24:42 Use the Past continuous
1.
a book at 2 o'clock yesterday.
(read
2. He
for the remote control when
his mother came in. (look for)
3. The girl
the room the whole
evening. (clean)
4. His parents
about future when he
rang. (talk)
5. The astronauts
a computer from
till 5 o'clock yesterday.(use)
6. Tim
English when I
came. (speak
Contents
The Reader of Books Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer
The Hat and the Superglue
The Ghost Arithmetic The Platinum-Blond Man Miss Honey
The Trunchbull The Parents Throwing the Hammer
Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake
Lavender The Weekly Test
The First Miracle The Second Miracle Miss Honey’s Cottage
Miss Honey’s Story
The Names The Practice
The Third Miracle A New HomeThe Reader of Books
It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It’s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, "Bring us a basin! We’re going to be sick!"
School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their
own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. "Your son Maximilian", I would write, "is a total wash- out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won’t get a job anywhere else." Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, "It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she’s learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all."
I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, "The periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of
sunlight and air. Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis." A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, "Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface." I
think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. But enough of that. We have to get on.
Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents
looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away. Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.
It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant. Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant. Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of
parents. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter.
2. Let's go. There is no time to lose. We shall come back before sunrise.
3. She began dressing up for lunch she was invited to.
4. Kelly was pale and complained of a headache.
5. Do you go to the church?
6. It was late autumn, the birds have flown away to the south.
7. Think about the huge breakfast you have had.
8. She had a sore throat and a high temperature. The doctor found influenza and insisted on taking her to a hospital.
9. On an autumn day we came to the sea. The sea was calm.
10. Missis Johnson had to go to school to discuss her son's behavior.
11. Last summer we went to Rome.
12. It was a warm spring day.
13. During supper you didn't feel like eating and barely touched the food.
14. He had a heart attack and he couldn't go with us.
15. Every morning I go to the hospital and start the examination of patients.
16. After the bank robbery Thompson has been jailed. His mother didn't believe her son was guilty and every Sunday after church she headed to the jail to see him.
17. Winter which Mrs. Brown spent in India was the best time in her life.
18. He had the whole night ahead of him.
19. At lunch everyone was speaking about the upcoming event.
20. Tom had got a cold, he was coughing and complaining of an earache.
21. Fishermen put to sea early in the morning and came back by the evening catching a lot of fish.
22. They should have come back in early spring.
23. The night seemed to be very quite.
24. I will suggest you the best dinner you can get in this town.
25. A new school was built close to our house.
26. When his tooth started aching he decided not to wait and went to dentist.
27. I had a hard day.
28. When the Johnsons had children they decided to move from the city and bought a house in a village. Every morning Mr. Johnson had to go for work to the city. When children got older Mr. Johnson kept delivering them to school in the city. Mrs. Johnson went shopping to the city once in two weeks.
29. I won't forget the day when I stepped across your threshold for the first time.
30. Every summer we go to the sea.
31. Day and night I want to know where you are.
32. The school is on the hill. It is visible from far away.
33. I want to see you tomorrow morning.