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Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson
The Lumber Room (Learn English with a Short Story) [979]
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Thank you for choosing Luke's English Podcast for more episodes with specific vocabulary and pronunciation teaching plus ad free listening access to the Premium community and to show your support for the podcast, sign up to LEP premium@teacherluke.co.uk Premium this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now Tommy John Underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands and and their innovative horizontal Quick Draw Fly is a game changer with over 30 million pairs sold. There are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off your first order with code comfort. That's tommyjohn.comfort Tommy John comfort Perfected. You're listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk do foreigners welcome back to Luke's English podcast. How are you doing today? Hope you're doing well. Yes in this episode it is time for another short story on the podcast. I'm going to tell you a short story and then use it to help you learn English in context. Today's story is called the Lumber Room and it was written by Hector Hugh Munro, who is better known by his pen name which is Saki. So, an English writer of short stories and considered to be a bit of a master of the genre of the short story. Have you ever read any other work by Saki? Do you know this writer? This is one of his well known stories. This story is just under 2000 words long so it will probably take about 10 to 15 minutes for me to read it from start to finish. After that I will summarise it to help you make sure that you've understood the main details and then I'll go back through the story text line by line and I'll take the time to explain a lot of words, phrases, bits of grammar and so on. So listen to the story, try to follow it. You can consider that to be a little test of your English listening if you want, then keep listening and I will summarize it all so you can check that you've definitely Understood this, that and everything else. And then yes, I'll be going through the text in detail and, and there's a lot of English to learn here. So the story is called the Lumber Room. So what is a lumber room exactly? You've probably worked out it's a kind of room. But specifically what kind of room? Well, it's a slightly old fashioned word for a room in a house which stores lots of things that aren't being used. A kind of storage room. These days most people in the UK would use their attic or loft, which is the room at the top of the house in the roof. That's where most people store all their old things in boxes. You know, old books or old objects which have been in the family for years but don't get used every day. Yes, these days things like that might be stored in the attic or loft in the roof of the house. But in the old days, some families might have had what was called a lumber room where old things would be kept and the room might be locked to prevent curious children from entering and exploring. Okay, now as you listen to this, I'd like you to think about the people in the story. Consider the way that they are described by the writer. So what do you think about the family? Here are some questions for you to consider. What do you think about the family? What kind of family are they? Are they wealthy? Are they poor? Are they strict? Are they sort of relaxed and open with their children? What kind of family? What kind of parents? What of kind? What specific lines in the story make you think this? So what specific descriptions tell you these things? What do you think about Nicholas, the boy? What kind of child is he? What do you think about the aunt? What kind of person is she? And who do you sympathise with in this story? The aunt or the boy? And why? Okay, so let's begin the story. The Lumber Room by Sackie. And here we go. The children were going to be driven as a special treat to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not included. He was being punished for bad behaviour that very morning. He had refused to eat his healthy bread and milk on the apparently silly excuse that there was a frog in it. Older, wiser and better people told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread and milk and that he must stop talking nonsense. Nicholas, however, continued to talk what seemed to be complete nonsense and described in great detail the colour and markings of the supposed frog. The dramatic truth was that there really was a frog in Nicholas's bowl of bread and milk. He had put it there himself, so he naturally felt entitled to know something about it. The offence of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of healthy bread and milk was discussed at great length. But what stood out most clearly in Nicholas's mind was that the older, wiser and better people had been completely wrong about something that they had spoken about with total confidence. You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread and milk, but there was a frog in my bread and milk, he repeated, with the persistence of a skilled tactician who had no intention of giving up a strong position. So his boy cousin, his girl cousin and his rather uninteresting younger brother were going to be taken to Jagborough Sands that afternoon while he had to stay at home. His cousin's aunt, who by a very questionable stretch of imagination insisted on calling herself his aunt as well, had quickly invented the Jagborough outing to show Nicholas what pleasures he had rightly lost because of his disgraceful behaviour at breakfast. It was her habit, whenever one of the children did something wrong, to suddenly invent some kind of treat that the guilty child would be strictly excluded from. If all the children misbehaved together, they would suddenly be told about a circus in a nearby town. A circus of extraordinary quality and with countless elephants which, if it hadn't been for their bad behaviour, they would have visited that very day. A respectable amount of crying was expected from Nicholas when the time came for the others to leave. In fact, all the crying was done by his girl cousin who painfully scraped her knee on the step of the carriage while climbing in. How she howled and cried, said Nicholas cheerfully as the group drove off without any of the excitement that should have gone with such an outing. She'll soon get over that, said the so called aunt. It will be a wonderful afternoon running about on those lovely sands. They'll enjoy it so much. Bobby won't enjoy himself much and he won't run much either, said Nicholas with a grim chuckle. His boots are hurting him. They're too tight. Why didn't he tell me they were hurting? Asked the aunt sharply. He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listen when we tell you important things. You are not to go into the gooseberry garden, said the aunt, changing the subject. Why not? Asked Nicholas. Because you are in disgrace, said the aunt grandly. Nicholas did not accept this logic. He saw no reason why someone couldn't be in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same time. His face became stubborn and his Aunt was certain he was determined to go into the garden simply because she had forbidden it. The gooseberry garden had two entrances, and once a small person like Nicholas got inside, he could easily disappear among the artichokes, raspberry canes and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things she could have done that afternoon, but instead she spent an hour or two doing small gardening jobs near the flower beds and bushes, from where she could watch both doors into the forbidden garden. She was a woman with very few ideas but enormous powers of concentration. Nicholas made one or two suspicious looking attempts in the front garden, creeping stealthily toward one door and then the other, but never managing to escape her watchful eye. In fact, he had no intention of going into the gooseberry garden at all. It suited him perfectly that his aunt believed he wanted to. It kept her standing guard for most of the afternoon. Once he was sure her suspicions were fully established, Nicholas slipped quietly back into the house and put into action a plan he had been thinking about for a long time. By standing on a chair in the library, he could reach a shelf holding a large, important looking key. It was indeed important. It locked the lumber room, keeping its mysteries safe from unauthorized children and accessible only to aunts and other privileged adults. Nicholas did not have much experience with locks, but he'd practiced for several days with the schoolroom door key. He didn't like to rely too much on luck. The key turned stiffly. But it turned. The door opened, and Nicholas entered a world far more exciting than the gooseberry garden could ever be. He'd often imagined what the lumber room might be like, that carefully sealed place where no questions were ever answered. It lived up to his expectations. First, it was large and dim, lit only by one high window that looked onto the forbidden garden. Second, it was full of incredible treasures. The aunt, by assertion, believed that using things ruined them. So she preserved them by letting them gather dust and damp. The parts of the house Nicholas knew best were dull and empty, but here his eyes were met with wonders. Most impressive of all was a framed piece of tapestry meant to be a fire screen. To Nicholas, it was a living story. Sitting on a roll of Indian hangings, glowing with color beneath a layer of dust, he studied every detail. A man in old fashioned hunting clothes had just shot a stag with an arrow. It must have been an easy shot, since the stag stood only a step or two away. In thick woodland like that, it would not be hard to creep up on a feeding stag. The two spotted dogs leaping forward had clearly been trained to stay close until the arrow was fired. That part of the picture was simple enough, but. But did the hunter see what Nicholas saw? Four wolves were racing toward him through the trees. There could be more, hidden behind the forest. Would the man and his dogs manage against four wolves if they attacked? He only had two arrows left and might miss with one or both. All Nicholas really knew about his skill was that he could hit a large stag at very close range. For many golden minutes. Nicholas turned the situation over in his mind. He suspected that there were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in serious danger. There were many other delights. There were twisted candlesticks shaped like snakes and a teapot made like a china duck with tea pouring from its open beak. How dull the nursery teapot seemed by comparison. There was also a carved sandalwood box packed tightly with sweet smelling cotton wool, inside which were small brass figures, humpbacked bulls, peacocks and goblins, wonderful to look at and touch. A large black covered book looked unpromising, but inside it was full of coloured pictures of birds. Nicholas knew only magpies and woodpigeons from the garden and lanes. But here were herons, bustards, kites, touc, tiger, bitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, golden pheasants, a whole gallery of unimaginable creatures. As he admired the colours of the mandarin duck and invented its life story, his aunt's voice suddenly rang out from the gooseberry garden, calling his name loudly and angrily. She had grown suspicious at his long absence and decided he must have climbed over the wall behind the lilac bushes. Now she was noisily and hopelessly searching for him among the artichokes and raspberries. Nicholas. Nicholas. She shouted. Come out at once. There's no point hiding. I can see you perfectly. It was probably the first smile anyone had had in that lumber room for 20 years. Soon the angry shouting turned into a shriek and then into cries for help. Nicholas closed the bird book carefully, put it back and sprinkled dust over it from a nearby pile of newspapers. Then he crept out, locked the door and returned the key exactly where it had been. His aunt was still calling when Nicholas wandered calmly into the front garden. Who's calling? He asked. I am, came the reply from the other side of the wall. Didn't you hear me? I've fallen into the rainwater tank. There's no water in it, luckily, but it's slippery and I can't get out. Bring the ladder from under the cherry tree. I was told I wasn't allowed in. The gooseberry Garden, said Nicholas firmly. I told you not to before, but now I'm telling you that you may, came the impatient voice. That doesn't sound like Aunt's voice, said Nicholas. You might be the devil trying to tempt me. Aunt says the devil tempts me and I always give in. This time I won't stop talking nonsense, said the trapped aunt. Fetch the ladder. Will there be strawberry jam for tea? Asked Nicholas innocently. Yes, said the aunt, already deciding Nicholas would not get any. Ha. Now I know you're the devil. Shouted Nicholas happily. We asked Aunt for strawberry jam yesterday and she said there wasn't any. I know there are four jars in the cupboard because I checked. You know it's there, but she doesn't. You've given yourself away. It was wonderfully satisfying to speak to an aunt as though she were the devil. But Nicholas knew such pleasures should not be overused. He walked away noisily. Eventually, a kitchen maid looking for parsley rescued the aunt. Tea that evening was eaten in complete silence. The tide had been high when the children reached Jagborough Cove, so there were no sands to play on, something the aunt had overlooked in her rush to organise the punishment trip. Bobbie's tight boots had made him miserable all afternoon and the outing had been thoroughly unenjoyable. The aunt remained silent, frozen by her undignified imprisonment in a rainwater tank for 35min. Nicholas was silent too, but for different reasons. He had a lot to think about. It seemed quite possible, he decided, that the hunter might escape with his dogs while the wolves feasted on the wounded stag. Okay, that is the end of the story. How did you get on with that, listeners? Did you manage to follow it? Let me just summarize the story in my own words just to help you check that you've basically understood everything. So there are some children and there are some adults. The main child described is Nicholas, this boy, and he's staying with his cousins. I think there's two cousins, a girl cousin and a boy cousin. And also there's Nicholas's younger brother as well. So it looks like there's about four children and Nicholas is staying. Nicholas and his brother are staying with his cousins and it looks like his cousin's aunt. So this is not necessarily Nicholas's direct aunt, but the aunt of some cousins. So what kind of connection does she have with Nicholas? It's not specifically described, but the suggestion is that she's not really Nicholas's aunt, she's just an adult who is in charge of the kids. But she has decided to call herself Nicholas's aunt. She's decided that she is his aunt, even if in fact she isn't. But she's decided to call herself that. Anyway. Anyway, so this aunt is in charge of the household and Nicholas is in trouble. He's being punished by the adults and specifically by this aunt whose name we don't know. He's being punished. Why is he being punished? Because first of all, he refused to eat his food, bread and milk or something. He refused to eat his food because he said there was a frog in his bowl. And all the adults all agreed that this is ridiculous. And they told him to stop talking nonsense and just eat your food. And so first of all, he's in trouble because he refused to eat his food. Nicholas doesn't understand why they're saying it's impossible that there could be a frog in his food because he knows it's entirely possible because in fact there is a frog in his food because he found one in the garden and brought it into the house and has put it in his bowl. And so he sort of doesn't really understand why the adults are saying that it's impossible when it's clearly possible. And all through the story, Nicholas doesn't really understand why the adults do certain things. And it seems pretty clear that the adults are perhaps even slightly less intelligent than Nicholas. Nicholas is constantly outsmarting, especially his so called aunt. Anyway, of course there is a frog in the bowl and he gets into trouble for this as well, and he's punished. The punishment is that he's not allowed to go on a trip to the beach. Jagborough Sands sounds like a beach, I guess, somewhere near the, near the water, I suppose, where there are sands where the children can play. In England it's quite common to have, you know, we have obviously lots of beaches, but often they're not the sorts of beaches that you go and sunbathe on most of the time, but you can go. And often the beaches are quite long and flat and they're places where you can play and run around and find interesting things on the sand and things like that. So the other children were given a special trip to Jagboro Sands to spend time having fun on the, on the beach. But Nicholas was not allowed to go. Now the trip, the whole trip to Jagbara Sands was instantly invented on the spot as a form of punishment by the aunt in order to. In order, just so she could tell Nicholas he wasn't allowed to go. Right. So it's a strange form of punishment inventing a special treat which he's then excluded from. Right? And she didn't really think it through carefully, as we will find out later, because the trip in fact turns out to be a bit of a disaster. But Nicholas is supposed to cry. He's supposed to be very upset because he's not allowed to go on this trip to Jagboro Sands. He's supposed to be very upset. But Nicholas isn't really very upset. He doesn't seem to be very bothered. In fact, it's his girl cousin who cries because she scrapes her leg or bumps her leg as she's getting into the carriage. This tells us that it was a horse drawn carriage. So this tells us that the story takes place quite a long time ago, before motor cars, a horse drawn carriage. So it's his girl cousin who actually cries. Nicholas doesn't cry at all. In fact, he knows that the trip is not going to be very good because is it his brother? His boots are too tight. His brother has already complained about this twice. So his girl cousin's already crying because she's bumped her leg. His brother is unhappy because his boots are too tight. He says this to the aunt. The aunt sort of seems annoyed and she says, why didn't he tell me? And according to Nicholas, he did tell her several times, but the aunt just didn't really listen, which apparently she often does. So the aunt is a bit stupid and a bit, a bit mean as well in the way that she deals with punishments and stuff. Anyway, she instantly then says, you're not allowed in the gooseberry garden. So she invents another punishment in order to restrict Nicholas from something that she believes he will want to do. She thinks that he will spend the afternoon playing in the gooseberry garden. And so she says, you're not allowed in the gooseberry garden this afternoon. Nicholas doesn't really understand why he's not allowed to then. She has lots of things to do that day. But she decides to do some things in the garden just so she can keep an eye on the entrance to the gooseberry garden, just so she can kind of guard the gooseberry garden and stop Nicholas from going in there. Okay, so despite the fact she's got other things, she. She chooses to just, I guess, be quite petty and slightly vindictive. And she chooses to be outside just so she can stop him going in this gooseberry garden. Gooseberries are little berries that might grow on bushes. I suppose a gooseberry garden here is like a part of the garden where there are bushes that grow, grow different Fruits and berries and things. Anyway, she doesn't want him to go in there because she can't see him when he's in there. And he might be doing things he's not supposed to do. Nicholas pretends to try to sneak into the gooseberry garden a couple of times. He does that enough times to make the aunt think that that is really what he wants to do. But actually he's already outsmarted her. He's perfectly happy for her to be outside in the garden and observing the entrance to the gooseberry garden. Because actually Nicholas has a completely different plan, which he then puts into action, which is he wants to get into the lumber room because he's curious to see what's inside there. He's never been allowed in. No one's ever told him what's in there because this is a room without answers, where questions are never answered. So all of Nicholas's imagination, his adventurousness, his curiosity is not really allowed to grow by these adults, especially this aunt that they. The aunt is described in the story as being not very imaginative. I think that's it. She's not a very imaginative person. And she chooses to try to keep Nicholas in a boring, safe environment just because it's probably easier for her to deal with him. Rather than allowing him to explore things and encouraging his imagination, allowing his adventurous side to thrive. Instead of that, she chooses to keep him restricted in boring places where there's nothing interesting to do anyway. Nicholas has identified where the key is to unlock the lumber room. He's noticed it's on a shelf. And so while his aunt is outside defending the gooseberry garden, Nicholas climbs on a chair, gets the key. And he's been practising with another key in another door, in the schoolroom door or something. He's been practicing already with another key. He doesn't. He didn't want to leave anything to chance. He doesn't want to leave anything to luck. Which again shows that Nicholas is a very intelligent boy. He's already been practising his key key turning technique. And so with this key to the lumber room, he manages to open the door and he goes inside the lumber room and he spends some wonderful time in there exploring all the very interesting things, including a tapestry. Okay. Which is the most interesting thing in the room. It's a tapestry, I think, behind glass in a frame which is designed to be used as a. As a cover for a fire. In the old days they used to do that. If there was a big fireplace, sometimes there would be a wooden frame on legs that you could stand in front of the fireplace to kind of just cover it up. You put a nice looking tapestry or picture in front of the fire. It just looks a bit more pretty than just having an empty dusty fireplace. Right. So there's this fireplace cover which is a tapestry. And the tapestry is fascinating because it shows this scene which Nicholas is really interested in. And it really lets his imagination run wild because he looks at this tapestry and he sees what's going on. And what he sees is that there is a hunter with two dogs and the hunter has managed to shoot a deer with an arrow. Right. A deer is an animal, a wild animal that you find in the forest. You know, like a reindeer. That's Father Christmas's reindeer. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. That's a reindeer. So a deer. A reindeer is a type of deer. So anyway, deer are these animals that you know, can be found in the forest and hunters will hunt deer. So this hunter has managed to shoot a deer with an arrow at very close range. So he's not very far away. He's managed to sneak up on this deer with these two dogs and he's shot it with the arrow really close range. There's all. There's also the suggestion that Nicholas thinks the hunter is perhaps not very brave and not even a very skilled hunter. All he knows is that the, that the hunter has managed to kill this deer at incredibly close range. But there's something that Nicholas can see in this picture that the hunter can't see, which is that there are some wolves behind the trees and they're leaping towards the hunter, the dead deer and the hunter's dog. So there's I think four wolves and possibly more behind the trees, leaping towards them. So this is a fascinating scene and Nicholas imagines what's going on. He's thinking, oh, what's going to happen here? Are the wolves going to attack the hunter and his dogs? Are the wolves going to kill them? Or will the hunter manage to escape what's going on? And he decides that the hunter and his dogs are probably going to be killed by these wolves which are attacking. So this is a fascinating scene. So you can imagine for Nicholas, back in those days, there weren't. There wasn't tv, he probably didn't have comic books. There were certainly no computers and intern Internet and things to watch. And so he lived in this very boring, stale environment, this strict environment where his imagination wasn't allowed to develop. And discovering this interesting picture must have been incredibly exciting. And it really stimulated his imagination. There were other things in the room as well that were worth exploring various different objects and things that were very exciting. And so Nicholas was having a wonderful time in this room. Then he heard his aunt's voice shouting for Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas. And then the voice turned into a shriek. So, ah, she kind of screamed and then she was, she started calling for help. So Nicholas carefully put things back where he found them, locked the door of the lumber room, put the key back and went outside casually to see what was going on. And it turns out that his aunt, on the other side of the wall to the gooseberry garden, in the gooseberry garden, had fallen into. Was it some sort of water container? She'd fallen into a big container, normally full of water, but it was actually empty and she couldn't get out. So she's stuck inside this big, I guess, metal box or something and she can't get out and she's very angry and she shouts at Nicholas, you know, Nicholas, get me out. Go and get the ladder. But Nicholas, Nicholas says, you don't sound like my aunt. Because he can't see her. He can just hear her voice. Who are you? You don't sound like my aunt. Are you the devil? I think you're the devil trying to tempt me. Trying to tempt me to go into the gooseberry garden. I'm not allowed in the gooseberry garden. And then he also says very cleverly, my aunt always tells me that the devil tempts me and I give in to his temptations. Meaning the aunt probably tells him that when he's doing when he often does naughty things, like for example, sneaking into a room he shouldn't go into. He always does these naughty things. And it's because the devil is suggesting these things to Nicholas and Nicholas listens and does them. I get the feeling also that Nicholas doesn't really believe this idea either. Generally, the story suggests that Nicholas is more intelligent than this aunt. The aunt is stupid, small minded, unimaginative and strict. And her attempts to control Nicholas fail because Nicholas is much more intelligent, much more curious than her. And this exchange where she's stuck in this thing and Nicholas is outside, this kind of is very satisfying because Nicholas again is more, is more intelligent than her and finds a way to avoid helping her and generally tricks her in various ways. What does he say? So, yeah, I think you're the devil trying to tempt me. And my aunt always tells me that I shouldn't listen to the devil. So, huh, I'm not going to listen to you. And then he says, will there be Strawberry jam. Can we have strawberry jam tonight? The aunt, of course, says, yes, oh yes, of course you can. Even though she's already decided that Nicholas won't be allowed to have any. And then Nicholas, he's tricked her because he says, ha. My aunt says there is no strawberry jam, but I've checked and there is. I know there is, and you know there is as well. But she doesn't know that there's strawberry jam. In fact, what's probably happened is that maybe yesterday the kids said, can we have strawberry jam? And the aunt said, no, there is no jam. So she's lied, telling them there is no strawberry jam. But Nicholas has found a way to check and he knows there is. So he's kind of, what's the word for it? Calling her bluff. So she says, will we have strawberry jam? She says, yes. He said, but ah, you can't be my aunt because she doesn't know that there's strawberry jam. She thinks there isn't any, but I've checked and there is. And you, the devil you know that there is as well. So ha, I got you. You are the devil. And he walks away, leaving his aunt stranded in this thing. She later gets rescued after 35 minutes. Okay, then, tea that evening. Tea means early dinner, right? Not just tea that you drink, but it's early dinner. So tea that evening is eaten in silence because, well, the other children and whoever they went with, the adult or the adults that they went with to the beach had a terrible time because the tide was high. The aunt, when she decided that they would go on this trip, had forgotten to check this. But when they arrived, they. The tide was up. And so that meant that they weren't allowed, they weren't able to play on the beach because the sands were not exposed. The sands were all covered in seawater, so there were no sands for them to play on anyway because the tide was high. The tide, you know, this is when the sea is up or down, the tide is high or the tide is low. So the tide was high, so they couldn't play on the beach. And Nicholas's brother complained about his boots hurting him the entire time. And everyone had a horrible time, so none of them enjoy themselves. Nicholas, in fact, was the one who had the wonderful time, even though he was supposed to be punished. But he had this fantastic afternoon exploring the lumber room and then tricking his aunt. His aunt is silent because she is probably feeling very embarrassed and ashamed after being stuck in this water tank for 35 minutes. Nicholas is also silent as well, but not because he's ashamed, but because he's thinking about the scene on the tapestry. He's wandering. His imagination has been activated. He's having a wonderful time thinking about the scene and thinking he's decided that actually the hunter and his dogs will survive, they will escape because he thinks that the wolves are going to eat the wounded stag, they're going to attack the deer and the wolves will focus on that and that will allow the hunter and his dogs to escape. So he's already inventing a whole story and situation from the tapestry that he saw. So he's having a wonderful time. His imagination has been inspired and he's having a great time. Nicholas wins, the aunt loses and that's that. Okay. Right. So those questions earlier, what do you think about the family? What kind of family are they? I get the impression that they are quite a posh family. Posh meaning sort of upper class or high class. I get that impression because the house that's described is obviously quite large. It has a big garden. I think it's probably somewhere out in the countryside. So it's probably an old manor house or something. It seems to have quite a lot of rooms in it. This garden with a gooseberry garden in it's the sort of thing that you find in large stately homes. So it's probably quite an upper class, well off family. They are, they are. They seem to be quite strict. So the aunt and the other adults are quite strict and controlling, which is quite typical of, let's say, families from that time. So this story actually was written in 1914, published in 1914. I've updated the text a little bit, by the way, just to make sure that the English that you're learning from this is not too old fashioned. So I made a few changes just to kind of modernize or update the text a little bit. But you could tell from various references that this happened. This story was set over a hundred years ago. And in those days the general attitude in society towards children was that children should be seen and not heard. So basically a very sort of strict attitude where children know their place. They don't talk very much, they certainly don't talk back to adults and adults are definitely fully in charge. And the children. And the children don't really have a lot of freedom. So, yeah, the family's a typically strict kind of Victorian family, I think. What do you think of Nicholas, the boy? What kind of child is he? Well, as I've already described, he seems to be very clever, very curious, imaginative, adventurous and a Bit mischievous as well. Mischievous means that he's. He likes mischief or likes to do things that are not really allowed and he goes against the words of his aunt. But maybe that's just because he can't help seeing how kind of stupid their rules are. What about the aunt? Well, she seems quite small minded really. Kind of unimaginative and controlling and not as intelligent actually as Nicholas. And who do you sympathize with in the story? The aunt or the boy? Well, the story is definitely written to make us sympathize with the boy and that's kind of the satisfaction of the ending that he wins. And so, yeah, naturally I sympathize with the boy because why not let him explore the gooseberry garden? Why not let him look at the tapestry in the lumber room? Why not inspire his imagination and let him invent stories and explore and have adventures and things like that? Why not? Why not at all? On the other hand, I kind of understand the aunt as well because as an adult with kids myself, sometimes it's just not practical or very easy to let kids do exactly what they want all the time because you'll end up running around after them, they might have accidents, they might get into trouble and you end up just sort of dealing with everything, everything they're doing and it means you can't do anything else yourself. So a certain amount of discipline, some rules and things are kind of important just to keep everyone safe and things like that. But at the same time, I think it's really important to allow children to be stimulated by interesting things. And so, yeah, she seems a little small minded and unimaginative and a bit too strict. Okay, what do you think, everyone? What do you think of the story and the characters the way they're described? Let me go through the story text now and I'm going to. This is going to be. There's going to be a lot of intensive sort of language analysis in this bit. I'm going to go through the text and explain bits of vocabulary and grammar. All right, before I do that, let me have a drink of water just to make sure that I stay fully hydrated and that I don't sort of pass out through dehydration, which obviously would be very bad, wouldn't it? Because this would end up being an extremely long episode and most of it would just be me lying slumped over a desk. Yes. So cheers. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Hi, this is Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad. Have you ever put on a bra that makes you feel like a goddess? Prepare to be obsessed with the Dream Angels Wicked bra from Victoria', the iconic brand behind the world's most comfortable bras. And I only wear the most comfortable bras. The bestseller features an innovative sling for perfect lift without padding and the fit is chef's kiss. Awaken your inner goddess with new colors and super femme lace embroidery. Find out why this bra has thousands of five star reviews and counting. Shop it in stores and online@victoriasecret.com. So as usual you'll find a PDF for this episode linked in the episode description. You've got the full story text and then, well, basically what's going to come next is the same story text but with certain bits highlighted. And then I've included all those bits that I highlighted in a list at the end. Anyway, let me go through this now. So here's a version of the story with highlighted vocabulary and grammar. On the PDF, I've highlighted the vocab that I'm going to talk about in an orange colour and the grammar is highlighted in a blue colour. So the first line is the children were going to be driven as a special treat to the sands at Jagborough. And we actually have, in the opening sort of paragraphs of the story, quite a lot of passive verb forms. Right. So I'd like you to consider why passive verb forms are being used here. For example, the children were going to be driven to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not. Nicholas was being punished. Any others? Also, the offence of taking a frog from the garden was discussed at great length. So all of these passive forms were going to be driven. Obviously a passive form is be plus the past participle. In this case we've got the sort of passive version of going to were going to be driven. Passives are used when you don't say who does the action. Right. You don't. It's not stated exactly who does the action. Instead you prioritize the one who the action is done to. So in this case the children were going to be driven. So someone was going to drive the children to the sands at Jagborough. It's not either it's not important or it's obvious who does the action. What's more important is the ones who receive the action in this case, it's the children. So why would it. Why. Why not say who does? Who's doing this? I suppose it's because essentially the story is told from the children's point of view. So we have the children prioritized at the beginning of the sentence. Also, it's obvious that an adult is going to do this because obviously adults are the ones who drive people to places. But also, maybe it's just not important that it's a way of distancing the adults from the main descriptions of the story, which again, places us in the position of the children, where the children are in their world and the adults are sort of distant and up here somewhere, you know? And so by using a passive form here to describe what the adults are doing, it kind of just disconnects us from the adults, meaning that they're not important or it's kind of obvious because they're the ones that are in charge. The children were going to be driven as a special treat. A treat is something that you give to someone because they've done something good, like a reward. But you give a treat to a child. Or you might give a treat to a dog as well. When you're training a dog, you give it. You give the dog treats when it does what you've asked it to do. For example, you say to the dog, roll over. And the dog rolls over. Good boy. And you give it a treat, which would be like a little snack, a little thing that the dog eats. So that's a treat to reward the dog for rolling over. But for children as well, you might give them a treat if they've been very good. If they behaved really, really well, you might give them a treat as a special treat because you've been so good. We're going to go to the. We're going to go to Jagboro Sands this afternoon. Yay. Right. Nicholas was not included. He was being punished. So there's another passive verb form. He was being punished well by the adults. Of course. He was being punished for bad behaviour. So we talk about good behaviour, bad behaviour. We talk about behaving well, being well behaved, behaving badly and being badly behaved. So Nicholas was. No, Nicholas was great. He was really well behaved this afternoon. He behaved really, really well. So to be well behaved, to behave well and good behaviour. Right. Well behaved is the adjective. To behave well, that's the verb form with an adverb. And good behaviour is the noun. Right. Similarly, badly behaved, to behave badly and bad behaviour. Okay, in this case, he was being punished for bad behaviour. That very morning. He had refused to eat his healthy bread and milk that very morning. It's a bit odd, isn't it, to have very before the word morning? Normally very goes before an adjective. That was very good. That was very interesting. Okay, right. In this case we've got very morning. So that very normally. Okay, so you can use very plus a time, normally a day. In this case, morning. That works as well. So that very morning, it means specifically that morning. So it's just a kind of. It's an adjective here which is used to emphasize or be more specific. So not just that morning, but specifically that morning. That very morning. So it's just emphasis emphasizing that it was the morning of that day, that very morning. He had refused to eat his healthy bread and milk. Okay. Refused to eat it. So he said, no, I will not eat it. He refused to eat it on the apparently silly excuse. So this was silly. Silly means foolish, kind of stupid, not serious. So a silly excuse. There was a frog in it. So the adult said to come on, eat your bread and milk. And he said, no, I can't. Why not? I don't want to. Why don't you want to eat? Well, there's a frog in it. Don't be. Don't be silly. Of course there isn't a frog in it. Now eat up your bread and milk. So silly means foolish, not serious. Apparently silly. We use apparently to kind of say that someone else has said it. So again, this suggests that it's the adults who've said that it was a silly excuse. In fact, we know it wasn't actually silly because there actually was a frog in there. So he'd refused to eat his healthy bread and milk on the apparently silly excuse. So an excuse is basically a reason which justifies not doing something, as you well know. For example, one of my students comes to class and I say, have you done your homework? And they say, no, I haven't. Okay, what's your excuse? Well, my dog ate it. You know, that's the classic excuse for not doing your homework. Sorry, I haven't done my homework. My dog ate it. Oh, don't be silly. Okay, so that's an excuse that there was a frog in it. Older, wiser and better people. So this is the adults. Wiser. You know, they are wiser. They have more wisdom, they have more knowledge and experience. It's ironic because. And better as well. Better. That suggests that they are even just on another level, maybe even morally or superior. They're just superior to him. This description is quite interesting because it suggests that the adults are not only older, but they are more intelligent and just generally superior. Which tells you something about the attitude that the adults probably have in their dealings with the children. It's like, no, you can't do that because. Why not? Well, because I'm the adult here and I understand, so older, wiser and better people. The adults told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread and milk and that he must stop talking nonsense. Nicholas, however, continued to talk what seemed to be complete nonsense and described in great detail the colour and markings of the supposed frog. A supposed frog is. Well, they have. The adults have not confirmed that it is a frog because they haven't seen it apparently. They haven't bothered to check. They just assume that Nicholas is lying. So it's not a confirmed frog, it's a supposed frog, a thing that's supposed to be a frog, according to Nicholas. So a supposed supposed frog then is a frog that someone else claims to exist in this case. Right. So this is just another way of suggesting that the adults don't believe that there is a frog. So instead of saying the colour and markings of the frog, saying the colour and markings of the supposed frog or the so called frog or the alleged frog tells us that this is probably the adult's opinion, that they don't believe it and they think that his claim is not in fact true. Another example might be, you could say a supposed expert. So someone who's been presented as an expert or someone who is claimed to be an expert but maybe isn't. You know, for example, I was watching the news and this supposed expert told us how actually drinking water every day is actually bad for you. I mean, I don't believe it myself. That's what the supposed expert said. Right. So someone who's claimed to be an expert but actually isn't, maybe in this case the supposed frog, what Nicholas claims is a frog, but the adults don't believe it. The dramatic truth was that there really was a frog in Nicholas's bowl of bread and milk. He had put it there himself, so that's just past perfect to show that he put it there earlier before the main events that were being described here. So that just signifies that it happened earlier. He had put it there himself, so he naturally felt entitled to know something about it. If you're entitled to do something, it means you have the right to do it. Right? You have the, you're allowed to. You have the right to do it. And if a person feels entitled to do something. Yeah, they just feel like they have the right to it. So it's quite a formal sounding word, which is kind of funny when you're talking about the behaviour of a child, but it's quite good. So if someone feels entitled, it feels like they have a, almost like a legal right to do or to say or to know something. Right. You know, like if you go, like, for example, if you have a job with a company, you have a contract, but also by law you are entitled to a certain number of days of holiday every year. Right? That's your right, you're entitled to that. You're entitled to sick leave, meaning that you're in, you're. You're allowed. Or you, you have the right to be off work, sick and to be paid for a number of days. Right. So you're entitled to all these things. Nicholas felt entitled to know something about it, meaning that because he'd actually done it himself, he thought that he had the right maybe to know that actually there was a frog in the bowl. It just tells us something about his attitude that he felt completely, completely justified in his position. I like the way this is described because it's described in quite a formal, almost legal language when talking about the actions of a child, which adds a layer of sort of irony to the story. Here's another example. The offence of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of healthy bread and milk was discussed at great length. An offence. This is another word for a crime. So again, in sort of legal language, we talk about crimes and we talk about offences. They're synonyms. An offence is a crime. The offence was discussed at great length. Again, another passive form showing that this, in fact was. The adults who discussed this at great length means for a long time and in lots of detail. But what stood out most clearly in Nicholas's mind, if something stands out, it means it's obvious, clear, easy to see because it's maybe standing forward from other things, it's in a forward position. Something that is not in line with everything else. Something that's obvious, outstanding. So what stood out clearly in Nicholas's mind? So what was really obvious in Nicholas's mind was that the older, wiser and better people, the adults, had been completely wrong about something that they had spoken about with total confidence. So, I mean, Nicholas, you can imagine one day will be an excellent lawyer because he's able to think. He's like a chess player or something. He can think around different problems and so he feels this is the obvious thing here. Is, well, wait a minute, you were completely wrong. You said that it was impossible that there could be a frog in my milk. And I'm sorry, you were just completely wrong. Wrong about that. They spoke about it with total confidence, but it turns out they were completely wrong. You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread and milk, but there was a frog in my bread and milk. He repeated with the persistence of a skilled tactician. Persistence, that's where you just don't give up. You keep going. A skilled tactician, a tactician is someone who deals with tactics. Tactics, that means plans and strategies for winning something. Something you might have. A military tactician, someone who's brilliant at military strategy, military tactics. A legal tactician, someone who, a lawyer who's capable of building a very well structured case, right? With every single step planned and accounted for. So he repeated this with the persistence of a skilled tactician who had no intention of giving a up strong position. If you have no intention of doing something, it means you definitely do not plan to do it. So he wasn't planning to give up his strong position, which is. Well, you said it was impossible and it wasn't impossible. So I'm sorry, you were completely wrong about this. And he's holding his position, standing his ground. And it tells us about the way he talks. Even though he's a small child, we don't know how old he is exactly. I mean, young enough so that he's not very experienced with turning keys in locks and needs to practice to learn how to turn a key in a lock. So I reckon he could be maybe seven, something like that. I'm predicting. We don't know. But the way he talks and positions himself, he seems a lot older than that. And it's quite. Again, that's quite funny imagining a small child sort of negotiating with adults at this high level. So his boy cousin, his girl cousin, and his rather uninteresting younger brother were going to be taken to Jagboro Sands again, passive form. That afternoon while he had to stay at home, his cousin's aunt, who by a very questionable stretch of imagination insisted on calling herself his aunt as well. So this is that, this is the fact that she calls herself his aunt. But this is. This required a very questionable stretch of imagination. Okay, a stretch of imagination. If you, if you have to use your imagination to maybe connect something in this case to suggest that she in fact was his aunt. But it's like, well, okay, you have to be quite inventive to understand how she is his aunt. So this requires quite a stretch of imagination. Where you have to imagine something. Or make a connection to something that isn't really clearly connected. Requires quite a stretch of imagination. In this case, it's a questionable stretch of imagination. So a kind of questionable means that you could question it. You can doubt it. Easily doubted. Easily questioned. Like I said before, she's not actually his aunt. Maybe she's his cousin's aunt. And that might be sort of maybe a second cousin once removed or something. You know, the way that cousins can be. It can actually be quite a distant connection, really. And then the aunt of a cousin. And you get to a certain point. Where there's such a lack of connection between this woman and Nicholas. That it's not really. You can't really say she's his aunt. So this is a. This requires quite a big stretch of imagination. In fact, a questionable stretch of imagination. A very questionable stretch of imagination. Meaning that, in fact, she's not his aunt at all. But she insisted on calling herself his aunt. Even though maybe Nicholas at some point said, but you're not my aunt, though, are you? Because you're, you know. And no, I am your aunt. Actually, maybe she kind of insisted, meaning refused to stop doing it. Which sounds kind of annoying, you know. This is again her attempt to establish some sort of authority over Nicholas. Where she. She says, actually, I'm your aunt. And Nicholas is thinking, how are you my aunt? I don't really see that. But she insisted on calling herself his aunt as well. She had quickly invented the Jagborough outing. An outing is where you take a trip out somewhere. For example, an outing to the beach. An outing to the park. An outing to the cinema. She had quickly invented the Jaguar outing. To show Nicholas what pleasures he had rightly lost. Because of his disgraceful behavior at breakfast. Right. Disgraceful. Not only bad behaviour, but disgraceful behaviour. That's just something. It's a disgrace. It's something you should feel very ashamed of. Terribly bad behavior. It was her habit whenever one of the children did something wrong. Whenever, any time, wherever, any place, whoever. Any person. Whenever, anytime. So whenever one of the children did something wrong. It was her habit to suddenly invent some kind of treat. There's that word again. That the guilty child would be strictly excluded from. So she would say, oh, okay, this afternoon, children, you can go to the zoo. But not you, Nicholas. He was strictly excluded from the trip. In this case, a trip to the beach. If all the children misbehaved. So there's another one. Actually, we had behave badly to Be badly behaved, bad behaviour. And also to misbehave, which means to behave badly, do naughty things. If all the children misbehaved together, they would suddenly be told again, passive form. Clearly, this is the aunt. The children would suddenly be told about a circus in a nearby town. A circus of extraordinary quality. And with countless elephants. So many elephants you can't even count how many there are. Which, if it hadn't been for their bad behavior, they would have visited that very day. There's another use of very. In this case, that very day, Specifically that day. So this is a sort of an annoying, slightly pathetic form of punishment where the kids do something naugh. And then the aunt says, oh, I forgot to tell you. Yes, there's a really wonderful circus in town with, oh, they have so many elephants and lions and clowns and trapeze artists. I read about it today in the newspaper. It sounds absolutely wonderful. No, but you won't be going to that, children, because you've been very naughty indeed and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Right? That's the kind of thing that she did. A respectable amount of crying was expected from Nicholas. What is a respectable amount of crying? I suppose it's an amount of crying that would. That the adults would respect and think, yes, okay, I think that's enough crying now. So they needed a. They expected a certain amount of crying. They wanted or expected Nicholas to be very, very upset, not to be allowed to go to Jagboro Sands with the other children. So they thought. Or the aunt thought that. Or expected Nicholas to cry and be very sad and full of regret and remorse. That's what was expected of him when it came time for the others to leave. In fact, all the crying was done by his girl cousin who painfully scraped her knee. So painfully. Ow. It hurt a lot. She scraped her knee, so that's more than scratched. So she probably hit her knee against the step of the carriage while climbing in, but didn't just hit it. Just so the edge of the step probably scraped against her leg, against her knee. So her knee will have a red. A long red mark on it. Not a line, but maybe a wide sort of red mark. That's a scrape. Right. So it's more than scratch, scratch. You imagine that there's probably a single line, but scrape. It would be a wider thing. Okay, so she scraped her knee while climbing into the carriage. And so she's actually the one who cried. How she howled and cried, said Nicholas cheerfully, which is obviously not very nice that he's enjoying the fact that one of the other children cried. But I mean, I suppose for him it's sort of ironic that they're the ones who were supposed to be having a great time and he was being punished, but actually they're having the horrible time, so that's kind of amusing to him. As the group drove off. So to drive off means to leave in a car, in this case in a carriage, probably with horses. But to drive off, they drove off or drove away is another way of putting it. How she howled and cried. Howled, howled is what a wolf does. O right. That's to howl. So you can imagine that his girl cousin was howling, in this case, howling in pain. Ow. Like that. How she howled and cried, said Nicholas cheerfully as the group drove off without any of the excitement that should have gone with such an outing. So the kids were supposed to be excited, but it seems that they were just all kind of unhappy. She'll soon get over that, said the so called aunt. To get over it is to kind of recover from something. For example, if you bang your knee or scrape your knee, it hurts for a while, but then you get over it, you recover. If you catch a cold, you might have a sore throat and a headache for a few days. But then, you know, after five days or something, you get over it. If you split up with your girlfriend, she breaks your heart, but you'll be devastated for a while, but you'll get over it eventually, right? So she'll soon get over that, said the so called aunt. So called. Again, this is kind of like supposed aunt. The aunt that has been called an aunt, but she's not actually an aunt, so we can say a so called aunt in this case. It will be a wonderful afternoon running about on those lovely sands. They'll enjoy it so much. Bobby won't enjoy himself much and he won't run much either, said Nicholas with a grim chuckle. A chuckle is like a little laugh like that. A grim chuckle. Grim means kind of maybe a bit dark, a bit sort of cynical. So Bobby won't enjoy himself much and he won't run much either, said Nicholas with a grim chuckle. So yeah, a grim chuckle is grim, is kind of like a bit dark, a bit sort of serious, bit depressing. But a grim chuckle would be like that, I suppose. Bobby won't enjoy himself much and he won't run much either. His boots are hurting him. They're too tight, right? Tight versus loose. Loose. If you take the shoelaces, the laces of a boot and you pull them really hard, then the boots will be very tight. Or if the boots are too small, then. Ow. These boots are too tight. Ah. Can you loosen them? Make them a bit loose? In this case, his boots are too tight. Why didn't he tell me they were hurting? Why didn't he tell me they were hurting? Said the aunt sharply. Sharp like a knife, right? You want a knife to be sharp so it cuts things well, but you can do something sharply, especially say something sharply, so you can imagine, like a sharp knife. Imagine that as a way of describing how someone says something. Why didn't he tell me they were hurting? Asked the aunt sharply. So kind of quickly and in a cutting sort of way. He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listen when we tell you important things. Again, revealing something probably about the aunt, that again, she thinks she's above the kids and doesn't even listen to them, which must be annoying. She's a bit of a hypocrite, maybe, because she doesn't exactly behave in the best way herself, while also accusing the children of being badly behaved. You're not to go into the gooseberry garden, said the aunt, changing the subject again. That's sort of vindictive, that when. When Nicholas seems to kind of score a point against her, her response is to be vindictive and to restrict his. His. His right to go into a certain part of the garden. So another little punishment. Just because she was proven to be wrong about something. You're not to go in the gooseberry garden. Why not? Asked Nicholas. Because you are in disgrace. This is, I think, a fairly old fashioned phrase. It means in. In trouble because you've got. Been very badly behaved and all the adults are very unhappy with you. To be in disgrace, I would say just in trouble. On the naughty step is what I say to my kids. You're on the naughty step. Get on the naughty step. You're not allowed to do that, you know, for example, you're in disgrace, said the aunt grandly. If you say something grandly, it means you. If something's done grandly, it means with importance. Like you're very big and important because you are in disgrace, said the aunt grandly. Nicholas did not accept this logic. He saw no reason why someone couldn't be in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same time. His face became stubborn. So stubborn describes when someone is unwilling to change their position. Hmm. You know, a child can be stubborn when they sort of say, no, not going to no. That's stubborn. Someone who's unwilling to change or do what they are Being asked to do and someone who refuses his face became stubborn. And his aunt was certain that he was determined to go into the garden. If you're determined to do something, it means you really strongly have decided that you're going to. Right. I'm going to go into that garden. I don't care what she says. I'm going to do it. I'm going to find my way into the garden. I'm determined to go into the garden simply because she had forbidden it. So the aunt thinks he's definitely going to try and get into the garden just because she said he's not allowed to. But she underestimates him. She thinks that he's vindictive as well, and that just because she said no, you're not allowed to go in the gooseberry bush, he's going to say, well, I'm going to do it anyway, just because you. Especially because you've told me not to. But that's not what he's planning to do. The gooseberry garden had two entrances, and once a small person like Nicholas got inside, he could easily disappear. Among the artichokes. Those are sorts of. Sort of vegetables. Raspberry canes. Canes are long, thin sticks, presumably with raspberries. These are these red berries, raspberry plants growing up them and fruit bushes. The aunt had many other things she could have done that afternoon. Right. Other possibilities for that afternoon. You would say, I have many things I could do this afternoon, but I'm going to do this. There are many things I could do today. That's for the future. There were many things I could have done yesterday, but I chose to do that. Right. So could have done. Makes it refer to the past. With have done many. She had many other things she could have done that afternoon, but instead she spent an hour or two doing small gardening jobs. I wanted to just point out that you spend time doing spend plus an ing form. Right. She spent an hour or two doing small gardening jobs near the flower beds and bushes from where she could watch both doors into the forbidden garden. The forbidden garden. It's a forbidden garden because she has forbidden Nicholas from going in there. Right. So actually. So she decides that she's going to do some garden, some small gardening jobs where she can actually keep an eye on the garden. She was a woman with very few ideas but enormous powers of concentration. That's quite an important descriptive sentence showing that not an imaginative or particularly intelligent person, but someone who's sort of determined and able to focus. It's not a particularly attractive description Nicholas made one or two suspicious looking attempts in the front garden. If something looks suspicious, it means that it looks like he's up to something he shouldn't be doing. An attempt is when you try to do something. So he tried to, he tried to in the front garden, he tried to get in to the gooseberry garden and these attempts were suspicious. So he was actually doing it on purpose. He was in, in trying to make his grandmother and grandmother, he was trying to make his aunt believe that he was trying to get into the garden. But this is all part of his plan. He was creeping stealthily, sort of secretly sneaking, secretly moving towards one door and then the other, but never managing to escape her watchful eye. So basically he tried to get into the garden, but she always saw him. In fact, he had no intention of going into the gooseberry garden at all. So he had no intention, he was not planning to do that at all. It suited him perfectly that his aunt believed he wanted to. If something suits you, it means it's, it's, it's kind of like fits you well. Now clothes can suit you. For example, if you wear a certain colour, certain colour T shirt, you, you know, if you're wearing a T shirt that really matches your complexion, matches your eyes or something, your friends might say, oh, that really suits you, that looks good on you. So clothes can, can suit someone, but a situation can suit you as well, which is where it's exactly as you like, you know, it's exactly, it matches what you like. So in this case this suited him perfectly that his aunt believed he wanted to because it kept her standing guard for most of the afternoon. Which meant that, yeah, this was just suitable, perfect for him because it meant that his aunt was occupied in the garden, which meant that he could then go and investigate the lumber room once he was sure her suspicions were fully established. So to establish something is to fix or set something. In this case in her mind, she's decided that she is suspicious. She believes he's trying to get in the garden and that has been fully established, fully set in her mind. Once that, once he was sure that she definitely decided he was trying to get into the garden, Nicholas slipped quietly. So moved out quickly and quietly in this case, moved in, in fact, back into the house. Slipped. He moved quietly back into the house and put into action a plan he'd been thinking about for a long time. Okay, by standing on a chair in the library, he could reach a shelf holding a large important looking key. So to reach he probably had to stretch his arm up that's to reach something. If something kind of far away from you, you have to stretch in order to be able to reach it. An important looking key. It was indeed important. It locked the lumber room, keeping its mysteries safe from unauthorized children. Again, more formal language. Children who are not allowed to go in there, they are unauthorised. It's the sort of thing you'd see on the door of a room that you're not allowed to go into. It says unauthorized, you know, unauthorized access or unauthorized personnel. Keep out. Sort of formal language used to say that you're not allowed to do something. Right. Unauthorized children and accessible only to adults. And sorry, accessible only to aunts and other privileged adults. If you're privileged, it means you enjoy special rights, special entitlements that other people don't have. Nicholas did not have much experience with locks. So obviously a. A key goes into a lock in order to lock a door. He didn't have much experience with locks, but he had practiced for several days with the schoolroom door key. Again, this tells us that it's a large house because this is a house that has a schoolroom. Maybe Nicholas is. Maybe the kids are all educated at home. Maybe they're sort of home schooled and their home even has a schoolroom. Either that or maybe this is something he's done at school. I don't know. He didn't like to rely too much on luck. If you rely on something, it means you kind of. You basically need it, you need it, you depend on it, you kind of lean on it. If you live outside in the countryside, then you rely on your car to get you to work every day. I live in France. My wife speaks French and so I rely on her quite a lot to help me do sort of administrative things that require a high level of French. In this case, Nicholas did not want to rely on luck too much. He didn't want to just let luck help him. He wanted to be absolutely sure that the key would open the door. So this again shows something about the personality of Nicholas that he is clever, he plans ahead, he's good at strategy, and he doesn't like to leave things to chance. So he'd already practiced with his key unlocking techniques. The key turned stiffly. I mean, it didn't turn easily. It was kind of a bit stiff, like it didn't move very fluently. Stiff. We describe our bodies as stiff. Like, for example, if you sleep badly in an uncomfortable position in the morning. Oh God, you feel very stiff. It's like your arms and legs and Your back don't move very easily. Oh, God. So stiff. After a long journey in a car, you get out and your legs are very stiff. Oh, I need to stretch my legs. Or if you do exercise in the gym, you do a workout in the gym the next day. Oh, God. Oh, I'm very stiff this morning. In this situation, the key turned stiffly. So it didn't turn very smoothly. It was, like, difficult to turn. Click. But it turned. The door opened, and Nicholas entered a world far more exciting than the gooseberry garden could ever be. He'd often imagined what the lumber room might be like, that carefully sealed place where no questions were ever answered. If something is carefully sealed, it means it's closed and locked and nothing can get in or out. Normally carefully sealed would be, for example, for a container filled with food, it is sealed, and then when you buy it and open it, you open the seal. Or a letter would be carefully sealed with glue. In this case, the room was carefully sealed, meaning completely closed and a place where no questions were ever answered. So again, the adults, in all their wisdom, had shut this room off and refused to tell the children anything about what was in it. And we imagine that Nicholas had probably said, what's in there? What kind of things are in there? Can I see inside? And the adults just refused to answer any of his questions. But it lived up to his expectations. So if something lives up to your expectations, it means that you have a certain expectation and the reality matches that expectation. Right? To live up to something, it's normally live up to expectations. I think that's probably the most common collocation. So let's say you're going to Paris and you think, oh, it's going to be fantastic. I can't wait to see the Eiffel Tower and to have my lunch on a beautiful terrace. And Paris in the spring, it's going to be so romantic. And you get there and it's raining and the streets are very crowded and you see rats near the Eiffel Tower and you think, oh, God. So what was it like? Well, didn't really live up to my expectations. It didn't live up to my expectations. Or you think, Paris is going to be fantastic. Springtime, flowers everywhere, romantic scenes. And you go there and it is springtime and there are flowers and the sky is blue and you have a lovely time, you eat delicious food and you meet some nice people. And it really lived up to my expectations. Yes. So in this case, the room lived up to Nicholas's expectations. He expected it to be fascinating and it was. First, it was large and dim. Dim means not bright. So it's kind of dark, not a lot of light. It was lit only by one high window. Lit is the. The past participle of the verb light. To light something, to illuminate something. With a light. In this case, with a window light. Lit. Lit. It was lit. The room was lit only by one high window that looked onto the Forbidden Garden. So we get a sense that this room is actually next to the gooseberry garden, which is useful information for later because it does help us to understand how Nicholas is able to hear his aunt shouting for help from the room. But anyway, it's a sort of a dark room, so it must be atmospheric. Second, it was full of incredible treasures. Incredible, amazing, wonderful, fantastic treasures. Treasures suggest things of great value which may be old and which have been discovered like pirates often will have treasure in big chests. A treasure chest and you open it up and it's full of gold coins or very, very valuable items of jewelry. In this case, the incredible treasures included all the objects and interesting things in this room. The aunt by assertion. If you assert something, it basically means you force it. In this case, the aunt has clearly asserted that she is his aunt. I am your aunt, and that's the end of it. So she is now the aunt by assertion. She believed that using things ruined them. If you ruined something, it means you spoil it. Maybe you damage it so it can't be used again, right? For example, you've ruined your shoes. Say we bought my son a new pair of nice leather shoes, smart shoes, and he wears them to school and he kind of plays on the ground and scratches the shoes and the leather is all scratched on the front. We might say, look at these shoes. You've ruined them. Can you not be more careful with your shoes? You've ruined these shoes. So in this case, the aunt by assertion believed that using things ruined them, so she preserved them by letting them gather dust and damp. So again, this quite cleverly tells us that the aunt is perhaps a bit stupid because she thinks that using things ruins them, which is kind of a silly thing to think, isn't it? Because you think, well, what's the point of having a thing if you're not going to use it, you know? So she preserved them by letting them gather dust and damp. So if something gathers dust, it means it like, sits in a place and just dust slowly builds up on the top of it. We've all got things in the kitchen, probably somewhere or somewhere in our house, like an old item, maybe Some old waffle maker or something like that, which you bought once and you used it once and then it just sat on a shelf or in a garage or something. And slowly, over time, more and more dust lands on the top of it until one day you get it out and you've got to blow all the dust off it, clean it. So that's gather dust, is build up dust and dirt on the top. And damp. Damp means wetness, which is something that does happen to things. If you keep them. If you keep things in a basement or if you keep something in a cold room that's maybe not very well ventilated, then you might get damp in the room. That's just a level of wet moisture. Okay. Like in the. In a basement, it's often like that. You might leave some clothes in a bag in the basement and when you get the clothes out, they don't seem very dry. And in fact there's maybe some mould or something growing on them. So that's damp. So if something gathers damp, it means it gets more and more damp. So this again shows that the aunt is a bit stupid because she thinks that, that, well, the best thing to do is to keep. Preserve these things in this room. How is she going to preserve them? By letting them gather dust and damp. So this sentence sort of proves that her approach doesn't work because these beautiful things should be used, they should be in the house rather than just sort of basically rotting away in this dark room. The parts of the house Nicholas knew best were dull and empty. Dull means boring. Empty, the nothing in them. So the parts of the house that Nicholas were was allowed to actually spend time in had nothing particularly interesting in them and were boring. But here his eyes were met with wonders. Mmm. Most impressive of all was a framed piece of tapestry meant to be a fire screen. So this is the thing that's the most interesting, right, A framed piece of tapestry. Tapestry is something that's made using thread, probably a needle and thread. And it involves making a beautiful picture with thread. And you thread the cotton thread probably through a piece of material, and with the thread you make a beautiful looking picture. Yes, that's a tapestry. So it's kind of a picture made from material made from probably cotton or woolen thread. A framed piece of tapestry. So it's in a wooden frame meant to be a fire screen. So that's what I said before, a screen, something that you put up in front of a fire just to cover it, basically. So this is the interesting thing, this framed piece of tapestry, this Picture. To Nicholas, it was a living story, sitting on a roll of Indian hangings glowing with color. Indian hangings. I suppose these are maybe more tapestries or maybe just cloths or things that are supposed to be hung from the wall or hung from the ceiling. Nice decorative things glowing with color. Indian ones as well. So they're probably very interesting and colorful. A roll of Indian hangings. These things had just been rolled up and put on the floor. So Nicholas was sitting on a roll of Indian hangings glowing with color beneath a layer of dust. So these Indian hangings are just covered in a layer of dust and Nicholas sits on one of these rolls. He studied every detail of the tapestry. And this is the bit that describes what we can see on the tapestry. A man in old fashioned hunting clothes had just shot a stag. So that's. A stag is a male deer, a deer with big antlers coming out of its head. So he had just shot a stag with an arrow. It must have been an easy shot. So this is Nicholas speculating about what kind of shot it was. And he thinks it must have been easy, right, Meaning he's certain it was easy. So that's why we have. Must have been. Right. It must have been an easy shot since the stag. Since here means. Because, right, it must have been an easy shot since the stag stood only a step or two away. A step. When you step forward, step back, the step is. How far is that? Is that like slightly less than a meter, probably. The stag stood only a step or two away from the hunter. So it must have been an easy shot. So the stag is very close. So Nicholas thinks it must have been easy in thick woodland like that. Thick woodland, that's just an area where there's lots of trees. And if it's thick, it means the trees are very close together. In thick woodland like that, it wouldn't be hard to creep up on a feeding stag. Creep. We had this word before Nicholas was creeping into the gooseberry garden, trying to sneak in without being seen. In this case, we've got to creep up on a stag to creep up on something, which is to essentially get very close to something or someone without being seen or noticed. So you might creep up on someone and then put your hands over their eyes and go, surprise, you know. In this case, the hunter has crept up on this feeding stag and that wasn't difficult because the woodland is very thick, lots of leaves to cover you. The two spotted dogs leaping forward had clearly been trained to stay close until the arrow was fired. So again, Nicholas is just looking at this and building the whole scenario in his mind and he's decided that these two spotted dogs, which are jumping forward towards the stag, had clearly been trained to stay close. So these dogs were trained so that they would stay close to the hunter until the arrow was fired. So Nicholas can see that, you know, these are trained dogs and a trained hunter and it's a very exciting looking scene. That part of the picture was simple enough. But did the hunter see what Nicholas saw? Four wolves were racing toward him through the trees. So there are four wolves running towards him. There could be more hidden behind the forest. So Nicholas thinks that there might be more than four. Would the man and his dogs manage against four wolves if they attacked? Probably not. Right? If four wolves attacked one hunter and two dogs, and if there are probably more wolves coming, and normally there are, right, you get a pack of wolves, it's normally more than just four. So the hunter doesn't seem. He probably won't stand much of a chance against all these wolves. Also, he only had two arrows left and might miss with one or both. So I mean, he's definitely, he's definitely going to get eaten by these wolves, isn't he? Only got two dogs and he's only got two arrows and he might miss with one of them or both of them. All Nicholas really knew about his skill was that he could hit a large stag at very close range. So he's probably not a brilliant hunter or, you know, we don't know for sure. So what an interesting thing for Nicholas to speculate about. For many, for many golden minutes, meaning wonderful minutes, Nicholas turned the situation over in his mind. If you turn something over in your mind, you think about it and maybe look at it from different positions. He suspected, meaning he thought possibly that there were more than four wolves and that the man and his dogs were in serious danger. So I mean this, this is as good as a, as a great sort of action movie for Nicholas. But there were many other delights. A delight is a delightful thing, wonders, amazing things, delights. There were twisted candlesticks. A candlestick is a thing that you would have sitting on the table and you put a candle in the top of it. So it holds, it holds a candle. That's a candlestick, in this case, twisted candlesticks shaped like snakes. So interesting objects. And a teapot made like a china duck with tea pouring from its open beak. So a teapot in the shape of a duck where when you pour the tea, the Tea comes out of its beak. How dull the nursery teapot seemed by comparison. So apparently there's another teapot that they actually use in the house, in the nursery. That's the area where the children are looked after. They have a teapot there and it's probably just a normal one and it now seems so dull by comparison. If you compare this normal teapot with this fantastic one that looks like a duck, the normal teapot seems so dull and boring. Why don't they use the interesting one? Why do they keep it locked up in this little room? There was also a carved sandalwood box. So a box made of wood. Sandalwood I think is a kind of a hardwood that you might use to make a little box. Maybe Indian. I'm not sure. A carved carved means that designs had been cut into it with a sharp knife or a chisel or something. A carved sandalwood box packed tightly with sweet smelling cotton wool. Cotton wool is like soft white stuff that you often use in a medical situation. It's used often to absorb blood or something like that. That's like a white, very light, fluffy white cotton material. Cotton wool. In this case the box was full of cotton wool and inside the cotton wool, so the cotton wool is there to protect the objects that are inside the box. Inside the cotton wool were small brass figures. Figures are little, probably little models in different shapes in this case in the shapes of different animals and also monsters. So there were hump backed bulls. A bull, you know, is a male cow, okay, with horns on its front, hump backed. So bulls, like big strong bulls, often have a big hump on their back which is full of muscle. Humpback bulls, peacocks. These are beautiful birds with huge tails that they spread out and shake with long feathers with what look like eyes on the, on the end and the peacocks tail feathers spread out behind them and they shake them and they're very, very impressive. So these small brass figures included humpbacked bulls, peacocks and goblins. Goblins are like little, little sort of creatures, little monsters. Wonderful to look at and touch. A large black covered book. So a book that's got a black cover looked unpromising. So the book didn't look like it would promise anything interesting. So if it looks unpromising it means it probably isn't going to be very good. But inside it was full of coloured pictures of birds. Again the sort of thing in those days that would have been really interesting for a young boy to see. Full, fully colored pictures of birds. Nicholas knew only magpies and wood Pigeons from the garden. These are very, very common birds that you find in English gardens. Magpies are related to crows. They're black and white and they are very, very common. People say that they're either lucky or unlucky, depending on how many you see. If you see one magpie, that's unlucky. If you see two, it's lucky. That's just a superstition in England. And wood pigeons are just like really normal pigeons that you see in the countryside. So Nicholas knew only magpies and woodpigeons from the garden and lanes. But here were herons. These are tall birds that catch fish directly out of the water. Bustards. God, I'm not sure what a bustard is actually. Okay, a bustard is a. Bustards are not too different to herons. They are again, tall birds that live near water and stand on long legs. Kites. These are birds of prey that circle around in the sky and drop down and catch little animals and things. Toucans. These are very exotic animals with huge beaks that you see in the jungle. Tiger bitterns. These are just sort of like birds that live. Again, more birds that live near water. Brush turkeys, I guess. Forms of wild turkey. Ibises. These are like herons, but they're white golden pheasants. These are very beautiful looking birds with rich, golden, colorful feathers. A whole gallery of unimaginable creatures. As he admired the colors of the mandarin duck. This is another very impressive looking bird. It's a duck with very beautiful long and colorful feathers. As he admired the colors of the mandarin duck and invented its life story. Again, he's a very imaginative boy. His aunt's voice suddenly rang out from the gooseberry garden. If something rings out, a sound rings out, it means it's. It just comes out from somewhere. Normally a bell, it rings, ding, a ling ling ling, right? But in this case it's her voice rings out from the gooseberry garden. It's basically her voice comes, came out from the gooseberry garden, calling his name loudly and angrily. You know, Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas. Something like that. She had grown suspicious at his long absence. So she was thinking, where is he? What's he doing? Hmm. I'm sure he's up to something. At his long absence. So he's. She hasn't seen him for a long time. So she, she became suspicious. She grew suspicious and decided he must have climbed over the wall behind the lilac bushes. The lilac bushes, these are just bushes with flowers in them. And she's decided that he must have found a Way into the garden by climbing over the wall. Now she was noisily and hopelessly searching for him among the artichokes and raspberries. Nicholas. Nicholas. She shouted. Come out at once. At once. Meaning immediately. There's no point hiding. If there's no point doing something, then it's useless to do it. Okay, there's no point hiding. There's no point. It's like, oh, my computer got stolen. Someone, someone, someone stole it from my bag. And you know what? There's no point trying to find it. It's gone. I'm never going to get it back. In this case, there's no point hiding. So it's pointless hiding. It's a waste of time because she's definitely going to find him. There's no point hiding. I can see you perfectly. Again, she's lying because she thinks that if she says that, then he will come out. Just a complete lie. It was probably the first smile anyone had had in that lumber room for 20 years. That's a nice line. Because Nicholas can hear his aunt searching in the gooseberry garden. And Nicholas knows that he's tricked her. And he's also kind of pleased that she's angry and wrong again. He's. He's made her wrong again, tricked her. Soon the angry shouting turned into a shriek. A shriek is a kind of scream. Ah, like that. And then into cries for help. Help. Help, help. Like that. Nicholas closed the bird book carefully, put it back and sprinkled dust over it. So he took some dust in his hand and sort of let the dust drop from his fingers. A bit like the way you sprinkle salt or pepper on food that you're preparing. In this case, he sprinkled dust over the book. He's covering his tracks so that there's no evidence of him being there. Then he crept out. So there's that word creep. He crept out, or sneaked out, locked the door, returned the key exactly where it had been. His aunt was still calling when Nicholas wandered calmly into the front garden. To wander is to kind of walk in a. Not a particular direction, just casually kind of wander, walking. He wandered, wandered calmly into the front garden. Who's calling? He asked. I am, came the reply from the other side of the wall. Didn't you hear me? I've fallen into the rainwater tank. Okay, so I guess a rainwater tank must be a large. Like I said, a metal tank, probably. Tank mean means a large sort of rectangular thing for holding water. Normally a rainwater tank probably one that just collects rainwater which can then be used in the garden, something like that. And it must be very large because she can't get out. She says there's no water in it, luckily, but it's slippery. Slippery means that she may be trying to climb out. Her feet slip on the edge. You've got to be careful when something is slippery. You might say, oh, watch out, it's slippery over there. You know, there's ice on the floor. It's very slippery. There's some water there. It's slippery. So please watch your step, don't slip. There's no water in it, luckily, but it's slippery and I can't get out. Bring the ladder from under the cherry tree. Ladder is something that you use to climb up, right? It's got rungs or steps. You climb up a ladder. If the house is on fire, firemen will come and they put a ladder up and they climb up the ladder and get in the window. So bring the ladder from under the cherry tree. I was told I wasn't allowed in the gooseberry garden, said Nicholas firmly. I told you not to before, but now I'm telling you that you may. So we use may here to give permission, right? Traditionally, may is the modal verb for permission. May I come in? Yes, you may. May I ask a question? These days we often say can instead. Can I ask a question? Can I come in? Yes, you can. I told you not to before, but now I'm telling you that you can, came the impatient voice. So she's impatient patient means you can wait for a long time. Impatient is the opposite. Im with an M. Im Patient I am means she can't wait. That doesn't sound like aunt's voice, said Nicholas. You might be the devil trying to tempt me. Tempt someone. If you tempt someone, it means you try to persuade them to do something that they shouldn't do. For example, go on, have a piece of chocolate cake. Go on. Oh, it's delicious. Oh, you're going to go on one. Just one slice isn't going to kill you. Go on, have a piece of chocolate cake. Have some ice cream. No, no, no, no. Really, don't tempt me. It's a very tempting looking chocolate cake, but I really mustn't. I'm trying to stick to my diet. In this case, it's the devil trying to tempt me. Go on. Come into the. Come into the gooseberry garden. Nicholas, your aunt needs your help. You must come. You might be the devil trying to tempt me. Aunt says the devil tempts me and I always give in. Like, take that. Look, look, Nicholas, look. A frog. Yes. Why don't you pick? Why don't you take. Take that frog. Yes. Take it into the house. Why not put it in your bowl of milk and bread? That will certainly give the adults a surprise. This is what the aunt says to Nick, Nicholas. She says, the devil tempts you and you always give in. You must never give in. So it's great the way he's turning these words against his aunt here, his poor aunt. Aunt, aunt says, the devil tempts me and I always give in. This time I won't stop talking nonsense, said the trapped aunt. Fetch the ladder. Fetch here. Meaning go and get something. I did get a question from a listener recently because this word came up in another situation and the listener asked, can we use the word fetch? Is it just like normal language? Yeah, it is. Bring something, bring me the ladder, bring me a chair, bring me my phone, Fetch a chair, fetch a ladder. Yeah, it's a little bit informal, but it's fine. It's quite normal. We do say that for a dog as well. When you throw a stick and you say to the dog, fetch. So it is something we do say to a dog, but you can say it to someone else. Can you fetch me my toolkit? Fetch me my things? Fetch the ladder. Yeah, it's quite direct, quite, quite informal, but totally normal and fine. Will there be strawberry jam for tea? Asked Nicholas innocently. So he asked innocently, just an innocent question. Will there be strawberry jam for tea? Yes, said the aunt, already deciding Nicholas would not get any. But he's tricked her again. Now I know you're the devil. Shouted Nicholas happily. We asked Aunt for strawberry jam yesterday and she said there wasn't any. I know there are four jars in the cupboard because I checked. You know it's there, but she doesn't. You've given yourself away. If you give yourself away, it means you reveal yourself unintentionally to give yourself away. For example, if you're lying and you say something which shows everyone that you're lying, I don't know how that would be done. I don't know. It would be something like, so where, you know, the police are asking you, so where were you at six o' clock yesterday? Oh, six o' clock yesterday. Oh, I was in the cinema. Yeah, I was in the cinema at six o' clock yesterday. Ah, well, we've checked. We've checked and the cinema was closed for repairs yesterday. Ha. You've given yourself away. You're lying. Right. So, hey, you've given yourself away. It was wonderfully satisfying to speak to an aunt as though she were the devil. Wonderfully satisfying. As though, like, as if she were the devil. It's just worth pointing out as though she were the devil. So this is the subjunctive using were here after as though. And also as if. As though she were the devil. Just subjunctive form just to show that it's like hypothetical. Basically. It was wonderfully satisfying to speak to an aunt as though she were the devil, sort of imagining that she was the devil, but as though she were. So this subjunctive form of be in this case were. Because normally it's she was. Right. But here's she were because of as though that subjunctive form. Just to show hypothetical. That we're talking hypothetically as though she were the devil. But Nicholas knew such pleasures should not be overused. So again, very clever, Nicholas, that he had this. He had her where he wanted her, and he was able to talk to her as if she were the devil. And he was having fun with this, being able to be very rude to her, but getting away with it because he'd outsmarted her. But he knew that such pleasures should not be overused. So he's actually quite wise knowing that even though that was immensely enjoyable, you got to quit while the going is good. You quit while you're ahead. He walked away noisily. So walked away, making it obvious to the aunt so she could hear that he'd left. Eventually, a kitchen maid looking for parsley. That's a herb that you use for cooking. A kitchen maid obviously went out into the garden to find some herbs. She found the aunt and rescued her. Tea that evening, meaning early dinner. Right. Tea that evening was eaten by everyone in complete silence. Notice. Complete silence. Total silence. The tide again. The sea level. The tide had been high when the children reached Jagborough Cove, so there were no sands to play on, something the aunt had overlooked in her rush to organize the punishment trip. If you overlook something, overlook a detail, it means you forget to think about it. Don't consider it because you're trying to do something else. So it's like a. The aunt was so keen to organize this punishing trip. I know. A trip to Jagboro Sands. Yes, Jagborough Cove. Okay. Take the children to Jagborough Cove this afternoon. They'll have a wonderful time. And you're not allowed to go, Nicholas. So in her. She was in such a rush to organize the trip, she forgot to. She forgot this detail of. Wait a minute, where will the tide be? If the tide is high, they won't be able to enjoy the sand. But she overlooked this detail. Right. Bobby's tight boots had made him miserable all afternoon, like, very unhappy. And the outing had been thoroughly unenjoyable. So thoroughly is a nice adverb. Not just unenjoyable, but thoroughly unenjoyable. Can you say that? Thoroughly unenjoyable meaning completely through and through, from start to finish. Completely, totally unenjoyable. Thoroughly unenjoyable. The aunt remained silent, frozen by her undignified imprisonment in a rainwater tank for 35 minutes. Imprisonment, that's when you're put in prison. And undignified means that there was no dignity to it. So embarrassing, but also something that strips her of her dignity. So it was kind of embarrassing, slightly shameful, undignified, because she was stuck in this dirty thing and she had to shout for help and it was a maid that rescued her. So the whole thing was quite undignified and embarrassing. Nicholas was silent too, but for different reasons. He had a lot to think about. It seemed quite possible, he decided, that the hunter might escape with his dog while the wolves feasted on the wounded stag. So Nicholas, meanwhile, is still having a lovely time imagining this picture that he has seen on the tapestry. And he's having a great time not being told off, not being bothered by the others. The others are all quiet, but Nicholas is perfectly happy because his imagination has been stimulated and he's. He's decided that, in fact the hunter will survive because the wolves, like the hunter, might escape while the wolves feasted on the wounded stag. Yes. So, yeah, all right. Maybe the wolves would run out of the. Out of the forest and instead of chasing after, instead of trying to kill the man and his dogs, they're trying to get the stag, that they would be content to stick with the stag. Meanwhile, the hunter and his dogs would escape and survive. And he's probably. He could well be right. He could be well be right. That might be what happens. That might be what would happen if. In a situation like that, I suppose. Right. Anyway, there you go. That's the end of this episode. How was that for you? Lots of vocab there. Again, check the PDF. You'll see everything there that I've just read. But also I've put the vocab in a list for you too, so at least you can, you know, pick out bits of vocab there that you heard that you want to keep and practice with and use and learn and add to your active vocab. I really hope you enjoyed this episode and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. All right everybody, but that's it now. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. If you're if you are watching the video version, leave a Like and subscribe to the channel. If you like content like this, tell your friends about Luke's English Podcast. Have a lovely morning, afternoon, evening or night and be excellent to each other and I'll speak to you next time. But for now, it's just time to say goodbye. Bye bye bye bye bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk. foreign. 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