This is the text for the B1 story today. Who was the mysterious girl in the park? https://www.practisingenglish.com/podcast-280.htm A brief meeting at Christmas It was two days before Christmas, and Lucas, a sixteen-year-old boy, was feeling rather lonely. His parents were busy at work, and his older sister was studying in London. To pass the time , Lucas decided to take a walk through the snowy park. Everything was quiet and peaceful , and the trees were covered in white. As he walked, he noticed a small brown glove lying on a bench . It looked new, so Lucas picked it up. ‘Maybe someone lost it,’ he thought. It was made of leather with a small silver chain on the back, and looked valuable . He looked around and saw a girl about his age standing under some pine trees. She was well-dressed , her clothes seemed a little old-fashioned . She seemed worried, so Lucas went up to her. ‘Hi, is this your glove?’ he asked. The girl’s face suddenly shone . ‘Yes! Thank you. I thought it was gone forever.’ When he looked at her face, he noticed she had a beauty that was unforgettable . They started talking, and soon they were laughing. They made a snowman together, which was the handsomest one Lucas had ever made. Before leaving, the girl said, ‘Come to the Christmas market tomorrow. I’ll be at the hot chocolate stall . I run it with my mother.’ Lucas agreed and went home – a smile on his face. The next day, he arrived early at the market. He looked for the girl, but she wasn’t there. There wasn’t a chocolate stall either . When he asked an elderly woman about her who sold woolly cardigans , the woman looked surprised. ‘There hasn’t been a hot chocolate stall here for years,’ she said. ‘There used to be one, I remember. But I was a child then. It was set up by a lady and her daughter every Christmas. Pretty girl, the daughter. She died of typhus, poor thing, at just about Christmas time if I remember correctly .’ My NEW book: "B1 English Vocabulary Builder - 22 Short Stories for Learning the Words and Phrases Students Need to Pass the B1 Exam" is now available! This book gives the learner enough vocabulary to pass any B1 exam (special help for Cambridge exams). To read more about my book, click here (you can access it from any Amazon platform): https://amzn.to/46AVFe9 Learners studying towards B2 level will be interested in my B1 to B2 reader: The Tudor Conspiracy (includes audio version) https://amzn.to/4gPsj0i For very young learners (from 8-10), I recommend my picture reader book for children learning A1 to A2 English. It comes with a fully dramatised audio version: https://amzn.to/46TCWvv Oxford Bookworm Graded Readers: Read stories at your level to improve your English. I recommend Oxford Bookworms as the best series of books for learners: https://amzn.to/4r7YVHg At https://www.practisingenglish.com/ I offer learners of intermediate-level English, free grammar help and exercises and other English learning pages. https://www.practisingenglish.com/ Be back soon with another podcast! Mike Bilbrough (Secondary school English teacher and Doctor in English philology)
