1

Huck in trouble

You don't know about me if you haven't read a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mr Mark Twain wrote the book and most of it is true. In that book robbers stole some money and hid it in a very secret place in the woods. But Tom Sawyer and I found it, and after that we were rich. We got six thousand dollars each - all gold.

In those days I never had a home or went to school like Tom and all the other boys in St Petersburg. Pop was always drunk, and he moved around a lot, so he wasn't a very good father. But it didn't matter to me. I slept in the streets or in the woods, and I could do what I wanted, when I wanted. It was a fine life. 

When we got all that money, Tom and I were famous for a while. Judge Thatcher, who was an important man in our town, kept my money in the bank for me. And the Widow Douglas took me to live in her house and said I could be her son. She was very nice and kind, but it was a hard life because I had to wear new clothes and be good all the time.

In the end, I put on my old clothes and ran away. But Tom came after me and said that I had to go back, but that I could be in his gang of robbers. So, I went back, and the widow cried and I had to put on those new clothes again. I didn't like it at all. Her sister, Miss Watson, lived there too. She was always saying, "Don't put your feet there, Huckleberry," and "Don't do that, Huckleberry." It was terrible.

When I went up to bed that night, I sat down in a chair by the window. I sat there a good long time, and I was really unhappy. But just after midnight I heard "mee-yow! mee-yow" outside. Very softly, I answered, "mee-yow! mee-yow!" Quietly, I put out the light and got out through the window. In the trees, Tom Sawyer was waiting for me.

Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Oxford Bookworms Library; Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994 (2000)

Stage 2 (700 headwords)