短編ストーリー B1: My favorite bedtime story

Every night when I was little, my mother would read me a bedtime story.

My favorite story was Tom's Midnight Garden.

This was a story by Philippa Pearce.

It was quite a long book,

and it took quite a few nights for my mother to read the entire book to me.

In Tom's Midnight Garden Tom moves to the city to stay with his aunt and uncle.

He is very bored at their apartment.

They have no children, so Tom has nothing to do.

One night, the clock strikes thirteen times.

Tom knows that this is impossible.

A clock can only strike up to twelve times.

He sneaks downstairs and goes outside.

When he goes outside, there is a wonderful garden that wasn't there the day before.

The next day, Tom goes outside and finds there is no garden.

The garden only seems to appear at night.

Every night, Tom slips out to this wonderful garden, and meets some people in the garden.

He meets a girl named Hattie.

Hattie and Tom become very good friends in this garden.

Some very strange things happen in this book.

There are some coincidences that keep you guessing about what is really going on.

The surprise ending is wonderful.

I really enjoyed Tom's Midnight Garden

and I was very sad when my mother and I came to the end of the book.

I felt that I had visited the magical garden with Tom.

It is a book that I will remember all my life