Text 17. Who will go shopping?

“Will you go shopping, please? Go shopping, please! Go shopping!” It’s my mother. That’s how every Sunday begins in our family.

Father answers first. He says: “I am sorry, but I can’t. I haven’t cleaned my car yet.”

Then Bob, my elder brother, who is fifteen, says: “There are many shops that you will send me to. And I have only one pair of legs. So how can I? And, you know, I haven’t done my reading lesson yet.”

“But I.L. can’t go shopping,” says Mother. “I haven’t cleaned the rooms yet.”

“And I am too old. I can’t go shopping every day, can I?” says Granny.

“I’ll go shopping then,” says my sister Ann. “I’ll take Mary (that’s me) with me. She’ll help me to carry the shopping- bag.”

“Good of you, girls,” says Mother. “Here is the shopping- bag and here is the money. Do you know what to buy? Don’t forget to buy sugar, salt, some cheese and some sausage. And brown bread, too.”

We come back in half an hour. Everybody is surprised that we have come so soon.

“Oh, you have already come! How is that?” Bob asks.

“We have been to the supermarket. We have bought everything there.”

“Thank you very much, girls,” says Mother. “But where is the shopping-bag?”

“Oh, I have left it in the shop,” says Ann.

“I was so busy. I had to answer Mary’s questions. You know what a great talker she is! I forgot about the shopping-bag.” Everybody laughed.

I. Think about your own title to the text. Give three variants.

II. Answer the questions according to the text.

1. Who went shopping?

a) mother

b) Bob

c) the girls

2. Why didn’t Bob go shopping?

a) He had to clean the car

b) He had to do his reading lesson

c) He had to do the house

3. What shop have the girls been to?

a) supermarket

b) a small shop

c) bakery

4. What has happened in the end?

a) The girls have lost their way

2) They have lost the money

c) They have left the shopping-bag in the shop

III. Read the text again and find in it the sentences that say why each of them can’t go shopping:

a) father

b) Bob

c) grandmother

d) mother

IV. Read the talk between the mother and other people in the morning. Act the conversation out.

V. Describe your last visit to a shop. Say:

a) when you went there;

b) who asked you to go shopping;

c) what shop you went to;

d) what you bought there;

e) what you liked in that shop;

f) what you wanted to buy but couldn’t.