​The Wolf’s Mistake (Simple Tenses)

Level: A2

Activity: reading

There was a wolf in the wood. The wolf was lazy. He did not clean his house. He did not sweep the floor. He did not dust the things. He did not repair his house. The house was very dirty. It was very old. The house could fall down any moment. One day an elephant came past. The elephant touched the house and the roof fell down.

“I’m very sorry, old man,” said the elephant. “I’ll fix the roof up in a minute.”

The elephant liked to work and he fixed the roof well. He fixed the roof so that it was almost as good as new.

“He’s afraid of me,” thought the wolf. “First he said that he was very sorry and then he fixed the roof. May be I’ll ask him to make me a new house. He is afraid of me and he will do it.”

“What’s this?!” The wolf shouted at the elephant. “You come here and ruin my house, and now you want to go away. Oh, no! You must make a new house for me. Do it quickly and do it well, you silly animal!” The elephant did not say anything to this. He took up the wolf and threw him into a hole full of dirty water. “That’s the new house that you’ll get from me,” he said and went away.

“What’s the matter with him?” said the wolf. “First he said that he was very sorry and then this... I can’t understand it.”

“You can’t understand because you are silly, that’s what you are,” said a bird in the tree. “You don’t know the difference between cowardice and good manners.”