A Little English

This is a story about popcorn, mostly. It's also about religion and weddings and cleaning. But mostly it's a story about microwave popcorn. It stars Matthew, who was sort of the villain of the story called "Flow." And if we're being honest, he's the villain of this story, too. But I love him. I hope you do as well.

👉The story begins at 2:00 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:12

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

 Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Before we begin, I’d like to say thank you for listening, and ask you to tell your friends about the show. I don’t do any advertising, so you spreading the word is really the only way that the audience can grow. Thank you so much!

Now

Where I come from, we were always taught that there are two things you don’t discuss at dinner: religion and politics. The reason for that is, because people will start shouting at each other. But this story opens with a conversation about religion. Ok it’s not a conversation, it’s people shouting at each other. But don’t worry. This is not really a story about religion. Actually it’s mostly about….popcorn? 

Anyway, the name of this story is, “Alone,” which is also the name of my favorite song to sing at karaoke. 

—------

“If it’s in a church, I’m not going,” said Matthew. 

Mom and Dad were already dressed for the wedding. Dad was wearing his suit and Mom even put on earrings. They looked at each other and sighed. “He gets this from you,” said Mom. 

Dad rested his head in his hands for a moment. Then he stood up and spoke to his son. 

“Matthew, it’s a wedding.  Of course it’s in a church.”

“Well if it’s in a church, then I am not going. I will not worship your false gods. You’ll have to leave me here.”

“You don’t have to worship anything. Just sit there like a normal human being and then we go and have cake. It’s a party. It’s a celebration of love.”

“It’s a lie!” shouted Matthew. “It’s all lies! It’s a scam!  They scare you with stories of hell and pain forever. Then they take your money.”

“Matthew, it’s a congregational church. They don’t have any money.”

“I don’t care! They get money for free and then they don’t pay any taxes! 

It’s the biggest scam in the world. And if you go, or if I go, we are saying that this scam is okay. So you can do whatever you want, but I’m not going.”

“This is just some stupid stuff you saw on the internet. You need to get off the computer and get out in the real world.”

“I AM in the real world, Dad! I believe in  science and YOU PEOPLE believe in magic!”

“You don’t have to believe in the religion to go to a wedding, Matthew. You just go to support your family and friends on their big day.”

“I’m. Not. Going.” Matthew sat down on the floor. 

His parents went to the living room. Matthew could hear them shouting at each other through the closed door. After a few minutes, they came out. Mom was fixing her eye makeup with a tissue. Dad spoke first.

“Fine. You’re fourteen years old now. If you want to stay home alone, you can. We will be back by ten pm. Try not to burn the house down.”

Four hours later, Matthew realized that he was hungry. He put down the game controller and wandered into the kitchen. He looked through the refrigerator but it was all his Mom’s gross health food stuff. So he went to the closet and got a bag of microwave popcorn.

“How long are you supposed to cook it for?” he said out loud to nobody. “Whatever.” 

He put the bag in the microwave, set it for seven minutes, and went back to his video games. He was very busy killing zombies when he noticed a weird smell.

Like something burning. Something really, really horrible burning. 

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, no.” 

Matthew ran into the kitchen. Black smoke was pouring out of the microwave and up the wall. 

“Oh, no,” he said. 

The popcorn bag was completely on fire.

“Oh, my god,” he said.

Little blue sparks started to explode inside the popcorn bag. He could hear them popping and sizzling. Matthew sat down on the floor. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. 

“Oh, my god,” he whispered. “Oh God, What do I do?”

And in that moment, he became totally, perfectly calm. 

He stood up and unplugged the microwave. Its light went out and the humming sound stopped, but the fire and the tiny explosions continued. 

He opened the microwave door. A huge cloud of black smoke came out. He coughed and waved his arms back and forth, trying to see the bag. When he found it, he threw it into the sink and turned on the water. 

The fire was out. Matthew looked around.  The bag of popcorn was now just a disgusting ball of ashes in the sink. The inside of the microwave was covered in burns. A line of black soot went up the wall from the microwave to the ceiling. Smoke hung in the air. And the smell. The smell of burnt popcorn was absolutely everywhere. It was the worst thing he had ever smelled in his entire life.

Matthew went to his computer. He searched for, “how to get black smoke off a white wall.” He searched for, “how to clean a microwave that I burned popcorn in.” He watched videos. He read websites. He got a notebook and a pen, and he made a plan. 

First, he opened every window in the entire house. The summer air came in, so he turned off the air conditioning. He collected every fan in the house and pointed them out the kitchen windows. Then he scooped up the cool, wet, disgusting remains of the popcorn bag and took it out into the woods. He scattered the ashes around. The evidence was destroyed.

He came back into the house and mixed up a big bowl of vinegar and baking soda and he got a sponge. He cleaned the inside of the microwave. He cleaned the outside of the microwave. He sponged and scrubbed until his arms hurt. He checked the clock. His parents were coming home in an hour and a half.

Matthew climbed up on the counter. Following the instructions he had read on the internet, he wiped the smoke off the walls and the ceiling. He was very careful not to use too much water.  He climbed down and stood back. It looked…pretty ok. 

He put a bowl of vinegar and water in the microwave and set it to four minutes, to absorb the smell. The microwave worked. That was good. He collected all the fans and returned them to the rooms where they came from. He thought about closing the windows, but decided against it. He got a cloth and wiped down the counters and the sink just as his parents walked in the door. 

They looked great. They were kind of sweaty and Matthew was pretty sure they had been drinking. Dad said, “Whoo! What’s that smell?”

“Oh hey guys,” said Matthew. “I’m really sorry. I microwaved some popcorn a little too long, but it’s ok. I took care of it. How was the wedding?”

—--------------

I’d like to point out I never burned the popcorn in the microwave like Matthew does in this story. But, when I was in high school, someone did. Some fourteen-year-old kid who had never actually made his own popcorn (like Matthew) put a bag in the microwave for like ten minutes. And oh my god. Have you ever smelled burning popcorn? Have you ever smelled a room that was full of popcorn smoke? It stayed around for days. Oh and by the way, you can watch videos of people intentionally burning popcorn on youtube. It’s pretty crazy looking. 

So anyway, here are some tiny lessons. 

First, let’s talk about the Big Picture. 

Do you think that Matthew really believed all that stuff about the church? Go back and check the story again. I’ll wait. 

I don’t think so. In my mind, Matthew really just wanted to skip the wedding and play video games all day. I think that’s a pretty normal thing that kids do, especially at that age. 

Now, wanna have a dance at the Dictionary Disco?

Our first word is, SCAM. As in, “church is a SCAM.” That’s like a cheat. Specifically, it’s a business or some kind of organization that is totally not what it says it is, and exists only to steal money.

The second word is, GROSS. Like, “Mom’s gross health food.” That’s just a really informal way of saying “Disgusting.” Kids say GROSS all the time. Adults too. But, you know, with friends. Not in a business meeting. 

Finally, let’s have a Melody Moment. 

I wanna talk about “Oh my God.” I say it three times in this story. And each time there are three different meanings. First there is (OMG1) which is expressing fear. It’s short, it’s fast, and the MY isn’t even a “my” at all. It’s a “mi.” The second time is (OMG 2) This is Matthew realizing just how badly he has screwed up. It’s an expression of despair. It’s slower and clearer, with space between the words. Then the third one is (OMG3) That’s when I was talking about the popcorn incident in my high school. That’s the slowest one of all, and it’s used for…dramatic effect. Like I want you to know just how bad that smell was. I can still remember that smell, twenty-five years later. Ugh. Anyway, the same words, with three different melodies, intonations, and even a little bit of vowel shortening can have three totally different meanings. Cool, right?

Sooooo let’s do the credits!

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 17 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! Honestly, I’m not even using ChatGPT for editing any more. I’m just writing. 

So, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever lost a friend? Not, like, lost them at a concert. I mean, have any of your friends died? A few of mine have. This is a story about losing a friend. And the pain of losing that friend. It's a story about how groups of friend cope with the loss of a member. And about family, and brothers. But mostly, it's a song about the power of silly pop songs. I hope you love it, because I'm very proud of this story.

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 03:20 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:45

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

I hope you guys are all enjoying this Forty Stories project. If you are, please do me a huge favor and share this show with a friend. Do you know anyone else who likes podcasts? Or who is trying to improve their English? Please share this show with them. I don’t do any advertising or anything, so I need your help to reach a larger audience. Thank you!

I think I can safely say that we have entered act two of forty stories. Pretty much every story has three acts. There is a beginning, a middle and an end. Middles are usually the hardest part to write. But actually I’m really excited about this, because it means I’m done introducing characters. The world is built. So it’s time to really explore these people and this world. Time to have them meet each other and interact! I think it will be really exciting. 

By the way, there is a content warning on this story. It’s about death. Specifically, it takes place a few years after someone commits suicide. So nobody dies in the story, but somebody did die a few years ago. So if you don’t feel good about listening to that right now, come back another time. It’s a good story, and important, but it’s kind of…heavy. 

Also, there are a lot of song titles in this story. And I think that if you don’t know the songs, it would be very helpful for you to read the transcript, get the names and listen to them on youtube or whatever. I think the story will make more sense when you hear the songs. 

So anyway, here’s the story.  It’s called “Mixtape”

I thought I was early, but they were already waiting for me. Kevin and Ben were sitting in camping chairs around a pile of wood. And there was another person with them. Maybe a girl? Or a little kid? Either way, I was pretty upset.  It took a few minutes to climb down from the top of the sand dune, and a few more to get close to where they were sitting. The mystery person was sitting on the other side of the pile of wood. 

I dropped my case of beer down next to me and just started yelling. “Guys, what is this? This is supposed to be our night. Remember, we talked about this? No girlfriends, nobody but us and - “

The kid stood up, and I could see that it was Finn. He was apologizing. 

“Tommy, I’m not gonna stay. I was just talking to Kevin last week, and I told him about this thing that I found, and we thought you all should see it. Or, like, hear it.”

I was so shocked that I just sat down in the sand. 

“Oh Finn,” I said, “I’m so sorry, kid. I had no idea it was you. I thought one of these knuckleheads brought their girlfriend or something. I had no idea, dude.”

Kevin spoke up. 

“Nobody is trying to mess with tradition, Tommy. It’s just us and Mark here tonight. I mean I was thinking that sooner or later Finn should join us, but he’s only - how old are you, Finn?”

“I’m twelve.” 

“Right so Finn’s only in - seventh grade?”

“Sixth.” 

“Sixth grade, right. So he’s not really old enough to, like, hang out. But I was thinking, maybe he’s old enough to hang out for a minute anyway. And then he brought me this tape.”

He handed me a cassette tape. Like from the 80s. Like, for music. The case was clear plastic, with a folded paper insert.  The writing on the paper was definitely Mark’s. It looked like a teenage girl had done it.  It read, “Mark’s Pop Mix, Volume One.” It didn’t have a tracklist. 

“So like, do we have something that can play this thing?”

Ben smiled at me. “We do, but we’re waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For midnight.”

Finn walked home around ten. By midnight, the fire on the beach was going strong and so were we. Ben had borrowed his mom’s old boom box and bought about a dozen batteries for it. We were playing songs off our phones and counting down the minutes. 

At 12:01, Kevin raised his beer into the air, and shouted towards the ocean.

“I would like to make a toast to our dear departed friend, Mark Anderson, who left us two years ago today, just eleven days before his twenty-second birthday. Are you out there, buddy? It’s your boys here. Kevin and Ben and Tommy.”

 He paused for a minute, and looked back at us. We both gave him thumbs up, so he continued shouting into the ocean. 

“Mark, we miss you. We don’t know why you had to go, but we love you so much. Your little brother brought us this mixtape that you made, and we thought that this would be the right time and place to listen to it. So, if you don’t mind, we’re gonna give it a listen. OK?” 

The wind blew and the waves crashed on the beach. The fire popped and hissed. Ben hit play on the boombox. 

The first song was “One” by U2. Ben put the boombox down in the sand, and sat down in his chair. The song built up and crashed down, and Ben covered his face with his hands. 

Things didn’t get any easier from there. “Karma Police,” by Radiohead. “Nothing Compares 2U” by Sinead O’Connor.  “In the Air Tonight,” by Phil Collins. We sat in the sand, silent until we heard the click from the tape.

“Is that the end?” I asked.

“That’s the end of side one.” Ben’s eyes were red. So were Kevin’s. So were mine. 

“Are we gonna listen to side two?” 

“I think we have to,” said Kevin. 

“I need another beer, first. We all do.”

We cracked our cans open and touched them together.  Ben turned the tape over and hit play. It was “Purple Rain.” Purple freaking Rain by Prince. I don’t know why, but this was too much for me. I couldn’t think or breathe right. I picked up a rock the size of a baseball and I threw it into the ocean.

“What the hell, man?” I screamed to the waves. “Why did you do this to us? We needed you here with us!” Kevin wrapped his arms around me and we crashed down into the sand. 

 “Maybe if he wasn’t listening to such depressing pop music all the time, he would have stayed here with us instead of walking into the ocean. Why couldn’t he just listen to like some metal or something angry? Or happy? Or, I dunno. Anything other than this sad old garbage.”

Kevin held onto me very tightly and let me cry into his chest. 

“Um, you have to open the paper.” We heard a small voice coming from behind us. 

We all stopped. Ben turned on the flashlight on his phone. Finn raised his hand to keep the light out of his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hid over there behind the dune. I just really wanted to hear the tape, too.”

We all just stood there, drunk, covered in sand, wiping tears from our faces and stared at him. 

“But, like I said. You gotta open the little paper insert and read it.”

“What is it, like a suicide note,” said Ben, “cuz there is no way-“

“He didn’t leave a note,” said Finn. “And I’m pretty sure he made this mix a while before he… Just read it,” and he handed the cassette tape box to me. 

I opened it slowly and pulled out the little piece of paper. It shook in my hands as I unfolded it. 

On the inside, in bright sparkly letters, it just said, “Sing along.”

“Sing along?” I looked at Finn. “I don’t get it.”

“These songs,” said Finn. “You gotta sing them. I think they’re only depressing if you sit there listening. I think it’s a karaoke mix.”

Ben laughed a little and mumbled quietly. “Purple rain, purple rain.” Kevin joined him. “Purple rain, purple rain.” I joined in, and so did Finn. 

We continued to sing, through “Back in the High Life,” by Steve Winwood and “Your Smiling Face” by James Taylor. By the time the tape ended on “Man in the Mirror,” by Michael Jackson, we were all standing, smiling, shouting into the wind, tears streaming down our faces. 

“Play it again,” said Finn. “Play the whole tape again.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But first, let’s text Mrs. Anderson and tell her that Finn is with us.”

Whoooo, how you guys doing? Was that too sad? Honestly, I don’t know. But I like it. I think this might be my favorite story in this project so far. When I was in college, a friend of mine died. He didn’t kill himself, but he did die, and it really messed us up. So writing this story was a way for me to sort of explore those emotions, but not to make it all about me and my life and my friends. Plus, I got to share a bunch of amazing pop songs with you guys. I hope that if you don’t know these songs, you’re gonna listen to them immediately. And if you do know, I hope they got you to feel some feelings!

Let’s do some tiny lessons

The Big Picture is, of course, an ocean scene.

Why did they wait until midnight to play the tape? Take a minute and think about it. I think they did it because they wanted to wait until the anniversary of his death. They said that it was two years ago today, and they said that after midnight.

How about a dance at the Dictionary Disco?

The first word is maybe the best word ever. Knucklehead. A knucklehead is an idiot. A stupid person. Like your knuckles are solid bone, right? So a knucklehead is someone whose head is solid bone. No room for a brain. It’s a great insult. 

The second vocabulary word is, Boombox. A boombox is an old kind of portable stereo. All you young people don’t know about these, but it was basically a radio and a tape player, and two speakers, ina box but you could power it with batteries and carry it around

Finally, let’s have a Melody Moment. I wanna talk about Accents. Specifically I wanna tlak about Tommy’s accent. Tommy is from Massachusetts. How do I know? Because I’m from Massachusetts, and he talks like people I grew up with. Actually everyone in Forty Stories is from Massachusetts, more or less. But Yeah so, Massachusetts accent. What make you sound like super massachusetts? No R’s. Cah and heah and theah. It actually sounds very English to my eahs. But that makes sense because Massachusetts is in New England. I don’t have this accent, but it’s super fun to do it. I wanna do more. 

Let’s do the credits.

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode16 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! HOnestly, I’m not even using ChatGPT for editing any more. I’m just writing. 

So;., thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 03:40 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:15

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Before we get started, I’d like to ask you a favor. I really hate social media, and I don’t really want to pay for advertisements. That means, the only way to grow the audience of A Little English is…you. If you’re enjoying the show, and you think it’s helping you learn, please go tell someone about it. You guys must have done it the last couple weeks, because listeners are going up!  Please keep going!  I’m very grateful for the help!

This week’s story is about horses. Have you ever ridden a horse? I have. Actually, I grew up in the country and our neighbors had a horse boarding business. That means that rich people from Boston, who didn’t have any space to keep a horse, they would rent a spot for it from our neighbors. And then come ride them on weekends and stuff. So I grew up like right next to horses. They were around all the time. But I never got to ride those, because they were someone’s like private, luxury item. 

Later, when I was a kid at camp (like we talked about last episode), I did learn to ride. We went for two or three or five-day camping trips, riding horses all over Colorado. I was probably 12 years old, and I just can’t believe how lucky I was that I got to do that. Man I gotta write a story about that camp, one of these days. 

Anyway, let’s get to the story. It’s called “Brave,” and it has nothing to do with the animated movie. Sorry, nobody turns into a bear.

—-------------

“Careful now,” said Dad. “Don’t show him your fingers. He might think they’re little carrots and take a bite.” 

Cassandra froze, terrified. “It’s OK,” the teacher said. “Just be careful. Turn your hand around and let him smell the back of it. Like with a dog.” Cassandra got a little closer. The horse was enormous, and it smelled like sweat and dust and grass. She took another step towards it and held out her hand.

The horse leaned its head in and sniffed her. Its breath was so loud! When it opened its mouth, Cassandra could hear the sound of its lips separating. When the mouth closed again, she could actually hear its teeth bang together. It was like hearing someone breathe or talk right next to your ear, except it wasn’t even that close!

Cassandra knew a lot about horses. She had a few books and a lot of youtube channels on her mom’s phone. She knew about bridles and saddles and she knew how to brush a horse’s fur after a ride. She knew that you start from the front and go to the back, never the other way. She knew how much horses love being brushed. But she didn’t know until today what they smell like. And she didn’t know how noisy they were.

The horse didn’t bite her. It breathed in and out over her hand until it decided she didn’t have any food, so it put its head down and searched the dusty floor for something to eat. Cassie reached up further and put her hand on its shoulder. The muscles moved under its skin. She was mesmerized. 

“You wanna get up in the saddle?” asked the teacher. Cassie was pretty sure her name was Sarah. She shook her head. Dad frowned.

“Why not?”

“You said it’s gonna bite my fingers off.”

“Well, no, I said you gotta be careful. Are you scared?”

That was a difficult question to answer. Cassie thought about it for a minute. “Yes.”

“Well, what do we always say about being scared?”

They said it together. “You can’t be brave if you’re not afraid.”

Cassie nodded at this, and then reached up to the teacher. Sarah grabbed her under the armpits and lifted her into the saddle. This was very high up indeed. She was taller than the teacher. She was the biggest.

When the teacher patted the horse on the neck, it started to walk. Cassie couldn’t believe it. Her whole body leaned right, then left, as the horse put one foot in front of the other and made a slow circle of the barn. 

“Faster,” said Cassie. Her Dad looked up from his phone in alarm. 

“Sweetheart, there ain’t no need to go faster. You just got up on the damn thing.”

The teacher agreed with her Dad. She wanted her to go slow. Everyone wanted her to go slow, but Cassie knew a lot about horses.She knew how to make them go fast. So she raised her little hand up high, shouted, “YAA,” and got ready to slap the horse on its neck, until she felt Sarah gently but firmly holding her arm. Sarah was shaking her head and she looked very serious.

The horse did nothing. It just kept walking slowly along like nothing had happened. But now Dad had started walking towards them, yelling and waving his phone around. “Now, Cassie what did I just say to you? You can’t go around hitting a horse! I paid a lot of money for these lessons and you can’t just go off and whack these things. They’re very intelligent and beautiful creatures, Cassie, and they-” 

and that’s when Dad tripped on something. 

Maybe it was a rock or a piece of wood in the dust of the riding ring. But Dad tripped and fell, and when he fell, he made a lot of noise. His phone flew through the air, past Cassie’s face and it hit the horse right behind its left ear. 

The horse made a surprised noise. Cassie knew that noise from youtube, but this was so much louder. She could feel it in her chest. Then the horse stood up on on its two back feet. Cassie leaned forward and wrapped her hands around the horse’s neck. The horse brought its two front feet back down with a crash. Dust flew up around Cassie and she couldn’t see. 

Then the horse started running. It ran a full circle around the barn, and then another. Cassie held on to its mane, crying and screaming. Every galloping step threw her body into the air and every time she came crashing back down onto the saddle. She held on until she couldn’t feel her fingers any more. It seemed like a thousand years before the horse slowed down and finally stopped.

Sarah the teacher and Dad arrived at the same time. Both breathing heavily and asking her if she was ok. Cassie just cried and cried and cried. Sarah held the horse while Dad pulled Cassie down and held her until she calmed down. 

“I wanna get back on,” she said, as soon as she had blown her nose and wiped her tears. “I wanna get back on.”

“No way,” said her Dad. “Your momma’s already gonna kill me when she hears about this. If you get back on that thing, and then something else bad happens, it’s gonna be the end of ol Robbie Nash. She’ll kill me deader than a-”

“Are you afraid?”

“Hell yes, I’m afraid! I’m afraid you’re gonna get hurt and then I’m gonna get even more hurt, by your mom!”

“Well,” said Cassie, very seriously, “What did you tell me about being afraid?”

“You can’t be brave unless you’re afraid.” They said it together.

“Man, you’re not supposed to turn those things around on me like that. You know? I’m supposed to be teaching you lessons, kid.”

“So get on with me. We’ll both ride.”

Dad just stood there, staring at her for a minute. 

“Yeah ok, we’ll both ride. Sure no big deal. We’ll just both go for a little pony ride.”

“Yeah.” She squeezed his hand.

“Yeah.”

—

What do you think? Was Cassandra brave? Could you be that brave? You remember Cassie, and Robbie, from our other stories. At least Robbie is spending this weekend with his family, right? But I thought he was an actor in a play. Aren’t theater actors like, really busy on weekends? Hmmmmm weird. I guess we will have to check back in on that play. Maybe things aren’t going too well? 

Anyway let’s get to the tiny lessons.

The Big Picture has lots of running horses in it, that’s for sure. 

I’d like to know why you think that Cassie was NOT afraid at the end, but Robbie was. Take a minute and go back and think about it. If you’re a parent you already know. It’s because kids are dumb. I mean, Cassie is a smart kid, but kids have no real sense of danger. Not like adults do. And Robbie, he just saw his kid almost die, because he did a stupid thing. Every parent knows that fear. I sure do. 

And the Dictionary Disco? Feel like a boogie?

Both of our vocabulary words today are horse vocabulary. So kind of specialized, but not too crazy. And they’re both actually kinda useful for people, too. 

So a mane is the horse’s hair. The long skinny line of hair that goes down its neck. That’s the mane. A male lion also has a mane. And so you could say that a person has a mane of hair, if it’s kind of wild looking and…animalistic.

Similarly, a gallop is a special kind of running that horses do. You know, you’ve seen an Indiana Jones movie. When the horses go really really fast, they are galloping. Technically it’s when they go so fast that all four feet come off the ground at once. But again you can use it for people. When someone is running like a horse? Say they’re galloping. It sounds better. 

And the melody moment?

Let’s talk about plosives. I think we already did, but that was almost a year ago, so it’s ok. Plosives are wild. Sounds like explode, right? Because that’s what you do. You make a little explosion with your lips. A little POP of air comes out. So for p and t and k, and their voiced friends, B and D and G, you gotta make a little bit of air shoot out. You can test it. Just put your hand in front of your mouth and try it. Say P, B whatever. If you can literally feel the little explosion on your hand,  you’re doing it right!

Let’s do the credits!

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 15 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan. 

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 01:50 and the tiny lessons begin at 11:40

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Before we get started, I’d like to ask you a favor. If you’re enjoying the show, and you think it’s helping you learn, please go tell someone about it. The best thing you can do for a podcast is to share it with someone who might enjoy it. Thank you so much!

Today’s story is about camping. Do you go camping? I used to go a lot. But this year, since I moved to Chiba, I haven’t been yet. I really miss it. When I was a kid, I went to summer camp every year and it was amazing. Actually, I should make that one of the forty Stories. Hey, good idea!

Anyway, this story is called “Shelter,” and it’s about how frustrating it is to put up a tent. And some other stuff.

—---

The sky was orange and the clouds were pink. The sun’s reflection was sparkling in the lake, and my father was swearing quietly. “Dammit,” he said. “I told you, Evan. I told you we had to leave earlier. Now we’re gonna have to set up the tent in the dark.” His t-shirt was already soaked in sweat. 

We arrived in front of the main office, and the car skidded a bit in the dirt. Dad sat very still for a moment. Then he slowly took his hands off the steering wheel. His fingers were white. He looked around at all the campsites full of happy families, and took a deep breath. “At least we have a reservation. Come on.” 

We dragged all our gear past rows and rows of brightly-colored tents and fantastic barbecue smells. I could barely see over the bag of groceries in my arms , and I almost tripped over running, screaming kids. Pop music thudded from a speaker somewhere. Dad frowned and whispered to me, “Maybe other people don’t wanna listen to your crappy music, guys. Know what I mean, Evan?” I liked that song, but I didn’t say anything.

Finally, we came crashing into the last empty campsite. We threw all the equipment down and stood there for a moment sweating and breathing hard in the thick summer air. We must have looked pretty funny, because our neighbor smiled at us when he waved. This guy didn’t even have a tent, just a fancy-looking hammock hanging between two trees.  He was sitting on his little cooler, smoking a cigarette and messing with his fire. 

  “Come on, Evan,” said Dad. “Let’s get this stupid tent up.” He stared at me, waiting for something. “The poles!” I found the bag of poles and tried to get one out. “Just dump them all out. Come on, man. We have to hurry. Everyone else is already eating. Look, just hold the pole. Just hold it right there, while I fix it on this side. It’s not that hard.” 

He was sitting on the ground cross legged, trying to fit his end of the pole into the little loop at the corner of the tent and making little noises. It was hot and he pulled on the pole really hard and I lost my grip on my side of it. “Come on, buddy! What are you even doing to me here? Just hold it steady so we can get this thing up, and then we can eat!”

“I don’t know how to do this, Dad,” I told him.  “You and mom always set up the tent.” As soon as I mentioned Mom, his face changed. His eyes closed, and his jaw got very hard. He let go of the pole, which flopped away from him. He stopped messing with the pole and looked up at me.  “And now she’s not here any more, is she? So you and me gotta get it done. So just, like, get on my team for one minute here, you know?” 

Once the tent was up, we had to start the bbq in the dark. Dad forgot to bring a lighter so he sent me out to ask one of our neighbors.  I walked over to the single guy next door. He was smoking and messing around with the wood in his little grill. A half-empty bottle of whiskey was sitting on the ground next to his camp chair. 

“Hi, sir, sorry to bother you. Do you have a lighter? My dad forgot to bring one.” The guy reached into a few different pockets before he pulled out an old, beaten-up zippo. He handed it to me without looking up from his fire. From behind me, I could hear my Dad say a truly horrible word, pause, then say it again, louder. I think he was talking to a chair.

“Seems like he’s forgotten a lot of stuff,” said the guy. He had an accent like he was from the South. 

“Mom used to do a lot of the packing. Actually, she and my big sister used to do most of the stuff when we went camping. Dad really just drove and then drank a lot of beer.”

“And where’s everyone tonight?”

“Well, Mom moved in with her boyfriend, Sarah’s in college, and Alexander is staying at Mom’s house. So like, Dad is trying to do things like the old days, but it’s just the two of us.” I looked around at his campsite. “Do you have a family?” 

“Yeah, but they’re not invited. This is my time,” said the guy. “I come out here, I do a little fishing, eat what I catch, and I drink that whole bottle of whiskey by myself. I don’t have to do anything for anyone, and I don’t have to listen to anybody’s nonsense. I just do what I like for two days.”

“My Dad quit drinking. He thought Mom would come back to him if he quit, but it was too late. She’d already met Brandon.”

“Sounds like he’s kind of a nut even when he’s sober. It’s probably for the best he quit.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely easier this way. Anyway, thank you for the lighter.  I promise I’ll bring it back. My name is Evan.”

“No problem,” said the man. “My name’s Robbie.”

I thanked Robbie and started walking back to our camp. Dad had finished setting up the campsite and was standing with his hands on his hips, breathing heavily as he looked over his work. “Did you get it?” he asked.

I showed him the zippo. “Yeah. He’s a really nice guy.”

“More like a real weirdo,” said Dad. “Who the hell goes camping by themselves? The whole point of camping is to be with friends and family, you know?”

“I think maybe his home life isn’t so great.”

“That’s so sad,” said Dad. “Why doesn’t he just leave them if it’s so bad?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, and changed the subject. “What do we need to do to start this fire?”

—---

So that’s my camping story. I actually wrote that one last summer after a camping trip. It’s really strange to read it now, and see how much my writing style has changed in the last year. And, the Robbie character in this story, he’s based on a real guy I saw last year. This guy was doing exactly what Robbie does in this story. He was sleeping in a hammock, fishing, and drinking all by himself. And I wondered: does this guy have a family? What do they think about him camping by himself on the weekend? I mean we’ve met Robbie and we’ve met his family before. How do Kim and Cassandra feel about this?

Anyway, how about some tiny lessons?

The Big Picture is, I guess, a picture of a lake?

Here’s a question for you: why does Sam, Mr. Lewis, the dad, get so angry about everything? The answer is there, I think, but kinda between the lines. So maybe pause and think about it. I think the Dad is angry because his whole family has changed. And he’s really sad about it. And a lot of men, they don’t know how to be sad. They think it’s not ok to be sad. So they replace sadness with anger.

How about a dance at the Dictionary Disco?

Our first vocabulary word today is: crappy. Crap is a slang way of saying, well, poo. So if you say that something is crappy, you’re saying it’s like…poop. It’s not a swear word exactly. You can say it on television. Actually it’s kind of a more polite way of saying another word, which I’m not gonna say here, because this is kind of a family-friendly show. 

The second word is: Flopped. This is a great word. It just means to fall down. But it’s like a very specific kind of falling. Kind of loose and undignified. Like if you’re very tired, you could flop down into a chair. But also, a movie that loses money? That’s a flop. It flopped. Kind of makes sense, right?

And finally, a lovely melody moment. 

I want to talk about….biting your lip. Yes. Biting your lower lip. Like in “Evan” or “Flopped” the V and F sounds, those are called labiodental sounds. Labio means lips and dental means teeth. So literally the name of the sound is lips on teeth. In order to make them correctly, you’ve gotta touch your bottom lip with your top front teeth. So, if you’re saying Evan, or Flopped and you’re not biting your lower lip….bite harder!

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 14(!) of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan. 

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 02:40 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:10

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

 Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

So, let’s start with some notes! I got some feedback on the last episode. First of all, I made a mistake with someone’s name, which made the whole story very hard to understand. Sorry! I fixed it now. Second, I’ve heard that sometimes it’s hard to know when we have changed scenes. So I have made up a new sound. It sounds like this: (ping) That’s how you know that some time has passed between the last scene and the new one. 

Now! This is a story about Dungeons and Dragons, or DnD. Do you know what that is? Do you play? I do. But if you don’t, don’t worry. The story’s not really about playing the game. Just go watch the first episode of Stranger Things and you’ll understand everything you need to. It’s more about what it means to be a nerd. Because, well, that has changed a lot over the years. These days, being a nerd is cool. But when I was a kid, it really, really wasn’t. And there are still a lot of people who are pretty upset about those old days and…well, I’m giving away the ending. So, let’s just listen! 

This story is named after my favorite episode of the TV show Community: It’s called….Advanced Dungeons and Dragons!

“If Alexander doesn’t get here in the next ten seconds, we’re starting without him,” said Frankie. The kids around the table all nodded. 

“Three, two, one. OK, screw him. Let’s go around the table and introduce our characters. Babe?”

Mandy looked up from her phone and said, “I’m, uh, Kai Highfeather, a wood elf wizard.”

“Cool! Corey?”

Lonnegan said “My name is Bimble Bogwater. I’m a halfling sorcerer.“ He stopped and stared at the floor as everyone started laughing. 

“A halfling?” gasped Finn. “You’re a halfling?” 

“What’s funny about that?” 

“Dude, you’re like, eight feet tall. Why don’t you play an orc?”

Lonnegan’s face turned red. “I dunno, I thought that like, the whole point of the game is we can be anything.”

Frankie put out his hands. “You guys. You guys! Come on! Let him be a halfling. If he-“ and now he was interrupted by the sound of the door banging open. 

Everyone looked up the stairs to see Alexander standing in the doorway. His face was bright red and he was completely out of breath. He was holding a large book to his chest. 

“YOOOOO!” He shouted. “You guys gotta see this. You GOTTA see this.” He jumped down the stairs two at a time, and slammed the book onto the table. Dice and pencils fell on the floor.

“Dude, calm down!” said Frankie.

“Don’t worry about that, dude. Look at this.” He pulled the book open and showed it to everyone. It was a photo of three boys, posing in the school library. This was their high school library! But the fashion was all wrong. It was at least twenty years ago. The kids in the photo were holding up books with dragons and wizards on them. 

“The names,” said Alexander. “Look at the names.”

They all leaned in to stare at the tiny names under the picture. 

Samuel Lewis

“Dude,” whispered Frankie. “Your dad…was the leader of the high school Dungeons and Dragons club?

———

The next day, Frankie stayed at school after the last bell. He walked down the long, boring hallways to the faculty area, and found Mr. Lewis’ office. He knocked politely on the door. 

“Come in.”

Mr. Lewis was at his desk, grading papers. 

“Oh, young Mister Gallagher. What can I do for you today?”

“Well, actually, I had a question for you, Mr. Lewis. See, um, Alexander and I, we’re in a kind of gaming group together, and uh, well, he found this yearbook, in the library, from 1999.”

Mr. Lewis put his pencil down. “Yes?”

“Well, uh yeah. So, it says that you were in the DnD club all four years of high school. Like, at this high school.”

Mr. Lewis leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “And?”

“And…is it true? Were you a gamer?” 

Mr. Lewis winced and breathed in sharply at that word. 

“Back in the nineties, Mister Gallagher, a ‘gamer’ was not something you wanted to be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My friends and I got beaten up almost every day for playing games. ”

“Like, bullied?”

“Yes. In the nineties, the kids who were into computers, or comic books, or theater were outcasts. Freaks! We were afraid of athletes like you. You would lock us in our lockers or stuff us into trash cans! And oh my god, if anybody ever found out that a baseball star like Frankie Gallagher was playing Dungeons and Dragons?? It would be an enormous scandal!”

Frankie just stared at him. 

“So, Mister Lewis, Alexander and I were kind of wondering…if we started a DnD club, here at school, next year, would you be our faculty sponsor?”

“Absolutely not. I don’t mind that Alexander wants to play. That’s his business. But I have spent the last twenty years building up a reputation as a serious educator and a serious person around this school. Dungeons and Dragons is not a serious activity. Games are just…for fun.”

Frankie tried to object. “Mr. Lewis, things are different now. There are people whose whole job is just playing DnD on YouTube. It’s cool to play DnD! And we have a lot of fun playing with your son. He’s a really good player! He’s the cleric, and we can always count on him to heal us when we do something stupid. He’s a really good kid, sir.”

Mr. Lewis frowned at Frankie. “I’m afraid I’m very busy, Mr. Gallagher. Say hello to your brother for me.”

Frankie closed the door quietly behind him as he left.

——

“OK,” said Frankie. “Welcome back to Dungeons and Dragons! Does anyone want to remind us what happened last week?”

Lonnegan said, “Alexander found out that his dad used to play DnD in the 90’s, and so you asked his dad to sponsor our club for next year, but he said no.”

Alexander sank further into his seat. He looked like he was going to cry.

Frankie put his head in his hands.

“Damnit Corey, not that. I meant in the game.”

“Oh. Sorry, Frankie. Well, we went to the fairy lands and we agreed to find a magic sword for the Queen of Summer, but then we got attacked by a bunch of mimics disguised as cute teddy bears. Finn and Mandy and I were almost killed, but Alexander managed to save us by casting Mass Healing Word. Then the whole army of evil teddy bears turned towards Alexander and jumped on him. He was going to roll for-“

Again the door at the top of the stairs banged open. 

There, standing in the light from the kitchen, was Mr. Lewis. He was holding at least a dozen books in his arms, his hair was a mess and he had a huge smile on his face. 

“What edition do you kids play?”

Alexander stood up out of his chair. “Fifth edition,” he said. “They haven’t released the new one yet.”

Mr. Lewis walked carefully down the stairs. “Get rid of that crap! I’m gonna teach you about the real deal! Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. You kids wanna learn about DnD, I’m gonna teach you how to really play!”

The kids quickly cleared the table off. Mr. Lewis dropped the huge stack of books on the table, turned to his son and said, “Alexander, tell me about your character."

So, I think you should know something. Aside from Frankie, every single person in this story is someone we’ve met before. We have sort of finished the first act of Forty Stories. We’ve met almost all of the characters. Now, I’m gonna start revealing how they all know each other, and how they are related to each other. So if you want to try and keep up, go back to some old episodes and try to figure out who is who. They’re all in there somewhere. If they haven’t been a main character yet, they will be!

Let’s do some tiny lessons!

For the big picture tonight, let’s talk about nerds. Specifically, I want you to answer, why does Sam, Mr. Lewis, hate being a nerd or a gamer so much? Go back and check. I think he has a lot of shame from his time in high school. That happens to people. When you hear again and again that you should feel bad about who you are, even if you hear it from bad people, you kind of start to believe it. So let me tell you: never be ashamed of who you are!

How about the Dictionary Disco? 

The first word for tonight is: wince. You know when you’re really embarrased? Or when you have a really bad headache? You know that face you make? Where you close your eyes and kind of squish your whole face together? That’s a wince. You’re…wincing.

And the second vocabulary word is: faculty. The faculty at a school are the staff members who teach there. And the faculty area is the place where they can hang out and drink coffee, or have their offices. I’m the faculty at my university. Very fancy!

And finally, let’s share a melody moment. I love this phrase: “back in the nineties” I’ll say it again. Back in the nineties. (sounds) You hear that? There’s intonation there. But listen to that “in the’ It’s not Back. In. The. Nineties. It’s BackunthuhNinedies. IN? No. un. THEEE? Noooo. Thuh. NineTies? Nooooooooo. That’s a D sound. NineDies. Why? Like always, it’s because it’s easier to say. So try it. Say “Back in the Nineties.” but say it……Melodically. 

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 13(!) of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan. 

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at XXXX and the tiny lessons begin at XXXX

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Today’s story is about gossip and scandal, and maybe some romance. In a retirement village. You know, an old folk’s home. Now you might think, “those people are old! They don’t do romance!” And let me tell you, that is not true. If you don’t believe me, just go ask google. Do a search, in English or in your first language about old people romances. But, uh. You have been warned. Old people get WILD.

Now, anyway, here’s my story about two best friends and their adventures in the retirement village. It’s called…..”Scandalous.”

—- 

"Karen," whispered Susan, in her best conspiracy voice, "has got a boyfriend."

"Karen who?" replied Dominic. He leaned in until Susan could smell the coffee on his breath . 

"Karen Friedlander. From Greenfield. She lives down the hall from me."

"How do you know?" 

"Well, you know how I don't sleep well anymore? I wake up at least twice a night to go to the bathroom, and then it takes me a long time to get back to sleep. Sometimes I'm laying there for an hour, just staring at the ceiling."

"I've been listening to podcasts. Do you know about podcasts? It really helps you fall asleep. You should-"

"Don't interrupt me, Dom. Now, where was I? Ah yes so last night, I heard him. It must have been two o'clock in the morning, and I heard him sneaking down the hall."

"Sneaking?"

"Yes, sneaking. Like tiptoeing. Like, not walking the way a security guard walks."

"So you heard someone walking-"

"Sneaking-"

"Sneaking in the hall, and you think that means Karen has a boyfriend?" Dominic leaned back, unimpressed. He took another sip of coffee.

"No!" Susan leaned in to him now. She put her hand on his knee. "I thought it was strange, because who goes walking around in here at two a.m? But then Karen opened her door. I know it was hers, because Jody's apartment is right next to mine, and it definitely wasn't that one. 

"What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything. But whoever it was, he went inside. There was no more sneaking around. I stayed up almost another hour, but I didn't hear anything."

"Well," Dominic leaned back, scratching his chin. He had shaved that morning, but had missed a few bits here and there. "Karen's got a boyfriend. Or. How do we know it's even a BOYfriend?"

Susan leaned back, her hand on her heart. 

"You think....you think....no..."

"I mean, why not? It's the twenty-first century, after all. Anything is possible. And people get so lonely around here."

"That would be....the biggest thing that has ever happened here. If we could find out who it is..."

"Everyone would come to us for details. We could be the king and queen of Shady Acres." Dominic touched his finger to his lips, and stared into the distance. "We need a plan."

 -----

"This is a stupid plan," whispered Susan into her phone. 

"I know it is, Susan, but it's the best we've got."

She sighed, set the phone to 'speaker' and put it down in her lap. "Who do you think it is?". 

"I really don't know. It could be anybody..." he waited a moment. "Maybe it's Betty."

"You really think it's a woman?"

"I hope so! It would be such a delicious scandal."

 "You old hound dog. Why Betty?"

"Well, ever since her husband died, the two of them have been spending a lot of time together."

"Of course they have. Betty's lonely. And so's Karen.

"Mmm-hmmm"

"Quit it. And she's only sixty-seven or whatever. I wish my Jim had died when I was still young and bouncy like she is."

"Well, you should have married a millionaire twice your age, like Karen did. Then you could have just inherited everything and had some fun before you got your hips replaced!"

"Shhhh! I hear someone coming." Susan got slowly out of her chair, muted her phone and placed it on the table next to the door. She looked out the peephole. 

"False alarm," she said. "It's just Jose from the front desk." 

She sat back down in her chair by the door and yawned. 

"Dominic?"

"Yes, Karen?"

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

"Well, my dear. At my age, in a place like this, there's not many fish in the sea, if you catch my drift. Most gentlemen pass on early, and those that remain....Well, they're not exactly the open minded type."

"More like, they're a bunch of conservative old creeps." She yawned again. 

"They're not so bad. They're just rich old white men who don't have long to live. A final affair with a...uh....'confirmed bachelor' like me would NOT be an appropriate end to Grandpa's story. Heck, their kids might put them into D house if they found out. And you know what happens in D house."

Susan felt her eyelids closing. She fought to keep them open, but it was after midnight. Maybe if she just rested them for a moment.

"Nothing happens in D house. Nothing happens and nothing keeps on happening and then you die."

------- 

When the phone vibrated in her lap, she woke up suddenly. Her head hit the door at the same moment that the phone hit the ground. How long had she been asleep? Had she missed the boyfriend? One hand patted around on the floor looking for the phone, while the other searched for her glasses. 

It was 12:56 in the morning. She'd been asleep for almost an hour! She was trying to figure out who had called her when she heard it outside.

The sound of sneaking. 

Someone was sneaking down the hallway. But to be honest, they weren't being very sneaky at all. 

It took a few seconds, but Susan finally found her glasses. She looked out the peephole while she rubbed the back of her head. 

She was too late. She could still hear the boyfriend sneaking badly down the hall, but he - or she - had already passed Susan's door. She couldn't see who it was!

She took a deep breath and turned the doorknob as quietly as she could. She eased the door open, inch by inch, afraid to even breathe. She got her head out the door, then one shoulder, then a leg. She could see into the hall. 

The boyfriend was a woman. A bizarre woman. A woman wrapped in so many scarves and shawls that Susan couldn't see anything about her. It definitely wasn't Betty. Betty had far too much style to ever dress like that, even at one AM. No, this person was doing their best to hide their identity. To disguise their face, and even their body. And they were right in front of Karen's door when it opened. 

Karen walked into the hallway in her flannel pajamas, her hair in curlers, and stared confused at the "boyfriend," who froze stiff and stared right back at her. 

"Uh," stammered the boyfriend. "Hey..baby?"

Susan said, "Dominic?"

Karen screamed.

Dominic ran straight to Susan, pushed past her and entered the apartment. The two of them fell against the wall as he locked the bolt on the door. In the hallway, they could hear other doors opening, sleepy retirees asking each other what the hell was going on at this hour, and Karen screaming that Dominic had lost his mind. 

“Well, what in the world do you think you’re doing?” Susan leaned on her chair and stared at him.

“I’m sorry, Susan! I couldn’t resist! It was just too delicious of a scandal. I thought that if I could convince you that Karen Friedlander had a girlfriend, then you’d convince everyone else. And you and I, we’d be the king and queen of the gossip kingdom!

Susan patted him on top of his bald head. 

“Oh, Dominic. You sweet, simple man. You’re gonna get your scandal, all right. You’re gonna be the biggest thing that ever happened around here.”

—-

Well so. How about that? Was that the ending you were expecting? Because I have to tell you, that was not the ending I had in mind when I started writing the story. But like I said before, these stories just kind of have a mind of their own. They do what they want. And this one got pretty weird. But I thought it was funny. Did you?

So before we go to the lessons, I have a little announcement. I’ve decided that I’m gonna keep doing shows every two weeks. I would prefer to do them every week, but I think it’s just too much pressure for me to write and record a new story every single week. Two weeks gives me enough time to think of something really original and interesting. So, maybe some day in the future, if I can get a LOT of stories written, I’ll go back to every week. But for now, it’s got to be every two weeks. Thank you for understanding. 

Anyway, how about some tiny lessons?

The Big Picture is, well, scandalous!

What was Dominic’s plan? WHat in the world was he thinking? Go back to the story or the transcript and answer it for yourself I’ll wait. He was thinking that if he dressed like a lady, and made sure Susan saw this mysterious lady going to Karen’s room, then Susan would gossip about it. And what amazing gossip that would be! Karen Friedlander has a girlfriend?? And Nobody knows who it is?? Oh my!

Now, be careful you don’t break your hip at the Dictionary Disco!

The first word for today is…peephole. That’s the little circle in the middle of your door that you can look out, to see who’s ringing the bell. It’s a hole that you peep through. A peephole!

And the second word is bachelor. A bachelor is a word for a single man. Easy. But what about “confirmed bachelor?” That’s an old phrase. Something that my parents or even their parents would say. Someone as old as the people in this story. And it means…gay. Right? You’re confirmed single. You’ll never get married to a woman. It was a polite way to say gay, back when gay was not a polite thing to say. 

And finally, let’s relax and have a Melody Moment. 

More intonation today. Listen to the way I said, “mmm-hmmm.” Here’s the thing. This is not words. It’s ONLY intonation. It’s just like a musical note. But it has a very specific meaning. It means, “I know that they’re lonely. And you know it too. And actually, i know that you can imagine those two becoming a couple, just as easily as I can imagine it. So stop playing games, you know they could be a couple.” Something like that. So that’s forty-two words, compacted into two musical notes. Intonation is POWERFUL.

 Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode12 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 01:40 and the tiny lessons begin at 14:00

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Today it’s another sports story. It’s interesting, because I can write these stories about anything I want. And I’m not really a sports guy. But I did play a lot of sports when I was a child, and it seems like a lot of these stories are about being young. But I can tell you this: i love baseball. It’s my favorite sport to watch and to play. Some people think it’s boring, but I just love it. I love the rhythm of it. It relaxes me. 

This story, though. Not very relaxing. Why? You’ll have to listen to find out. 

The name of this story is Play Ball

“Oh come on,” said Coach Bob. “Ump, you’ve gotta be kidding me. That kid’s like six feet tall!”

Finn and the other players gathered in their dugout and whispered to each other as their coach walked angrily to meet the umpire near home plate. The two grown-ups spoke quietly, but urgently. Coach Bob was waving his hands around as he talked, becoming more and more upset, as the umpire tried to calm him down. Finally they calledthe other coach, who walked slowly over, his hands on his hips. 

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” one of the boys asked Finn. 

“No, but I’ll bet he’s swearing a lot.”

The adults kept arguing for a few minutes. Bob was now pointing at the gigantic player on the other team and shouting at the other coach. Finn could see the sweat stains forming under his armpits as he waved his cap around. Finally, Bob turned and stomped back to his team. His face was purple. He was holding his cap so tightly in one hand that he’d bent the brim. 

“Well, boys. I don’t know what to tell you. That kid’s twelve. His parents had to show his birth certificate at the beginning of the season. His name is Lonnegan, and he’s probably gonna end up playing in the Major Leagues. 

“But coach,” someone said, “He’s got a mustache!”

“I know he’s got a moustache, Pendleton. I know he’s a monster. But he’s in sixth grade, same as you, and you’re gonna have to play against that monster. Now, do you have anything else you wanna complain about?”

The kids all looked at each other, and then at their feet. 

“Oh yeah, and he’s the pitcher. So, good luck. Now bring it in here, and let’s work on a strategy to win this game.”

From the diamond, the boys heard the umpire shout

“Play Ball!"

---

By the fourth inning, the score was already eight to one. Finn leaned heavily on the back wall of the dugout and watched Lonnegan strike out his teammates.  

Pendleton was walking back from home plate. Maybe he was crying. It was Finn's turn at bat. Two outs. Nobody on base. All alone against the monster. He stood in the batter's box. He tapped his bat against his shoes, like the pros do on TV. He got into his stance. 

Lonnegan shifted his weight back, then forward. Finn didn't even see the ball come in, but he heard it hit the catcher's mitt with a loud leather slap. 

"Ball one!" screamed the umpire. 

Finn realized that his eyes were closed. He opened them just in time to see Lonnegan throw the next pitch. 

Another ball, low this time. Two-and-oh. 

Another. Three balls, no strikes. He heard Coach Bob shout, "He's getting tired, Finn! Knock it outta the park!"

More than anything else in the world, Finn wanted to be somewhere else. Everyone was watching him, staring at him. Cheering. Or shouting? He couldn't tell. The sun was in his eyes. His helmet was too loose.

A strike this time. Three-and-one. Coach Bob screaming, "Swing, kid! Swing! It's your time, Finn!"

Another strike. Full count. 

All he had to do was wait. Don't swing. Don't step out of the batter's box. Just hold this pose, with the bat up and back. Look ready, and let this enormous kid throw the ball. Whatever happened, it would all be over soon. 

-----

Everything was red and yellow and orange. Where was he? Why couldn't he see anything? And what in the world was all that noise?

Finn tried to roll over--- He was lying on the ground!

Why was he lying on the ground? It was so dusty. There was dust in his nose and mouth. Why was he eating dust? He should stand up. 

But why was he on the ground?

He rolled onto his side, and the colors exploded. Fireworks and sparklers. Were his eyes closed? Yes, they were. 

OK. So. He was on the ground. In the dust. And his eyes were closed. And every time he moved, the colors exploded behind his eyelids.

So, he needed to open his eyes. 

There was a pile of people. Small people. Kids. That didn't make any sense. Why would a bunch of kids get into a big pile? And why were they all dressed in the same colors? He looked down, and saw that he was wearing the same colors as some of the kids in the pile. Those were his teammates!

He was playing baseball! They were all playing baseball! But you're not supposed to get in a pile when you play baseball.

Adults were running over to the pile and pulling kids out of it. As soon as the boys were out of the pile, though, they started punching each other. The adults tried to step between them, but there were too many kids and not enough parents. 

"Oh my god," thought Finn. "Those kids are really bad at fighting." But, of course, you're not supposed to fight either when you play baseball.

Unless.

Unless it's a bench-clearning brawl. Like on TV. 

But that only happens when someone gets hit by a pitch.

Who got hit? It must have been really bad, if everyone on both teams was fighting like this. 

A shadow fell over Finn as Coach Bob squatted down next to him.  "Kid? Kid, can you hear me?"

"'Course I can hear you," said Finn. "But I've got dust in my mouth." He tried to get up, but Coach Bob held him down.

"Don't move, kid. There's an ambulance coming."

Finn was very confused by that. "It's just some dust, coach. I don't need an ambulance."

-----

The ambulance was going incredibly fast. Finn was strapped to the stretcher, and he couldn’t move his head, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Lonnegan sitting next to him. The monster’s face was all puffy and bruised. He was saying something, but Finn couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the sirens. 

He stared at Lonnegan. The monster was crying. He was crying and wiping away his nose with his uniform sleeve. 

Finn reached out and patted around until he found the other boy’s hand. It was sticky with tears and probably some blood. He held it tightly until they arrived at the hospital.  

Wow, so how was that? A little scary? Do you think that Finn’s gonna be OK? How about Lonnegan? I can tell you that when I started writing that story, I wasn’t expecting it to get so..uh…violent. But the thing is, I don’t actually have a lot of control over these stories. It’s hard to explain, but I just let them write themselves, if that makes any sense. So I was writing the story, and i just knew, oh yeah, Finn’s gonna get hit in the head by a pitch. It HAS to happen that way. And if I think “No, I don’t want Finn to get hurt,” and I change the story, it won’t work any more. It won’t sound right. Does that make sense?

Anyway, kind of a scary one. But I think Finn's gonna be fine. And I hope we will see these guys again soon. 

How about some tiny lessons?

First there’s a Big Fight in the Big Picture?

Why do you think that Lonnegan was crying at the end? These days, the Big Picture questions are really more about your opinion, not about finding the specific answer. But I think I put some clues in there. Go back and check. He’s crying because he’s a twelve-year-old boy who nearly killed another little boy by accident, and now he’s scared. He’s not a monster. He’s just a kid. 

And the Dictionary Disco? Is it rockin tonight?

The first vocabulary word is….sparkler. I bet you’ve seen a sparkler. They’re those little kind of fireworks that are like a stick you hold in your hand. They don’t shoot off or anything. They just make sparks for a few seconds. So….sparkler!

And the other word is “pile” as in a pile of kids, fighting. A pile is just a bunch of stuff all kind of stacked on top of other stuff. Like in the fall, when you rake up all the fallen leaves, you make a pile. Or if you’re a messy person, you might have piles of laundry all over your house. So it was like a messy hill of kids, all fighting. 

Maybe a Melody Moment will relax everyone. 

So, the third act of this story has some really interesting intonation stuff. Because there are a lot of different emotions happening. Finn is confused, at first. He just got hit in the head. So there are a lot of questions? Where the intonation goes up. Then he starts to make decisions. Like he needs to open his eyes. And the intonation goes down. Then he has some surprises. And the intonation kind of spikes in the middle. What other emotions can you identify in that section, and what does the intonation sound like?

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode11 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 02:25 and the tiny lessons begin at 15:02

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

And welcome to my new studio in Chiba, outside Tokyo. Do I sound a little different? I’m recording in a new studio, but with all the same gear. I hope it sounds good!

Tonight’s story is a flashback. We are going all the way back to 2001, in Charleston, South Carolina. Why? Because that’s where I was in 2001. And what was I doing? Pretty much the same thing these people in this story are doing. Going to college. Acting badly. You know. So, like all my stories, none of these events actually happened to ME. But maybe I was there Maybe I was one of the other people at the party, in the backyard of a fraternity house.

You might want to google that before you begin. Try “College of Charleston Fraternity Houses,” on Google Images. It will give you a pretty good idea of where this story takes place. And honestly, the architecture is pretty awesome. Check it out. 

The name of this story is…Two Thousand and One.

“Hey,” says Sam. “How you doing tonight?”

The girl looks up at him and pretends to be surprised. Sam sees a thin line of beer on her upper lip as she lowers her red plastic cup long enough to reply, 

“Uh, I’m good. Nice party.” She immediately raises the cup back to her lips. 

“This is my place,” says Sam. “Or, like, it’s my fraternity’s place….I live here.”

“Cool,” she says. “I’ve been here a few times.”

“I thought I’d seen you before,” says Sam. 

Sam knows that they are both lying. She is lying because his fraternity has a party nearly every weekend. And this girl has been at almost every single one. She always arrives early and stays close to the keg. She drinks as fast as she can, and doesn’t talk to anyone. As soon as the beer is gone, so is she. He is lying because he knows all this about her. He has been waiting for the right moment to talk to her since at least Christmas.

On the second floor of the fraternity house, a window slides up. One of his brothers screams like a barbarian and drags a huge  pair of speakers out onto the windowsill. Rap beats thunder out. The kids in the back yard cheer and the crowd starts moving to the music. 

“What’s your name?” asks Sam. 

 “I’m Eleanor.”

“Cool,” he says. “You wanna dance with me, Eleanor?”

She looks nervous. “I don’t really know how to dance to this kind of music.”

He reaches out and gently puts his hand on her hip. She lets it rest there. “I don’t really either,” he says. “Let’s give it a try?”

———

Sam sleeps in this room every night, but tonight, when he opens the door with Eleanor behind  him, it is like he is seeing it for the first time. How did it get this bad? He cannot see the floor beneath the collection of dirty laundry, beer cans, textbooks, hamburger wrappers and god knows what other kinds of trash. 

“Sorry,” he tells her. “I really didn’t think that anyone was gonna come up here tonight.” He frowns at the bed - actually just a naked box spring with a mattress sitting on the floor - and sweeps all the clothes off it. He sits down on the mattress and pats the space next to him. 

She stares at him for a moment. She’s going to leave. She’s going to turn right around and walk out the door, and - to be honest - that would be the right thing to do.  No girl would ever stay with him in a room this filthy. What was he thinking?

Slowly, cautiously, she steps over the garbage on the floor, and sits beside him on the bed. Sam’s stomach melts, like broken glass and hot lava. 

“Uh,” he says. “Uh, do you like U2?”

“The band?”

“Yeah.”

“Not really.”

“Oh, uh me neither,” he lies, again. “But they have this one song that I think is like, super-awesome. Do you know, ‘One?’”

She tells him that she’s not sure, and - before she can stop him - he crawls over to the other side of the bed, reaches down and returns holding an acoustic guitar. 

“Wanna hear it?”

She’s smiling at him. He can’t tell what she’s smiling about. Does he look like an idiot? Does she think he’s cool? It’s too late now, anyway. He has to try. He picks out the first chord, and begins to sing. 

He is singing this song - which he knows is the most romantic song in the whole world - and she is just staring at him and smiling.  It’s this tiny little smile just at the corners of her mouth. 

Sam stops the song. 

“I’m sorry, I suck at singing. And, like the song is kinda too high for my vocal range anyway. I’m sorry, I’ll stop.”

She puts her hand on his arm.

“It’s nice. Keep going.”

And…she kisses him. 

————

It’s nearly three am. The party is long over. A couple of his frat brothers have started a little bonfire, and are hanging around it, drinking beer and smoking. Eleanor is the only woman left.

She and Sam are sharing a camping chair, cuddled up together under a blanket. Charleston is still cool at night, this time of year. He speaks quietly into her ear.

“You really  didn’t know that song? It was really big like, ten years ago.” He’s can’t see her face, but he can smell her hair and her perfume. 

“No. We never listened to pop radio growing up.”

“What did you listen to?”

“Classical music. Or Christian talk radio stuff.” He can feel her body getting tense. He changes the subject. 

“Where are you from?”

“Greenville. Or a little bit outside. What about you?” She’s starting to relax again.

“I’m from Rhode Island.”

“Rhode Island? Oh man. If my momma knew I was dating a Yankee, she’d be so upset with me. Like ‘Eleanor, we did not sacrifice and save for you to go to college, just so you could go running around with some boy from Rhode Island.”

Sam can’t stop himself. He says, “So…we’re dating now?”

Her body becomes fully tense. She sits up and turns so that she can look at him. “Oh, I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t really fool around with boys much in high school. It was a really small town, and-“

He kisses her, and asks if she wants to be his girlfriend. 

She says that she does. 

And they stay there, together in that camping chair, and drink warm beer and stare at the fire until the sun starts to come up over the rooftops. 

—----

Hey, so, was that romantic? I wanted to make something romantic. The stories have been kind of dark lately, and I wanted to make something sweet and fun. 

Of course, like always, this story is deeply connected to the other stories. How and why, I’ll let you figure out. But there is a reason we had to go back to 2001 to tell this story. Why it couldn’t happen today in 2023. That’s all the hints I’m gonna give you. 

By the way, we are now one quarter of the way through the big story. How is it going? Are any of the relationships between the characters starting to become clear? If not, just keep listening. I really hope it will all make sense once it’s finished. 

Oh, and I think we are gonna have at least one more skip week, because it’s a holiday next week and I’ll be traveling BACK to Hiroshima to finish clearing out my old house. So the next episode will be May 10th. Thank you for being patient.

Let’s do some tiny lessons. 

The Big Picture is…romantic…

Why does Eleanor kiss Sam? Even in his disgusting bedroom? I don’t just come out and say it in the story, but it’s pretty clear to me. What do you think? Take a minute and think about it. … I think she is really young. They both are. And she’s finally gotten out of her small town, and she’s trying to have some crazy adventures. And he’s kinda sweet. Singing old pop songs to her. 

Do you think they play rap music at the Dictionary Disco?

Our first vocabulary word is…Keg. A Keg is the big metal thing that they serve beer from. It’s supposed to be for bars, but when I was in college, they would have a keg party. Where there’s a keg (or three) in the back of the house, and everyone gets a cup to fill up.

The second vocabulary word is….fraternity. It comes from Latin and means “brotherhood.” But in this case, a fraternity, or “frat” is an organization at universities for boys to join. They call each other their “brothers.” I was never in one, but they did have the biggest parties. 

Finally, let’s listen to the Melody Moment. 

Go back to the paragraph where I’m talking about how they are both lying. Notice the difference between how I say She the first time, and how i say it the second time. “She is lying,” that SHE is really strong and high. After that, it’s way down low. “She always arrives early.” I do the same thing with “He is lying.” Why? Because I said both of them are lying. So I’m separating that paragraph into two parts: First about her lies, then about his. See, I just did it again. Intonation in this case is used as a kind of road sign, to tell you the structure of the sentence or paragraph.

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 10 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Chiba, Japan. 

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 01:43 and the tiny lessons begin at 13:51

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

 Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

Hey so, welcome back everyone. Sorry about the delay, but as you know, I’m in the middle of moving across the country and starting my dream job. So at least for the rest of April, you can expect a story every two weeks, not every week. I’d like to write more, but there’s just no time. 

Also, this is the last story I will record in my studio in Hiroshima. Next weekend, everything will go in a moving van to Chiba, and I will start building my new studio. Very exciting. But also quite sad. I’ve been in this room for four or five years now, and I love it here.

Oh well, on to the story

The name of this story is, “Toxic”

“Okay, so, everyone, this is Paul. He’s going to be working part-time for us, mostly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a little bit about yourself?” 

Paul shifted his weight from foot to foot and coughed a little. He was not prepared for this.

“Uh, yeah. I’m Paul. I’m from Wellesley originally, and actually I grew up going to this shop. I just finished college in California, and now I’m back East. So, uh, I don’t know. I have a boyfriend who lives in the city? My favorite author is…Octavia Butler? I dunno. I’m really excited to be here.”

The staff gave a polite clap and welcomed him. He learned six or seven names and forgot them almost immediately. Finally the manager pointed to a young woman and said, “This is Amber. She’s gonna show you around.”

Amber nodded at Paul. “Come on then. Let’s get going.”

She led him around the store. “This is the kids’ section. Dr. Seuss, whatever. Just keep everything organized, maybe you’ll have to clean up some puke sometimes. Here’s fiction, non-fiction, science-fiction. You said you’ve been here before?”

“Yeah,” replied Paul. “I used to come here when I was a kid.”

“So did I,” said Amber. “I used to come with my mom. It hasn’t really changed that much. It even smells the same.” It smelled like paper and coffee. Like every bookstore smells. 

Amber showed him around the different sections, and introduced him to the computer system. Then she said, “Let’s go down to the basement.”

She led him through a door marked “Staff” and down some stairs. There, surrounded by stacks of cardboard boxes full of books, she stopped him. 

“Listen…Paul?”

“Yeah, Paul.”

“You have to be a little more careful in this place.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You can’t just tell everyone everything about yourself. They’ll use it against you. You have to be a little more secret at first. This whole place is a gossip nightmare. They’re gonna figure out who your boyfriend is. They’re gonna find out everything about you.”

“I mean, who’s ‘they?’”

“Just don’t give them any more personal information. Trust me. Now, here is where we keep stuff that we haven’t put on the shelves yet. So if I ask you to go get some book, it’ll be down here somewhere.”

————————

Two days later, Paul arrived at the bookstore early. The doors were still locked so he stood outside and leaned on the glass. The sun was hidden behind layers of gray spring clouds. A man approached, walking fast and smoking. 

“Hey, dude. You’re Paul, right?”

“Yeah. Ben? I think we met on Tuesday.”

“Yeah, nice to see you.” They shook hands. Ben unlocked the door and they entered. They spent some time checking inventory and restocking the shelves. 

“So where are you from, Paul?”

“Uh, from Wellesley.”

“Oh, so you’re a rich kid?”

“I mean, not like so much. Not compared to the other kids in school, maybe.”

“It’s ok, I don’t really care. I’m from Dover. We’re all rich kids here.”

“Oh, uh, ok.” Paul felt the sweat on his forehead.

“Oh, no. She got to you, didn’t she?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Amber. She told you that we’re all a bunch of gossips and you shouldn’t tell us anything. She said that, right?”

Paul said nothing. 

“Listen, Paul. That girl is totally, completely crazy. She hates men. Hates them. She thinks all men are trying to destroy her. Don’t worry about anything she says. We have a good bunch of people working here. Except her. Now help me with these boxes.”

Paul said nothing, but he nodded and got to work. 

—————————

“What did he say about me?” 

They were in the staff room. Paul was just finishing his coffee when Amber approached him. He just stared at her.

“What did Ben say? Did he say that I hate men?”

Paul just stared at her.

“Did he say I’m a lesbian?”

“Uh. No.”

“You cannot trust Ben. He’s like one of those fake feminists. You know those guys who like to talk about how much they care about women’s rights? And how they love female politicians and whatever? But he’s lying. He just uses that stuff to get girls. It’s all a lie. He hates women.”

Paul just stared at her.

—————————

The next day, Paul walked out of the cafe across the street from the bookstore. It was still cold and windy, but the rain had stopped.  Ben was standing in the middle of the street, holding his phone away from his face and screaming at it.  Paul couldn’t understand anything Ben was saying, but he could see little bits of spit flying out of his mouth. 

It was 2:54.

He had to be back at work in six minutes.

Ben was standing between him and the door. 

Inside the shop, Paul could see Amber, staring out through the window. 

She was with another girl, whose name Paul couldn’t remember. They were whispering, and pointing at Ben. Amber locked eyes with Paul through the glass. She pointed at Ben with one hand, and made a face that said, “I told you. Crazy.”

Paul stood there, hands in his coat pocket, shivering against the cold, for a full minute looking back and forth from Ben to Amber. 

He thought back to his childhood, when he would beg his father every weekend to make the thirty-minute drive into Cambridge, to this bookstore. He remembered whole afternoons spent in the science fiction section, reading quietly. Safe, silent, and warm.

He looked at Ben, he looked at Amber. 

He  sighed, turned his coat collar up against the wind, and started walking. He kept going until he reached the T station, where a train stood, doors open, waiting for him. Paul swiped his card, got on the train and reached for his headphones.

OK, so I think you can guess why this story is called Toxic. It’s about a toxic workplace environment. Now I want to be very clear. The new job that I just started is definitely NOT a toxic workplace. It’s absolutely amazing. But I have worked in some toxic workplaces before. Have you? It really kind of kills your soul to work in those places, right? So I guess in a way, this story is kind of a fantasy for me. To just walk away from a workplace like that. It’s a dream. But most of us, we have to go back to work. We have to keep doing it. Oh well.

Let’s do some tiny lessons. 

Everyone is talking about the big picture. Everyone.

So the question is, what makes this workplace toxic? There are a lot of potential answers, so go back and read or listen and think about it. I think the answer is just, the employees. The books and the shelves didn’t do anything wrong. But the people who work there….ooof. 

How about a dance at the dictionary disco?

I’ve got two good vocab words for you today. The first one is..inventory. When your company sells stuff, they keep a bunch of it in the shop or somewhere, so they don’t run out. That’s your inventory. 

The second word is actually a phrase. It’s “locked eyes” as in Amber locked eyes with Paul. You’ve definitely done this. It’s when you make eye contact with someone, but then don’t let it go. Like you are locked together. 

And the Melody Moment? Is it lovely?

Let’s talk more about intonation. I like the way Paul introduces himself in this story. Even though he is making clear statements, like his own name or his favorite author, they all sound like questions. “My name is…Paul?” That’s rising intonation. 

So what is he doing? He’s showing that he is nervous and uncomfortable. Probably he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing. But he is telling everyone that he does not want to do this, at all.

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 9 of A Little English. 

Until now, every episode was produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Hiroshima, Japan. But not any more. 

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm doing a little survey to find out more about ALE listeners. There are just four tiny questions. It will only take a minute or two, and will help me a LOT! Please check it out. Thanks, Cooper

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

CLICK HERE FOR THE SURVEY

Thank you for downloading this episode.

👉The story begins at 01:50 and the tiny lessons begin at 11:22

👉You can find the transcript after the Credits!

👉Visit our website to download the Podcast User's Manual and find out more! https://alittleenglish.com/

A Little English is written, produced, recorded, edited, mixed, mastered and scored by Edward Cooper Howland.

All stories are either in the public domain, or written by me.

Copyright 2023 Edward Cooper Howland

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. My name is Cooper, and this is…A Little English. Every episode, I read a short story. After the story, there are three tiny lessons. 

This story is really important to me, because this is the first story I ever wrote for this project. I actually started writing it in December 2021, and I was saving it for a special time. This is that time. I’m in the middle of moving and starting my dream job, and my life is totally crazy, so I thought now is a good time to share the story that started the whole project. I hope you enjoy! 

One thing, you might want to pause before we start and look at a picture of a Great Blue Heron, if you don’t know what that is. They’re pretty beautiful birds, and it will probably help you understand the story a little better if you have a picture of one in your head. 

Great Blue Heron

Sarah sat by the river and wondered how to get more likes. Maybe she could take a selfie at sunset? Everyone likes sunset photos. She took her phone out of her bag and held it in front of her. She moved around on the park bench until she found a nice angle, and posed for the selfie. 

It was a good photo. The river was flowing off towards the sun as it set behind her. The sky was red and pink, and the few fluffy clouds made it even prettier. She flipped through the filters for a while, trying to find the best one, but it just didn’t look right. She breathed out heavily, deleted it, and started to pose again.

The sun was almost behind the mountains by the time she got a photo that she really liked.  She chose a good filter, and thought about which hashtags would get the most attention. #sunset #naturelife #river

Behind her, an enormous heron landed in the river without a splash or a sound. It looked around cautiously, standing on one leg in the rushing water, searching for a fish for dinner. 

Sarah knew what she had to do. She had to get a selfie with the heron. She tried to take one from the bench, but it was much too far away. The bird looked like a little gray bug in the background, blurry and out of focus. She would have to get closer. She got off the bench and crawled sideways like a crab down the steep hill until she reached the bank of the river. She crept through the tall grass, trying to get as close as she could.

The heron stood perfectly still, staring down into the rushing water, pretending to ignore Sarah. As soon as Sarah put one of her feet into the freezing cold water, balancing on the slippery rocks, the heron raised its head and stared directly at her. 

Sarah froze. The heron froze. They stared at each other for a few seconds, neither one moving. Sarah was holding her dress out of the water with one hand. With the other she reached into her bag, trying to look like she wasn’t moving at all. The heron stared right at her. It put its other foot down into the water, getting ready to fly away. 

It was impossibly beautiful, blue and gray, with a white head and neck. A black streak like a halloween mask stretched from its eyes to a little cap of feathers on the back of its head. Its wings were just barely open, its long legs bent at the knee as it stared at Sarah, trying to decide whether or not she was a threat. 

Her hand came out of the bag now, holding her phone. She unlocked it with her finger and raised it above her head, twisting around to get herself, the heron, the river, and the setting sun into the photo. This one would get hundreds of likes. #sunset, #river, #naturelife.

Her movement startled the heron and it bent its knees a bit more, worrying that she was going to attack it. Sarah stopped moving, her body stuck in a very uncomfortable position. She didn’t even breathe. The heron didn’t either. They stayed there, frozen, the heron staring at Sarah and Sarah staring at her phone’s screen. 

The setting sun reflected off the glass and she couldn’t tell if the shot was any good at all. She knew that she only had one chance, that the sound of the phone taking the photo would scare the bird away. She was starting to lose the feeling in her feet, and her legs and backhurt from crouching and twisting for so long.  

Three things happened then, all at the same time. A little fish, searching for his own dinner, jumped out of the rushing water. Sarah, startled by the sound of the jumping fish, slipped on a rock. The heron, afraid that Sarah had finally decided to attack her, spread its enormous wings and took off into the sky. 

Sarah reached her left arm behind her, trying to stay out of the water. Both of her feet slipped on the slimy rocks, one sandal flew straight up into the air, and her whole body collapsed into the river. Except, of course, for her right hand, which held her phone straight up, keeping it safe and dry while the rest of her got soaked. The shock of the icy water stole the breath from her body.

After she had crawled out of the river and collapsed, shivering, on the shore for a few moments, Sarah checked her phone. On the screen was a six-second-long video. It was perfect. The heron, the setting sun, the rushing river and her smiling face were all in the frame. She pushed “play.” She watched her eyes go wide as she slipped. She listened to her tiny scream get lost in a loud splash as she fell into the river. She watched the heron avoid her flying sandal as it flew away. The bird didn’t seem scared, or rushed, or even annoyed. It just flew off into the pink sunset, searching for a safer spot to go fishing. 

Sarah shared the video to her page. #naturelife #river #heron. Then she stood up and walked back to her parents’ house, soaking wet, freezing cold, one sandal lost forever, and smiling.

—------------------

So, that’s Sarah. We’ve actually met her before, but she didn’t get a name in that story. I’m not gonna tell you which story it was, though. You’ll have to search around yourself. But don’t worry, I have a lot of stuff to say about Sarah and her family and friends. We’ll see her again. 

And just a reminder, the next episode will come out in two weeks, because my studio and I are not living in the same part of Japan right now. Thanks for understanding.

Now, let’s do some tiny lessons. 

The Big Picture is…a selfie?

Why is it so important for Sarah to get a picture with the Heron? If you’re not sure, pause now and go back and listen or read the transcript. It’s because Sarah is totally obsessed with social media. Probably Instagram. She literally thinks in hashtags!

Do you think we can get into the Dictionary Disco with only one shoe on?

The first vocabulary word is - Collapse - It’s just a fancy way to say “fall down.” You can use it for a building, like in an earthquake, or a person who is sick or hurt. Or who just fell in a river in March. 

The second word this week is - shiver - that’s when your body shakes, but you have no control over it. Like when you’re extremely cold, or frightened, or, um, excited. There’s a pretty awesome Ed Sheerhan song about that last one that uses it as a noun. He’s got….the shivers. 

And finally, let’s slow down for a melody moment. 

I’d like to talk for a while about intonation. Intonation is actually not that important in English. I know. Don’t get angry. But, for example, in Japanese, intonation affects the meaning of a word. So HAshi in Japanese is chopsticks. But haSHI is a bridge. Intonation affects meaning. But in English, we use intonation for emotion. You I could say the same phrase with two different intonations and it would show that I have different feelings each time. So like “hashtag naturelife” is showing how much I love nature and sharing it on insta! But “hashtag naturelife” is showing that I hate social media and think it’s kind of stupid. Going up is usually more positive and going down is usually more negative. I’ll talk more about intonation soon.

Let’s do the credits. 

Thank you for listening to Season 3 Episode 8 of A Little English. 

Every episode is produced entirely by me, Edward Cooper Howland, here in Hiroshima, Japan. At least for now.

If you like the show, tell someone about it! A recommendation from a friend is the best way to get someone to listen, and I would really appreciate it. 

This season, all the stories are written by…me! I use chatGPT by Openai.com as an editor because I can’t afford to hire a human. It’s an amazing, free piece of software, and you should check it out. 

Again, thank you  so much for listening.

For now, be kind to yourselves, and to each other. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.