reading the text.
9 Guess: Write the following question on the board:
‘What do you think Project Omega is?’ Working
individually, the students write down their answer to
the question in one sentence. Then ask one of the
students to read out their sentence. Write it on the
board. If the language needs correcting, ask the class
to try to correct it. Then ask another student to read
out their sentence. Continue the procedure for as
long as the students have new ideas.
Chapter 4
10 Role play: Tell the students to look at the picture
on page 10. Working with the whole class, get the
students to describe the picture and to say what is
happening in it. Then put the students into pairs and
tell them to write a short dialogue (five or six lines)
between the two women Go from pair to pair during
this stage of the activity, helping with vocabulary if
necessary. The students then practise their dialogues
until they know them by heart. Invite some of the
pairs to perform their dialogue in front of the whole
class.
11 Debate: Julia Baker is the daughter of very rich and
powerful man. On page 11, Mr Berger asks her why
she is worrying when all she has to do is ask for
money. Is life always easy for the children of rich
(or famous) parents? Divide the class into two
equally-sized groups. Tell them that they are going
to have a debate on the above question. Write the
following statement on the board: This house believes
that life is always easy for the children of rich people
Half the class argues in favour of the statement, the
other half argues against it. Each student must write
least one sentence to support the position of their
group. Then proceed with the debate, by asking
individual students to read out their sentences. At the
end of the debate have the class vote on the
question.
12 Pair work: When Julia leaves the office with the
papers, she can hear Mr Berger shouting at Miss
Harper. Put the students in pairs and tell them to
imagine the conversation between the two
characters. Mr Berger is angry because Miss Harper
put the empty Omega file with the rest of the files
for Julia to read. Give them ten or fifteen minutes to
prepare and then invite some of the pairs to read
their dialogue out loud.
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13 Role play: Put the students into pairs and tell them to
write out the conversation between Julia and
Miss Harper on page 12 as if it were a stage play.
The students practise the dialogue until they know
it by heart.
Chapter 5
14 Discuss: Julia is in danger and feels she has no friends.
What is a friend? Write the following on the board: A
friend is someone … Working individually, the
students complete the definition. Then put the
students in small groups and have them discuss the
similarities and differences between their definitions.
15 Debate: Write the following sentence from page 14
on the board. ‘The power of good is stronger than
the power of evil.’ Follow the procedure indicated in
exercise 11 to organise a debate on this issue.
16 Role play: Put the students into small groups and
ask them to role play the meeting during which the
directors plan Julia’s ‘accident’ in the lift.
Chapter 6
17 Discuss: After the students have finished reading
Chapter 6, write the following question on the board:
Is Julia right to trust Edward West? Give the class a few
minutes to think about their answer and then put the
students into small groups to discuss their different
opinions and to give their reasons. A nominated
spokesman for each groups shares their thoughts
with the class.
18 Role play: Working in pairs, the students select five
or six lines of dialogue from the conversation
between Julia and Edward West on pages 16–18.
They practise reading the lines out loud until they
know them off by heart.
Chapter 7
19 Discuss: Edward tells Julia she must return to
Hatfield International to get another copy of the
Omega file. Is this a good plan? Put the students in
small groups of three or four. Ask them to discuss
this question.
Chapter 8
20 Pair work: Put the students into pairs and ask them
to think of ways in which Edward found out about
the second plan to attack Julia. After ten minutes, ask
the pairs to report their ideas to the rest of the class.
Write their suggestions on the board and vote on the
best one.