Reading Time. Very hard times

Very Hard Times���������������������

Read the following story and do the exercises below�����������������������

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Wherever he went he heard the same refrain.

� How cold it is!�

� On the radio they had even said that it was the coldest winter in the last twenty years and that it would last longer than usual.

At first Thomas was very happy about it. It was� an adventure to ride to school by bike well wrapped up in the warmest clothes he had. True, it could be dangerous early in the morning, as the roads were covered with ice and were very slippery. Once , when Eva had been unusually worried, they had walked for part of the way, pushing their bikes.

Besides he enjoyed spending� time in his cosily warm bedroom, sitting by the window and looking out at the white trees in the fields. Sometimes he imagined they were boys like him changed into trees by some magicians and obliged to undergo this trial of standing in the cold. Carried away by his fertile imagination, he found himself encouraging them to resist and not to fail in their ordeal.

Then, early� in December,� Thomas�s father lost his job. His mother was quite worried about it and kept regretting not having finished her medical school. Who knows, maybe she herself might have found a job, especially now that Thomas was older.� �She tried not� to make Thomas understand their sad financial situation and at Christmas he got the presents he had asked for. Well, nearly all of them.� He was told that for the new computer he would have to wait until the following year. Thomas did not mind that, because he got the best sports bike in the world.

� His parents were still paying the house mortgage and soon there was a money problem. They still had a considerable amount of money in the bank, but after being unemployed for a whole month, Thomas�s father started getting a bit nervous about their future and asked his wife to be more careful about money.

That was the reason why Thomas found that his house was not as warm as it used to be when he came back from school. As a matter of fact, he found the central heating off� and when he asked his mother to turn it on, she answered that a higher temperature would be unhealthy� for them.

Thomas said they could open the window and lower the temperature a bit if the house got too hot, but having the heating off in the heart of winter was the most unusual thing he had ever heard of.

But his mother didn�t listen to him. So when Thomas was at home alone he found a special pleasure in� turning the heating on to contrast his mother�s bossiness.�� Until one day his mother told him the real reason for their� economies.

Thomas was sorry for his behaviour and promised his mother he� would try to save money. Though he didn�t know how.

And in his solitary contemplation of the trembling trees he experienced a new sense of companionship and of brotherhood. He too was challenging a hostile situation. The two final� lines of the poem they had just read in class came to his mind. Mr Grant had insisted they should learn them by heart.� The poem was by a great English� poet called Keats, he seemed to remember.

The lines made sense now, they seemed written especially for his family. They said:

�If winter comes, can spring be far behind?�

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A TRUE FALSE

2 What did� the radio say about it, that� it was a normal winter or an unusual one?

3Why did he and Eva have to push their bikes one morning, because� they were afraid or Eva was worried ?

4�What did Thomas like doing in the afternoon, playing chess or watching the trees?

5�What happened early in December, his father� lost his job or his mother lost her job?

6�How did his Mother� protect Thomas from their difficult situation,buying him a new computer or not telling him?

7How did the family try to save money, not buying food or turning off the heating?

the coldest, longer, the warmest, the best, more careful, higher, the most unusual