Buddy

The houses were tall and all set back from the pavement, some with front gardens so large that there were trees in the middle of the lawns. Buddy lost count of the house numbers but it didn’t matter because, when they reached it, it was obvious which house was number 56.

Tall, brick gateposts guarded the two entrances to the semi-circular drive but there was only one gate and that was half-open and hanging off its hinges. The other entrance looked like a barricade – with wooden posts and tangles of barbed wire. There was a tall, straggly hedge that hid the garden and the lower part of the house but what Buddy could see made the skin crawl on the back of his neck. The windows were all boarded up as if what was inside was too terrible to see, or as if someone had tried to stop something horrible from getting out.

Buddy had known that Julius would dare him to go up to the front door and he had made up his mind to say no, but at the last minute he changed his mind. Julius was right: it was only an old house, even if some people had died there. So what – people must have died in almost every old house in the town; that didn’t make them scary. It was just an ordinary old house and he had to prove it to himself – if not he’d go on being scared by stupid things like ghosts. He’d walk right up to the front door. There was nothing to be afraid of. He just had to stop acting like a kid; he was nearly fourteen, after all. It was ridiculous all this stuff about ghosts and death. He had to stop it. If he walked up to the front door and stood there while he counted to ten – no, twenty – it would be like a victory and all his fears would stop for ever.

He crossed the lawn and walked softly up the gravel path up to the front-door steps. The steps were worn in the middle from all the people who had climbed them, including them – the murder victims! Buddy got to the top step and stared at the front door. There was an old door-knocker in the middle and on either side of it two planks had been nailed lengthways, presumably to cover broken glass panels. Half way down was a letter box. He was just about to push it open and peer through when there was a noise behind him.

He whirled around to see Julius and Charmian standing at the bottom of the steps. “You scared me, you idiots! What’re you doing, sneaking up on me like that?” “Coming to look for ourselves,” Julius explained in a loud voice. “Sssh! I’m going to look through the letter box.”

As Buddy turned back to the door, Julius skipped up the steps and banged the doorknocker. “Anyone home?” he shouted. Buddy and Charmian stooped to look through the letter-box. Buddy bent down just as she pushed open the flap. Through the large slit they saw a flickering candle and a face staring back at them. Charmian screamed and together they fled down the steps in terror.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lucy ran out of the empty room into the passage and found the other three. “It’s all right,” she repeated, “I’ve come back.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Lucy?” asked Susan.

“Why? said Lucy in amazement, “haven’t you all been wondering where I was?”

“So you’ve been hiding, have you?” said Peter.

“Poor old Lu, hiding and nobody noticed! You’ll have to hide longer than that if you want people to start looking for you.”

“But I’ve been away for hours and hours,” said Lucy. The others all stared at one another.

“Batty!” said Edmund, tapping his head. “Quite batty.”

“What do you mean, Lu?” asked Peter.

“What I said,” answered Lucy. “It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I’ve been away for hours and hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened.”

“Don’t be silly, Lucy,” said Susan. “We’ve only just come out of that room a moment ago, and you were there then.”

“She’s not being silly at all,” said Peter, “she’s just making up a story for fun, aren’t you, Lu? And why shouldn’t she?”

“No, Peter, I’m not,” she said. “It’s — it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing, and there’s a Faun and a Witch and i's called Narnia; come and see.”

The others did not know what to think, but Lucy was so excited that they all went back with her into the room. She rushed ahead of them, flung open the door of the wardrobe and cried, “Now! go in and see for yourselves.”

“Why, you goose,” said Susan, putting her head inside and pulling the fur coats apart, “it’s just an ordinary wardrobe; look! there’s the back of it.”

Then everyone looked in and pulled the coats apart; and they all saw — Lucy herself saw — a perfectly ordinary wardrobe. There was no wood and no snow, only the back of the wardrobe, with hooks on it. Peter went in and rapped his knuckles on it to make sure that it was solid.

“A jolly good hoax, Lu,” he said as he came out again; “you have really taken us in, I must admit. We half believed you.”

“But it wasn’t a hoax at all,” said Lucy, “really and truly. It was all different a moment ago. Honestly it was. I promise.”

“Come, Lu,” said Peter, “that’s going a bit far. You’ve had your joke. Hadn’t you better drop it now?”

Lucy grew very red in the face and tried to say something, though she hardly knew what she was trying to say, and burst into tears.

For the next few days she was very miserable. She could have made it up with the others quite easily at any moment if she could have brought herself to say that the whole thing was only a story made up for fun. But Lucy was a very truthful girl and she knew that she was really in the right; and she could not bring herself to say this.

The others who thought she was telling a lie, and a silly lie too, made her very unhappy. The two elder ones did this without meaning to do it, but Edmund could be spiteful, and on this occasion he was spiteful. He sneered and jeered at Lucy and kept on asking her if she’d found any other new countries in other cupboards all over the house. What made it worse was that these days ought to have been delightful. The weather was fine and they were out of doors from morning to night, bathing, fishing, climbing trees, and lying in the heather. But Lucy could not properly enjoy any of it.

The Sand-Fairy

The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass and dry stringy wildflowers of purple and yellow growing around the edges at the top. It is like a giant's wash-hand basin. And there are mounds of gravel and holes in the sides of the basin where gravel has been taken out. High up in the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front doors of the little sand-martins' little houses.

The children dug and dug and dug. Their hands got hot, sandy and red, and their faces got sweaty and shiny. The hole was getting so deep that Jane told the others to stop.

"What if the bottom of the hole suddenly gave way and we fell into Australia?" she asked.

Cyril and Anthea knew Australia wasn’t that close, but they agreed to stop digging with the spades and switch to using their hands. The sand at the bottom of the hole was soft and dry, just like the beach.

"Let’s go look for shells," said Cyril. "That little cave looks interesting and I think I see something sticking out like a ship’s anchor. It’s too hot in this hole."

The others agreed, but Anthea kept digging. She liked to finish what she started and she didn’t want to leave the hole without getting all the way to Australia.

The cave turned out to be a disappointment, with no shells and the ship’s anchor just being part of a broken pick-axe handle. They were all about to head home for lemonade when Anthea suddenly screamed.

"Cyril! Come here, quick! It’s alive! It’ll get away!"

They all rushed back.

"It’s probably a rat," said Robert. "Dad says they live in old places like this."

"Maybe it’s a snake," said Jane, shivering.

"Let’s see," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I’m not scared of snakes. I like them! I’ll tame it and it will follow me everywhere."

"No, you won’t!" said Robert. "I share a room with you!"

"Let’s just look," said Anthea.

"I swear it said something. It really did!"

"What did it say?" asked Robert.

"It said, ‘Leave me alone,’" Anthea said.

Cyril just laughed. "You’re hearing things! We’ll dig with the spades."

As they dug, something started moving in the hole. Anthea knelt down and scratched at the sand like a dog digging for a bone.

"I felt fur!" she cried. "I really did!"

Then, suddenly, a voice from the sand made them all jump.

"Leave me alone," the voice said. They all looked at each other. Did they really hear that?

"We just want to see you," said Robert, being brave.

"Please come out," said Anthea.

"Well, if that’s your wish," the voice said. The sand started to stir and something furry and brown rolled out of the hole. It yawned and rubbed its eyes with its hands.

"I must have fallen asleep," it said, stretching.

The children stood around the hole, staring at the creature they had found. It had eyes on long horns like a snail, ears like a bat and a body shaped like a spider. Its fur was soft and it had hands and feet like a monkey.

"Well," said Anthea, "who are you?"

"You don’t know?" the creature said, looking shocked. "I’m a sand-fairy. Don’t you know one when you see one?" the creature said.

It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I see you are, now. It’s obvious now that I look more closely."

The creature began to curl up again in the sand. "Please don’t go," begged Robert. "I didn’t know you were a sand-fairy, but now I do, you’re the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!"

On the following Wednesday the marks were read out. Out of a possible hundred I had obtained sixty—which pleased me very much indeed—White, fifty-five, Kendal, sixty-one. The unspeakable Bradshaw's net total was four.

Mellish always read out bad marks in a hushed voice, expressive of disgust and horror, but four per cent was too much for him. He shouted it, and the form yelled applause, until Ponsonby came in from the Upper Fifth next door with Mr Yorke's compliments, 'and would we recollect that his form were trying to do an examination'.

When order had been restored, Mellish settled his glasses and glared through them at Bradshaw, who, it may be remarked, had not turned a hair.

'Bradshaw,' he said, 'how do you explain this?'

It was merely a sighting shot, so to speak. Nobody was ever expected to answer the question. Bradshaw, however, proved himself the exception to the rule.

'I can explain, sir,' he said, 'if I may speak to you privately afterwards.'

I have seldom seen anyone so astonished as Mellish was at these words. In the whole course of his professional experience, he had never met with a parallel case. It was hard on the poor man not to be allowed to speak his mind about a matter of four per cent in a book-paper, but what could he do? He could not proceed with his denunciation, for if Bradshaw's explanation turned out a sufficient excuse, he would have to withdraw it all again, and vast stores of golden eloquence would be wasted. But, then, if he bottled up what he wished to say altogether, it might do him a serious internal injury. At last he hit on a compromise. He said, 'Very well, Bradshaw, I will hear what you have to say,' and then sprang, like the cat in the poem, 'all claws', upon an unfortunate individual who had scored twenty-nine, and who had been congratulating himself that Bradshaw's failings would act as a sort of lightning-conductor to him.

Bradshaw worked off his explanation in under five minutes. I tried to stay behind to listen, on the pretext of wanting to tidy up my desk, but was ejected by request. Bradshaw explained that his statement was private.

After a time they came out together like long-lost brothers, Mellish with his hand on Bradshaw's shoulder. It was some small comfort to me to remember that Bradshaw had the greatest dislike to this sort of thing.

It was evident that Bradshaw, able exponent of the art of fiction that he was, must have excelled himself on this occasion. I tried to get the story out of him in the study that evening. White and Kendal assisted. We tried persuasion first. That having failed, we tried taunts. Then we tried kindness. Kendal sat on his legs, and I sat on his head, and White twisted his arm. I think that we should have extracted something soon, either his arm from its socket or a full confession, but we were interrupted. The door flew open, and Prater (the same being our House-master, and rather a good sort) appeared. 'Now then, now then,' he said. Prater's manner is always abrupt.

'What's this? I can't have this. I can't have this. Get up at once. Where's Bradshaw?' I rose gracefully to my feet, thereby disclosing the classic features of the lost one.

'The Headmaster wants to see you at once, Bradshaw, at the School House. You others had better find something to do, or you will be getting into trouble.'

He and Bradshaw left together, while we speculated on the cause of the summons.

This is a lock check comprehension passage.

Largely preserved under the ash, Pompeii offers a unique snapshot of Roman life as well as

insight into ancient urban planning. It was a wealthy town of 10,000 to 20,000 residents at

the time it was destroyed. It hosted many fine public buildings and luxurious private houses

with lavish decorations, furnishings and artworks, which were the main attractions for early

excavators; subsequent excavations have found hundreds of private homes and businesses

reflecting various architectural styles and social classes, as well as numerous public buildings.

This is a comprehension passage

All that night we were in a great bustle getting things stowed in their place, and boatfuls of the squire’s friends, Mr. Blandly and the like, coming off to wish him a good voyage and a safe return. We never had a night at the Admiral Benbow when I had half the work; and I was dog-tired when, a little before dawn, the boatswain sounded his pipe and the crew began to man the capstan-bars. I might have been twice as weary, yet I would not have left the deck, all was so new and interesting to me—the brief commands, the shrill note of the whistle, the men bustling to their places in the glimmer of the ship’s lanterns.

“Now, Barbecue, tip us a stave,” cried one voice.

“Aye, aye, mates,” said Long John, who was standing by, with his crutch under his arm, and at once broke out in the air and words I knew so well:

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—”

And then the whole crew bore chorus:—

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Even at that exciting moment it carried me back to the old Admiral Benbow in a second. But soon the anchor was short up; soon it was hanging dripping at the bows; soon the sails began to draw, and the land and shipping to flit by on either side; and before I could lie down to snatch an hour of slumber the Hispaniola had begun her voyage to the Isle of Treasure.

I am not going to relate that voyage in detail. It was fairly prosperous. The ship proved to be a good ship, the crew were capable seamen, and the captain thoroughly understood his business. But before we came the length of Treasure Island, two or three things had happened which require to be known.

Mr. Arrow, first of all, turned out even worse than the captain had feared. He had no command among the men, and people did what they pleased with him. And after a day or two at sea he began to appear on deck with hazy eye, red cheeks, stuttering tongue, and other marks of drunkenness. Time after time he was ordered below in disgrace. Sometimes he fell and cut himself; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work.

We could never make out where he got the drink. That was the ship’s mystery. We could do nothing to solve it; and when we asked him to his face, he would only laugh if he were drunk, and if he were sober deny solemnly that he ever tasted anything but water. He was not only a useless officer and a bad influence, but it was plain that at this rate he would soon kill himself outright, so nobody was much surprised, nor very sorry, when one dark night, with a head sea, he disappeared entirely and was seen no more.

“Overboard!” said the captain. “Well, gentlemen, that saves the trouble of putting him in irons.”

There we were, without a mate; and it was necessary, of course, to advance one of the men. The boatswain, Job Anderson, was the likeliest man aboard, and though he kept his old title, he served in a way as mate. Mr. Trelawney had followed the sea, and his knowledge made him very useful, for he often took a watch himself in easy weather. And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything. He was a great confidant of Long John Silver, and so the mention of his name leads me on to speak of our ship’s cook, Barbecue, as the men called him.

Aboard ship he carried his crutch by a lanyard round his neck, to have both hands as free as possible. He would wedge the foot of the crutch against a bulkhead, and propped against it, yielding to every movement of the ship, get on with his cooking like someone safe ashore. He had a line or two rigged up to help him across the widest spaces of the deck —Long John’s earrings, they were called; and he would hand himself from one place to another as quickly as another man could walk. Yet some of the men who had sailed with him before expressed their pity to see him so reduced.

“He’s no common man, Barbecue,” said the coxswain to me. “He had good schooling in his young days and can speak like a book when so minded; and brave—a lion’s nothing alongside of Long John! I seen him grapple four and knock their heads together—him unarmed.”

All the crew respected and even obeyed him. To me he was unweariedly kind, and always glad to see me in the galley, which he kept as clean as a new pin, the dishes hanging up burnished and his parrot in a cage in one corner.

“Come away” he would say; “come and have a yarn with John. Here’s Cap’n Flint—I calls my parrot Cap’n Flint, after the famous buccaneer—here’s Cap’n Flint predicting success to our v’yage. Wasn’t you, Cap’n?” And the parrot would say, with great rapidity, “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”.

“Ah, she’s a handsome craft, she is,” the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on.

I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood.

18 May.—I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.

19 May.—I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said:—

"The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29."

I know now the span of my life. God help me!

I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood.

18 May.—I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise.

19 May.—I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said:—

"The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29."

I know now the span of my life. God help me!