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Present Simple. Grammar Box A1|A2 "Esio Trot"
"Esio Trot" by Roald Dahl
Chapter 1
Mr Hoppy lives in a small flat high up in a tall concrete building.
He lives alone.
He has always been a lonely man.
They grow in pots and tubs and baskets.
The balcony immediately below Mr Hoppy's juts out a good bit further from the building than his own.
This balcony belongs to an attractive middle-aged lady called Mrs Silver.
Mrs Silver is a widow who also lives alone.
Every morning, Mr Hoppy and Mrs Silver exchange polite conversation.
The distance between their balconies might not be more than a few yards.
He longs to invite Mrs Silver up for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
As I said, he is a very
Chapter 2
Now we come to a certain bright morning in May when something happens.
He is leaning over his balcony-rail watching Mrs Silver serving Alfie his breakfast.
"Here is the heart of the lettuce for you, my lovely," she is saying.
"Good morning, Mrs Silver," Mr Hoppy says.
"Alfie's looking well this morning."
"Isn't he gorgeous!" Mrs Silver says.
And now, as he looks down at Mrs Silver's smiling face gazing up into his own, he thinks for the thousandth time how pretty she is.
"I do so wish he would grow a little faster," Mrs Silver is saying.
"What does he weigh now?" Mr Hoppy asks her.
"Just thirteen ounces," Mrs Silver answers.
"Yes, well, tortoises are very slow growers," Mr Hoppy says solemnly.
"He seems just fine as he is," Mr Hoppy says.
"No, he's not just fine!" Mrs Silver cries.
"You really would love him to grow bigger, wouldn't you?" Mr Hoppy says.
"Of course I would!" Mrs Silver cries.
"I worked in North Africa once," Mr Hoppy says.
"Tell me!" cries Mrs Silver.
"Wait there," he says.
"I'm going to lower it to you on a bit of string," he says.
Chapter 3
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Is it another language?"
"It's tortoise language," Mr Hoppy said.
"Tortoises are very backward creatures."
"That's obvious, isn't it?"
"Esio trot is simply tortoise spelled backwards," Mr Hoppy said.
"Look at it."
"So it is," Mrs Silver said.
"The other words are spelled backwards, too," Mr Hoppy said.
"I guess you're right," she said.
"How clever."
"Poo is a very strong word in any language," Mr Hoppy said.
"Now what you have to do, Mrs Silver, is hold Alfie up to your face and whisper these words to him three times a day, morning, noon and night."
"Let me hear you practice them."
"Not bad," Mr Hoppy said.
"I'll try it," Mrs Silver said.
"You wait and see," Mr Hoppy said, smiling at her.
"Your slave for life, he kept repeating to himself."
"What bliss!"
"But there was a lot of work to be done before that happened."
"The only furniture in Mr Hoppy's small living-room was a table and two chairs."
"Then he went out and bought a sheet of thick canvas and spread it over the entire living-room floor to protect his carpet."
"Next, he got out the telephone-book and wrote down the address of every pet-shop in the city."
"There were fourteen of them altogether."
"It took him two days to visit each pet-shop and choose his tortoises."
"He wanted a great many, at least one hundred, perhaps more."
"And he had to choose them very carefully."
"To you and me there is not much difference between one tortoise and another."
"They differ only in their size and in the colour of their shells."
"Size, of course, was everything."
"Mr Hoppy chose all sorts of different sizes, some weighing only slightly more than Alfie's thirteen ounces, others a great deal more, but he didn't want any that weighed less."
"Feed them cabbage leaves," the pet-shop owners told him.
"That's all they'll need."
"And a bowl of water."
"When he had finished, Mr Hoppy, in his enthusiasm, had bought no less than one hundred and forty tortoises and he carried them home in baskets, ten or fifteen at a time."
"He had to make a lot of trips and he was quite exhausted at the end of it all, but it was worth it."
"Boy, was it worth it!"
"And what an amazing sight his living-room was when they were all in there together!"
"The floor was swarming with tortoises of different sizes, some walking slowly about and exploring, some munching cabbage leaves, others drinking water from a big shallow dish."
"They made just the faintest rustling sound as they moved over the canvas sheet, but that was all."
"Mr Hoppy had to pick his way carefully on his toes between this moving sea of brown shells whenever he walked across the room."
"But enough of that. He must get on with the job."
"Before he retired Mr Hoppy had been a mechanic in a bus-garage."
"And now he went back to his old place of work and asked his mates if he might use his old bench for an hour or two."
