Задание 13. Выделение информации в прочитанном тексте: все задания

It was Sunday morning and I was still in bed. I was in the habit of sleeping till late on Sundays as it was my only day off. Right, I had to go to school six days a week and that was awfully unfair. My friend George had all the weekends for himself, only because his parents were more relaxed about his education than my parents were. They sent him to a less prestigious school and George had less homework but more time for hanging around with other guys and playing the guitar.

I felt envious of George and deeply hurt as my mum often praised him for his musical hobby. She reproached me for my lack of interest in anything but it wasn’t lack of interest, it was lack of time! Didn’t I tell you I had only Sundays to relax?

Relaxing was my plan for that Sunday too, but the noise and loud voices in the living room made me fully awake.

‘Here, a bit to the right. It will be convenient for Andrew to practice here.’

‘Right, and we can arrange his concerts here.’

‘No-no! Now to the left, closer to the wall.’

Then there were some scratching sounds as if someone was moving furniture. I got out of the bed and headed to the living room.

There was a large black piano there. My dad, mum and two unknown men were pushing it, trying to squeeze it between the window and the cupboard.

‘Oh, you are just in time, Andrew,’ said my dad. ‘I never had an opportunity to learn to play music. But it's always been my dream. Now you’ll make it come true.’

‘It’s your dream, not mine,’ I wanted to reply but didn’t say anything.

The music teacher came at ten. He was a small grey man with small grey eyes. He was wearing a grey suit and a grey hat. He spoke in a quiet voice. The man looked harmless but I understood that he would ruin my Sundays forever.

The teacher talked about famous pianists and composers and about how much I should practice.

I listened to him and invented all sorts of plans of how I could escape his lessons. To explain to my parents that music was not my passion? To refuse to take lessons? To get sick? The most reliable idea was to break the instrument. But how could I do it?

When the lesson was over, my mum came into the room. She looked so happy that I didn’t dare to tell her anything about my feelings.

‘Oh, Andrew, I’m so proud of you! I believe that you’ve got a gift for music. And we'd like to celebrate the beginning of your music career. Tonight we are going to the concert hall and you’ll hear the best samples of classical music. You need to be dressed up and ready to go by 6pm.’

She carefully put three tickets on the black, polished piano lid.

I was almost late for school. I rushed into my class when the bell was ringing loudly.

To my surprise, Laura was not in the classroom yet. Laura was a newcomer in the class. She joined us at the beginning of that year and nobody knew where she had gone to school before. She was a quiet red-haired girl, very serious and hardworking. Nobody knew her ever to fail to do her homework. Why wasn’t she at school now?

Though we were not very close friends, I decided to drop into her house on my way home. It was a small brick house at the corner of the street. Laura’s family rented it when they moved to our town. – A slim, elderly lady in a jumper and sports trousers opened the door. I explained to her who I was and she smiled warmly. She told me that Laura had got a bad cold but would be happy to see me, and showed me into her room. Laura's cheeks were a bit red with fever but she was really glad to see me.

We talked for a long time and I found out a lot about her and her family.

The lady who let me into the house was Laura’s grandmother. Laura told me that when her granny was young, she worked in a circus. In fact, she started working there when she was six. Her mum and dad were acrobats and they took her into their performance. The public liked the cute little girl, and Amy (yes, the elderly lady was just Amy at that time) enjoyed wearing glittering costumes and getting applause. What she didn’t like was wearing a wig1 and a clown costume, but her parents often got her to take part in her twin brothers’ clown performance.

‘I really can’t understand why she hated it so much. She looked so pretty in that outfit, didn’t she?’ commented Laura and showed me an old photo of a small girl with painted freckles and a red wig that covered half of her face.

‘She probably worried that her classmates would make fun of her,’ I suggested. ‘You know how cruel kids can be sometimes…’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Laura and her smile faded as if it recalled some bad memories. ‘But my granny was a homeschooler. The circus travelled all over the country and even abroad. They never stayed in one place for a long time and she could not attend school. She learned at home. Or, should I say, in a caravan because they all lived and travelled in a caravan.’

‘It was exciting, I guess,’ I said. ‘But not easy.’

‘Oh, yes, it was difficult but her parents, brothers and the other circus people helped her. Granny was good at languages. Her co-workers came from different countries and taught her their languages. Travelling and communicating with people is good language practice, isn’t it?…’