Teach Reading and Writing Issue 19

T E ACH I NG T E CHN I QUE S © Pie Corbett 2023 The first crime was a strange one – an eco-house built out of bales of hay with a roof garden. Sounds snug. Destroyed overnight; hay everywhere and the residents driven mad with fear, mumbling about being attacked by something very BIG and very BAD. They reckoned a tornado had blown the house down! Hamid and I visited the crime scene after school, last Wednesday. The house was ruined. Our only clue was a set of very large paw prints as if a huge dog had been on the scene. Huge – bigger than The Hound of the Baskervilles; bigger than Scooby Doo! The second crime was even stranger – a wooden cabin blown down. Planks of wood scattered everywhere. It looked as if a wrecking ball had been taken to it and given the house a bashing. Hamid was sniffing about for clues, and he soon found the same huge paw prints again. The same modus operandi – that’s detective talk and means the same method, the same wway of operating. We needed more clues, and it was the local newspaper that gave us the heads-up. The owner of the eco- house was the brother of the cabin owner… and they had another brother living locally! This was obviously a serial house basher. That night, we cased the joint – more detective talk. That means we staked it out… which means we were standing in the cold and dark at nine thirty when our parents thought we were tucked up! Hamid and I kept well-hidden in the shadows by the bus stop. Then we saw it. A huge shadow cast across the street and slowly approached. A massive creature, shabby fur and fiery eyes. Its jaws were open, showing yellowed fangs. Hamid whispered, “Werewolf!” and we crouched down. It paused by the house, inhaled and began to chant with a low hiss that made my spine tingle, “Let me come in!” The curtains twitched and we saw three faces peering out. The creature drew in its breath and, like a massive pair of industrial bellows, it blew. Trees bent double, the garden fence crashed down, a tile or two flew off the roof, but the house was defiant. It had been made of solid brick and stood the test well. The beast let out a mighty roar and leapt onto the roof. Like a vast, ragged shadow, it clung to the chimney and began to snarl: “I’m coming. There is no escape.” The shadow-creature seemed to slither into the chimney and pour itself downwards. I turned to Hamid, but he was rooted to the spot, mouth wide open as if he was catching flies. At that moment, a fearsome roar detonated from the rooftop and out of the chimney exploded the ragged shadow-creature, accompanied by a shower of ash and sparks, like some sort of furious firework blasting into the night. The creature landed in the garden with a thump, slithered onto the road and limped away with its fur smouldering. The curtains twitched. Three faces peered out, grinning. We could hear clapping, hooting and back- slapping from inside. Our job was done. Not exactly a triumph of our detective skills, but we had seen the criminal defeated – and whilst a prison sentence would not be forthcoming, we knew that it was the end of The Bulldozer’s exploits. “The beast let out a mighty roar and leapt onto the roof” www.teachwire.net | 43