The trickster by Mariana Alderete

The Trickster by Mariana Alderete
(based on the Umbrella Man by Roald Dahl)

I’m going to tell you about a thing that happened and irritated me so much yesterday evening. Well, my daughter Sara and I went out of the dentist's and then we went into a café to drink something. Sara chose a banana split and I only had a cup of coffee. When we went out of the café it started to rain heavily so I decided to get a taxi. We were lucky that we were wearing ordinary clothes and not something new or expensive because we were soaked to the skin. My daughter asked me to go inside the café again and wait till the rain stopped but I knew it wouldn't, so I told her we would go to the pavement to wait for a taxi. Yet, unfortunately they were all busy.
Suddenly I saw a man coming in our direction. He was old and small, ‘I don’t like this man at all’ I told myself. The man took his hat off and asked me politely for a favor and I answered him cool and distant that I was not going to give him any money.
I consider myself a suspicious person and everybody knows that, especially my daughter. I always tell Sara ‘you can always spot a gentleman by the shoes he wears’ and the man was really well-dressed but I had to protect my girl, 'cause as I also say, no matter how well-dressed a man can be, you never know what could happen if you trust a stranger so quickly.

‘I beg you to believe, madam, that I am not in the habit of stopping ladies in the street and telling them my troubles’ the man said.

‘I should hope not’ I answered him.

I took a look at my daughter and I knew she was embarrassed by my sharpness. But I couldn’t trust him so easily, no. He told me that he had forgotten his wallet, which he had never forgotten before. ‘Great! Just great! He wants money, I knew it!’ said a voice in my head. He wanted a pound to pay for his taxi-fare giving us his umbrella in exchange. He said he always went out for long walks but he had forgotten his wallet and he was too tired to walk. It was a silk umbrella and as I wanted to end the conversation, I took a pound out, handed it to him and took the umbrella. The man was very thankful so I guessed he was a gentleman and not a trickster after all.
However, some minutes later, Sara and I saw the man crossing the street very quickly. He
did not look very tired so we decided to follow him. We walked a lot till he entered a pub and we stayed out and looked through the window. He found his place at the bar and told something to the barman who later brought him a brown liquid...neat whisky. Next, he put MY pound on the counter. I couldn’t believe it!
The umbrella man cleaned his moustache with his tongue. Then he started walking to the door again and put his hat and his coat on, but what surprised me the most was that he took an umbrella from the coat-rack. He was stealing umbrellas! I immediately realized what his game was, he never went to the same pub twice and asked for a pound in exchange for a umbrella that he stole from some pub in order to afford a glass of whisky every rainy day.
But I am not going to let him do it any more, that is why I'm warning all of you to be careful.

The Flowers Woman by Sofia Sandor

The flowers woman

(Based on the umbrella man by R. Dahl)

I was walking towards school when a young woman appeared in front of me and asked me if I could give her some money and in return she could give me a flower. She was hungry and she didn’t have any food to eat. I offered a sandwich that I had in my school bag, but she didn’t like it, she wanted to buy another kind of food. I had two pounds so I gave them to her, and though I didn’t want the flowers, I took them all the same.
Later that day, I went to school and I saw my friends. One of them told me that she was walking to school when a young woman approached her and asked her for money.
-Oh! The same happened to me! - I interrupted Jane, my best friend, when she was finishing the story.
- Wait! I haven’t finished telling you! She offered me some horrible flowers in return- she laughed.

I told her that she had offered me flowers too. “Perhaps she couldn’t buy anything with the two pounds I gave her, so she wanted more money to buy the food she wanted,” I thought.
“But she had more flowers, where had she taken them from?” I wondered.
When Jane and I were going back to our houses, we saw the woman talking to a person.
She took a flower from a bag and gave it to her.
That was strange, the same woman asking for money. For the money I had given her plus Jane’s was enough to buy a lot of food, whatever she wanted.
We suspected she was doing some kind of illegal thing, so we decided to spy on her. When the person who was with her went away, she crossed the street in a rush. We followed her. Some minutes later she disappeared. We wanted to know where she was going, so we looked for her.
After some time, we were tired and hungry and wanted to go home, but finally we found her. She was trying to steal some flowers from a man who was selling them. We saw that when the man was talking to some customer, the young woman stole the flowers that were behind him and put them in her own bag.
With the new flowers she ran across the pavement and we ran too. Some minutes later she was asking for money with the flowers in return. We stayed there, hiding behind a tree, all the evening. When the young woman had finished asking for money she went towards a shoe-shop. We saw her going in it.
With all the money she had earned she bought the most expensive shoes! The ones I had always wanted to buy! They were beautiful.
She went out with a big smile. -I’ve made it, now I have the best pair of shoes in the world-

¨A different point of view¨, by Pedro Martinet, PCE2 MELIPAL

PEDRO MARTINET

Like any ordinary day of my life I woke up around 1 o’clock, and had breakfast, tea and some cookies. After that I chose a street of my city to carry out my usual ¨job¨ and satisfy my necessities. I brushed my hair and my white moustache, took my current umbrella and went out into the main street.
Already in the main street I saw the perfect woman to continue my trip. When I came closer to her I saw that she was a mother, with her daughter, but that didn’t stop me.
¨Excuse me, I do hope you will excuse me…¨ I said with a kind tone, to the woman was soaking wet under the rain day. At first the lady was distant and I perceived a little fear in her face, but then she went friendlier when she discovered that I didn’t mean any harm. I told her that I was in a kind of problem because I had left my wallet in another jacket and didn’t have money to take a taxi.
¨Are you asking me to give you money? ¨ said the woman, but I denied it.
¨So what are you asking for? ¨ asked me in a most violent and suspicious way,
¨I want to offer this umbrella of mine which would be great for you and your daughter on this rainy day ¨, ¨I sell this umbrella to you for the minim amount of 1 pound ¨ I convinced her that it was a good offer lying that I had bought the umbrella for twenty pounds and I was selling it to her for only 1 pound. I told her that one of my legs had a problem and it hurt and I couldn’t walk properly, so I needed the money to pay a taxi. The lady believed me and accepted to buy my umbrella.
As soon as the woman has given me the pound, I started walking very fast because ¨The Red Lion¨ was closing in a few minutes. I turned left, then right, walked to blocks and finally I got to the door, ¨The Red Lion¨. I walked inside and asked the barman for ¨A triple whisky, with out rocks ¨. I quickly drank the liquid as if it had been the last drink of my life, then went near the door where the people leave their umbrellas and surreptitiously took the nicest umbrella I saw, and went out of the bar. When I was going out of the bar I saw the woman and her daughter spying on me from the window. I supposed they had followed me, and most probably had seen me walking with out trouble. I went out of the bar as quick as I could and fortunately didn’t see the mother and daughter ever again. They didn’t ask me anything so I went to the next street and started my job as usual.

Based on 'The Umbrella man' by R. Dahl.

The Umbrella man

Review
The umbrella man.

The umbrella man is both a funny as well as an interesting story written by Roald Dahl, the famous British short story writer. The main characters are a good-looking gentleman, a middle aged woman and her twelve-year-old daughter. It’s set on the streets of London on a rainy day.
The story is about a small , well-dressed polite man who asks a woman if she can give him some money to pay for the taxi back home because he has left his money in his other jacket. When the woman gives him a bank note, this man offers her an umbrella in exchange for the money but, surprisingly, he starts running away. the woman and her daughter feel suspicious, so they follow him.
The author writes in a clever appealing way and most of these stories are related to robberies or situations like this.
I would recommend Roald Dahl´s ”The Umbrella man” if you like funny stories that are related to petit crime.

by Valeria Gleinig & Jael Laino
Pre-FCE II - Melipal

THE UMBRELLA MAN BY ROALD DAHL

THE UMBRELLA MAN


"The Umbrella man" is a non-fiction story written by Roald Dahl, the famous British short story writer. A middle-aged mother, her twelve-year-old daughter and a strange, but very polite man are the main chracters of an out-of-the-ordinary situation on the streets of London.

The woman and her child are having a snack in a café. The moment they are going out, it starts raining heavily and a small old man approaches them. He asks the mother to do him a favour. She looks at him very suspiciously as she is always suspicious of unknown men. He tells them he never forgets anything but on this day, somehow, he has forgotten his wallet. The man asks her for money to take a taxi and, in exchange, he gives them his expensive silk umbrella. The woman accepts it and gives him the banknote. The old man says goodbye and starts running away along the street. He surprisingly does not take the taxi. So, what will he do with the money?

For us the story is not that good because the plot is not interesting at all or as entertaining as we thought it would be. Although this is the case, it teaches you a moral.

BY: Juliana Alfaro and Fabrizio Sanguinetti - PRE F.C.E. 2 - Melipal

The umbrella man by Roald Dahl

This is a non-fiction story written by Roald Dahl, the famous British short story writer. The main characters are a strange but good-looking polite man, a middle aged woman and her twelve year-old daughter. The story takes place somewhere in the streets of London on a rainy day.

The woman and her daughter are walking in the street when a gentleman approaches them and asks them if they could lend him some money to pay for a taxi back home as he has forgotten his jacket with his wallet at his house. The man offers his umbrella in exchange for the money, which the woman accepts although she feels suspicious. Immediately after that, the man runs away. Where is he going? What is he going to do with the money?

Many of Roald Dahl stories are related to robberies or situations like this, like the hitchhiker, for instance. Both are well written in a clever way.

This is a very interesting story and I recommend it to everyone. You will surely have a great time reading it and it doesn’t get boring at any time. Some of the characters are mysterious and weird, so this creates a feeling of suspense which is something not many writers can truly depict.


Maru Olivares Ashef and Mateo Arce - Pre-FCE2 - Melipal

The Umbrella Man by Roald Dahl

I thoroughly enjoyed one of the Roald Dahl's short stories, The Umbrella Man, a non-fiction story with a tricky plot. It takes place on the streets of London on a rainy day.

The story opens with a middle-aged woman and her twelve-year-old daughter leaving a café and waiting for a taxi to go home. Just then a polite and well-dressed man comes up to them. This one tells the mother that he forgot his wallet and can't pay for the taxi, because his old and tired legs don't allow him to walk. The lady is very suspicious of this man, until he offers his silk umbrella in exchange for the taxi-fare. The mother thinks there was no decieving on the trade, so she gives the man the money. Immediately, the old person starts running away! "What will he do with the money?".

This and many other stories by this clever author centres on ingenious thefts. One of the things I liked best about the story, apart from the intriguing plot, was the great way the story develops, because it was written so the reader gets involved at all times. My only criticism is that the ending isn't that attractive.

All in all, though, if you are a fan of gripping plots, you'll love this story, which is very similar to Roald Dahl's story called "The Hitchiker".

Student: Fernando Bliznikowich
Group: Pre F.C.E. 2 Melipal