Student's Book - Page 16-17 - 2

Student’s Book - Pages 16 and 17 - 2

Read and listen. Check your answer.

Story time

The secret of the Egyptian cat

Mr Benson was the director of a small museum in a town in England. He loved his museum. When groups of children visited, he took them around and showed them all the things in the museum.

He told them interesting stories and the children enjoyed visiting his museum.

There was one object that Mr Benson loved more than the others.

It was a statue of a gold cat from Egypt. It was his best piece and it was very, very old. It was in a glass case and, of course, there was an alarm.

When Mr Benson arrived at the museum in the morning, he always went to look at the statue of the gold cat. When he left the museum in the evening, Mr Benson locked all the windows and doors. He then said goodbye to the cat and he went home to have dinner with his wife and his eighteen-year-old daughter, Cleo.

One night Mr Benson went to a party with his wife. Mr Benson and his wife were on their way home in their car when the clock struck twelve. They were just next to the museum. A cat ran across the street and Mr Benson stopped the car quickly. ‘That was close,’ he said.

At that moment his wife said, ‘Look, there’s a window open at the museum/ ‘That’s strange, 1 must go and close it,’ said Mr Benson.

They went home quickly, he got the key, went back to the museum ‘and closed the window. And then he saw that the statue of the gold cat was not in the glass case any more. He checked the alarm, but it was fine. He called the police and they came to the museum.

Mr Benson told them all about the cat and he wrote a report.

The next morning, he told Cleo about the missing statue of the gold cat and also about the-cat in the street near the museum.

Cleo went with her dad to the museum and checked the glass case again. There was no gold cat. The alarm was still on.

‘Which window was open?’ Cleo asked. Her dad showed her the window.

‘Let me stay at the museum tonight,’ Cleo said to her dad. ‘I’ve got an idea. 1 read a book about the secrets of Egyptian cats.’

Her dad wasn’t happy about Cleo spending the night in the museum, but he said yes. In the evening Cleo went to the museum with a torch. Just before midnight she opened the same window and waited. She couldn’t see anything but she heard a little noise. She waited a minute and then switched on the torch. Yes, the case was empty!

An hour after midnight she heard a noise again. She waited a minute and then she switched on the torch.

The gold cat was in the glass case. Cleo closed the window and went to the glass case.

‘1 hope you had some fun outside,’ she said to the gold cat. ‘Dad isn’t going to forget to close a window again.’