home
stories directory
grammar directory
annex directory
tesl directory
annex
reading exercise
sentence ordering
Bob Howard (correct ordering)
the exercise
key to the exercise

Bob Howard: The Squeegee Kid's Funeral
(This is a true story but the real names of the people and the places have not been used.)



Here is the whole story, including the introduction, with the sentences in the correct order.


INTRODUCTION:

In 1998 there were ‘squeegee kids’ on the streets in many North American cities. They stood at street corners with ‘squeegees’ and buckets of water. A squeegee is a simple tool used for cleaning windows — a handle holding a rubber blade about twenty-five centimeters long. When cars stopped at the traffic lights, squeegee kids ran out and cleaned the windshields. Then they’d ask the drivers to give them money. A lot of people disliked the squeegee kids. They were annoyed when the kids asked them for money. They said they were dirty and that they blocked the sidewalks. In 1998, at the time Bob died, the government had announced it was going to get rid of squeegee kids. In 1999 the Ontario government passed a law making it illegal to do what the squeegee kids were doing.


THE STORY

In early 1998, Bob Howard, a teenager, was living at his parents home in Kingston, a city in eastern Canada. He was unhappy at home and told his parents he wanted to live with relatives in Winnipeg, 1800 kilometers away. His parents let him go, but they were worried about him because they knew he had been using drugs. Bob soon phoned his parents from Winnipeg and told them he was planning to get off drugs and go back to school. But he didn't tell them that since arriving in Winnipeg, he had become a squeegee kid. One night, when Bob had been gone for about six months, a police officer knocked on his parents’ door. He told them that Bob had died of a drug overdose. When they heard this, they were overcome with grief. The next day, they had a phone call from one of Bob’s friends, a Winnipeg squeegee kid called Kenny. Kenny told them that a lot of Bob’s friends would be coming to Kingston for Bob’s funeral. He explained that Bob's friends in Winnipeg had collected $1500 and were going to rent a bus for the trip to Kingston. One day before the funeral, they arrived at Bob’s parents house and made friends with his mother. At the funeral they made speeches and then they each put a carnation, the squeegee kids’ symbol, on Bob’s coffin. After the funeral, Bob’s mother said that, because of what Bob’s friends did, she'd changed her mind about squeegee kids. She said she had come to disagree with the government’s plan to get rid of them.

____

____ .

___

____

____

____

___

____

____

____

____

____

.____

____

____

____


the key to this exercise