Reading Comprehension – A short story “The Wait”

Aloha friends!

Do you like reading short stories? They are works of fiction, like novels, but they are very short. Today we are going to do an English reading comprehension with a short story called “The Wait”, by author Patrick Johanneson.

It’s about seasons changing and growing, how time passes without us noticing.

The Wait

She planted the seed and waited. After a while rain came down from the sky, pelting her skin, chilling her. She shivered but didn’t leave, not yet.

The sun came out, warming the soil, driving the cold from her bones. She waited. Clouds scudded by overhead, in a hurry for some reason. The moon rose, stars wheeled, and then the sun rose again.

She didn’t just wait, of course. She prayed, she sang, she read the old stories, the myths and the legends. On the seventh day she snoozed under a cloudless sky, waking only briefly when a dragonfly happened to touch down on her nose. She observed its cathedral-window wings, irridescent with refracted sunlight, and drowsed once more after it left her.

Rain, sun, moon, stars: she endured them all. The seedling broke the soil with a questing green curlicue, looking for all the world like a question mark in the Old Tongue. She sat on it and waited more: days, months, decades.

A boy came along and asked her why she’d climbed to the top of the tree.

“I didn’t,” she said.

Vocabulary

Pelting – to repeatedly hit (someone or something) with things thrown from a distance.

Shivered – to shake slightly because you are cold, afraid, etc.

Warming – o become warm or to make (someone or something) warm.

Driving – to cause (someone) to behave in a particular way.

Scudded – to move or go quickly.

Wheeled – to move in a circle or curve.

Dragonfly – a large insect that has a long thin body and four wings and that is often seen near water.

Iridescent – shining with many different colors when seen from different angles.

Drowsed – to sleep lightly or to almost be asleep.

Endure – to experience (pain or suffering) for a long time.

Seedling – a young plant that is grown from seed.

Curlicue – a decoratively curved line or shape.

Did you understand the story? What is your interpretation?