Noisy Neighbours 文本.docVIP

PAGE PAGE 5 Noisy Neighbours 1 Mr Flinch In a grim, grey house in a grim, grey town lived an unhappy man. It was not his grey house that made Mr Flinch unhappy. It was not that he was poor, because he was not. Mr Flinch was a miser. He never gave away a penny. ( He never gave away a smile either. ) He was a mean and miserable man. Mr Flinch was miserable because of his neighbours. On one side of Mr Flinch’s grim, grey house stood a jolly red one. It belonged to Carl Clutch who mended cars. Carl loved cars – and motorbikes and vans and lorries. Every morning, Mr Flinch woke up to hear hammers banging, spanners clanging and engines revving. The whole street shook with the noise. On the other side, in a bright blue house, lived a music teacher called Poppy Plink. Each morning, Poppy sat down and played grand tunes on her grand piano. After breakfast, her students started to arrive. Violins screeched, drums thundered and bassoons bellowed. Mr Flinch shut his window, but the noise still came through the wall. Brum – brum, tootle – toot, bang! His whole house shook and shivered. He put his fingers in his ears. He rapped on the wall … but his neighbours did not hear. They were far too happy. They were mending cars and making music, and they loved their work. Brum – brum, tootle – toot, bang! Mr Flinch rap rapped until he made holes in his wallpaper. It did no good. Mr Flinch locked himself in a cupboard. He wound old towels round his head. He wrote angry letters, but tore them all up. ‘ Stamps cost far too much money!’ he said. Even in bed, he wore a hat to keep out the noise. But the cars still revved and the music still jangled. Mr Flinch was the grey filling in a noise sandwich. ‘This can’t go on,’ Flinch thought to himself. He even shouted it out loud: 2 Nasty Tricks Mr Flinch went next door to Carl’s house. Carl was mending cars. It was easy to sneak into his kitchen and put a dead rat