SHORT STORY 'TWIN GIRLS'

 

SHORT STORY

TWIN GIRLS

            There was a married couple who lived in a rural area of Spain. Their house was a modest little cottage, located on the edge of a busy main road. They had two daughters who were both twin girls. As they grew up, the twin girls were very well-behaved. They never fought or argued. They lived happily together and hated to be separated.

            One day, the mother had to go the shop and buy some milk and bread. She didn’t want to leave the girls on their own so she brought them with her. Grasping both girls by the hand, the mother led them across the busy road. Unfortunately; the mother had forgotten to look both ways before she crossed the street. Just as they neared the other side, she heard a screech and then horrible crunching sound as her daughters’ tiny hands were torn out of her grasp. When the mother twirled around to look, she screamed in horror at what she saw and collapsed on the sidewalk. The twin girls had been run over by a huge truck. The bloody remains of the twin girls were splattered across the road.

            The mother began crying and sobbing hysterically. Try as she might, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the two big streaks of red that stained the road. At the funeral, the father tried to comfort his wife, but she was inconsolable. Over and over, she screamed ‘This is all my fault! This is all my fault!.

            Four years later, the mother and father still lived in the same house beside the road where their daughters had perished. The woman became pregnant again. The couple was surprised when the doctors told them that they would be having twins again. The parent rejoiced when their two little girls were born. This happy event caused the mother to forget the tragedy of the past. As the twin girls grew up, their mother and father were careful never to mention the previous children. They acted as if the deceased girls had never existed.

            One day, the two little girls were playing in the garden. Their mother came out and told them to come with her to the shop. A they stood at the edge of the road, the mother took hold of the hands of the two girls and held them tightly.  Suddenly, as the mother began walking across the road, the girls began to struggle and tried to slip out of their mother’s grasp.

            ‘No, Mommy! Don’t hold us!’ cried the twin girls in unison. ‘We don’t want to die again!’

Source:http://www.scaryforkids.com/pics/twin-girls

A.     Find the words in the text which have the opposite meaning with the words below.

·         Single (adj)                

·         Upset (v)

·         Empty (adj)

·         Curable (adj)

·         Subsequent (adj)

·         Loosely (adv)

·         Survived (v)

·         United (v)

B.     Answer the questions below based on the story ‘Twin Girls’.

1.      What does the story tell us about?

2.      Where did the family live?

3.      What happened to the twins one day?

4.      ‘The mother began crying and sobbing hysterically’. What does the adverb hysterically in the sentence mean?

5.      ‘No, Mommy! Don’t hold us!’ cried the twin girls in unison. ‘We don’t want to die again!’ What does the sentence mean?

 

Reference: Be Smart in English for grade XI of Senior High Schools. Linguistics and Cultural Studies.