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1. Listen and read the story. Say where the action of the story takes place and who the main characters are.
GOOD MORNING, MISS DOVE
after Frances Gray Patton Miss Dove ['mis ,(1av] was a strict teacher. If a pupil wanted to leave the classroom to get a drink of water, Miss Dove just looked at him and said nothing. They were afraid of that look and they called her 'the terrible Miss Dove' though she never shouted at them or scolded them.
On that day forty children were sitting in her class at the Geography lesson. They heard the bell, but they did not move, they did not talk, they all waited in silence and looked at Miss Dove. Only after she had told them to close their books and go, they left the classroom quietly without shouting or running. A boy who had talked during the lesson was left in the room and had to write twenty times "I must not talk during the lessons".
The next lesson began. The pupils came into the classroom and took their places. Miss Dove gave them written work to do, because it was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays they always had some written work.
One of the boys pushed the girl who was sitting next to him. Miss Dove looked at him, and he stopped moving though she did not scold I him. Miss Dove looked at the boy but she did not see him. Instead of j him she saw his elder brother, Thomas Baker ['tDmas 'Ьеікз], who had sat in that place some six or seven years before. The war brought the children she had taught to different parts of the world. One was in Germany, another— in the jungle1 of New Guinea [nju: gini], a third one — somewhere in Africa. She did not know where all of them were. Though all of them had finished school many years before, she now saw them as they had been at seven, at ten or at twelve.
The pupil she thought about most often was Thomas Baker. The German planes had bombed his ship, and for many days he had lain on a raft2 without anything to eat and very little to drink. When they found him, he was almost dying. The newspapers wrote much about him in those days.
Randy [Yaendi] Baker put his hand up.
"Yes, Baker?" Miss Dove asked.
"I got a letter from Tom yesterday," the boy explained. "May I read it to the class?"
"Yes, certainly."
"But it's a long one."
"I'm sure it will be useful for everyone to hear the letter of such a brave man," explained the teacher.
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