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The broken mirror, the black cat and lots of good luck Nikos was an ordinary man. One thing that he did not believe in was superstition. But when so many things that are meant to cause bad luck started bringing him good luck, he began to wonder … Nikos was an ordinary man. Nothing particularly good ever happened to him; nothing particularly bad ever happened to him. He went through life accepting the mixture of good things and bad things that happen to everyone. He never looked for any explanation or reason about why things happened just the way they did. One thing, however, that Nikos absolutely did not believe in was superstition. He had no time for superstition, no time at all. Nikos thought himself to be a very rational man, a man who did not believe that his good luck or bad luck was in any way changed by black cats, walking under ladders, spilling salt or opening umbrellas inside the house. Nikos spent much of his time in the small tav...
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The Christmas the lights went out Five people, whose lives interrelate, live the build-up to Christmas in different ways in different places. A sudden blackout changes their lives forever ... Tom Jankowitz took his coat off and threw it onto the seat in the airport lounge. He sat down and opened up his laptop computer, keeping one eye on the small television which showed the departure times of all the flights from the airport. Tom Jankowitz was tired. Tired and bored. It was Christmas, nearly. Tom hated Christmas. He only remembered that it would be Christmas tomorrow because there were Christmas decorations all over the airport, and he could see the date on the small television showing the departure times of all the flights. '24 December,' it said. 'Happy Christmas' said all the notices in the windows of the shops. The shops were closed now. It was late. Tom was going home. He had been to a business meeting in New York ...
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The comeback Fausto Ruiz got off the boat at the port of the city where he had been born fifty years ago, and to which he had not returned for twenty years. Fausto Ruiz got off the boat at the port of the city where he had been born fifty years ago, and to which he had not returned for twenty years. He walked along the seafront, surprised by how much his hometown had changed, and also by how much of it he could still recognise. There were lots of new buildings up on the hills around the city now, buildings which he didn’t recognise. Yet many of the old buildings along the sea were exactly the same as he remembered them, although many of the old shops he remembered were there no more. He walked away from the port and into the centre of the city. He walked up the main road and saw how all the shops had changed, but that there was still one small café there which was the same as it had been when he was young and famous. He walked into the café ...
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Two peas in a pod Edie and Evie are identical twins. Identical in appearance, but their personalities are not at all identical. Things get very weird when one of them pretends to be the other ... They even dressed us the same. My mother said that it was easier for her just to buy two of everything. Sometimes it was the same clothes but in different colours – a red top for me and a yellow one for my sister, for example. When they did that, we swapped the clothes so that they still couldn’t tell us apart. Not even our parents could tell us apart. Our schoolteachers never could. And then there were our names. It was crazy – they called us Edie and Evie! Even our names were almost identical. Two peas in a pod, they called us. Two drops of water. Sometimes we could hardly tell ourselves from each other. At least, when we were small. But as we grew up things began to change. Everybody thinks identical twins are, well, identical. But if yo...
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The skier Afel was twelve years old when he saw them. ‘What are those?’ he asked his uncle excitedly. ‘Skis,’ replied his uncle. ‘And those people are called skiers.’ Afel was in love. He wanted to be a skier. Afel was only a very small boy when he first saw snow. But it wasn’t real snow that he saw. No, there was no real snow where he lived. He saw the snow in a picture book. The book had lots of pictures of children playing in big white fields. He asked his mother, ‘What are those white fields?’, and his mother laughed and said, ‘That’s snow!’ She tried to explain to him what snow was, but Afel didn’t really understand. Sometimes there was rain where he lived, but not very much, so it was very difficult for him to understand what this cold, ice rain that his mother described was. It didn’t matter. Even when he was only a very small boy, Afel was already in love with snow. He dreamed about snow all the time, trying to imagine how it r...
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The golden boys Mr and Mrs Hamilton had two sons, Richard and Philip, who were both taller and friendlier than me. My parents liked them a lot. ‘Why can’t you be more like Richard and Philip?’ I hated them. Every August. Every August for twelve years. Every August for twelve years we went to the same small town on holiday. Every August for twelve years we went to the same beach. Every August for twelve years my parents rented the same small house in the same small town near the same beach, so every morning of every August for twelve years I woke up and walked down to the same beach and sat under the same umbrella or on the same towel in front of the same sea. There was a small café on the beach where we sat every day, and every day Mr Morelli in the café said ‘Good morning!’ to my parents, and then always patted me on the head like a dog. Every day we walked down to our red and white umbrella. Every day my father sat on his deckchair...
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King of the pumpkins Deep in the middle of the woods,' said my mother, 'is the place where the king of the pumpkins lives.' A young boy and his cat try and find out what, if anything, is true about his mother's stories. Deep in the middle of the woods,' said my mother, 'is the place where the king of the pumpkins lives.' 'But pumpkins live in fields, not in forests,' I said to my mother. She wouldn't listen to me. 'I'm telling you,' she said, 'the king of the pumpkins lives in the middle of the woods and the woods that he lives in are the woods right next to our house, the woods you can see out of the window over there.' She pointed with her hand to the woods that were, in fact, just outside the window behind our house. 'He doesn't live in a field like the other pumpkins,' continued mother, 'because he's not an ordinary pumpkin. He's the King Pumpkin....
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The Bremen Town Musicians A certain man had a donkey, which had carried the corn-sacks to the mill indefatigably for many a long year; but his strength was going, and he was growing more and more unfit for work. Then his master began to consider how he might best save his keep; but the donkey, seeing that no good wind was blowing, ran away and set out on the road to Bremen. "There," he thought, "I can surely be town-musician." When he had walked some distance, he found a hound lying on the road, gasping like one who had run till he was tired. "What are you gasping so for, you big fellow?" asked the donkey. "Ah," replied the hound, "as I am old, and daily grow weaker, and no longer can hunt, my master wanted to kill me, so I took to flight; but now how am I to earn my bread?" "I tell you what," said the donkey, "I am going to Bremen, and shall be town-musician there; go with me and engage yo...
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