Forrest Gump WINSTON GROOM Level 3

Forrest Gump

WINSTON GROOM

Level 3

Retold by John Escott
Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter

Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex CM20 2JE, Englandand Associated Companies throughout the world.
ISBN 0 582 41781 3

First published in Great Britain by Black Swan 1994This adaptation first published by Penguin Books 1996Published by Addison Wesley Longman Limited and Penguin Books Ltd. 1998New edition first published 1999
7 9 108

Text copyright ©John Escott 1996 Illustrations copyright © David Cuzik (Pennant Illustration Agency) 1996 All rights reserved
The moral right of the adapter and of the illustrator has been asserted

Typeset by Refine Catch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Set in ll/14pt Monotype BemboPrinted in Spain by Mateu Cromo, S. A. Pinto (Madrid)
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.
Published by Pearson Education Limited in association with Penguin Books Ltd., both companies being subsidiaries of Pearson Plc
For a complet list of titles available in the Penguin Readers series please write to your local Pearson Education office or contact: Penguin Readers Marketing Department, Pearson Education, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex, CM20 2JE
Contents
page Introduction iv Chapter 1 School and Football 1 Chapter 2 Life at University 4 Chapter 3 The Big Game 7 Chapter 4 Vietnam 10 Chapter 5 Danger in the Jungle 12 Chapter 6 The White House 17 Chapter 7 Meeting Jenny Again 22 Chapter 8 Into Space 25 Chapter 9 A Real Idiot 28 Chapter 10 Money for Playing Games 32 Chapter 11 The Shrimp Business 35 Chapter 12 Little Forrest 38 Activities 42
Introduction

One day when Curtis had to change a wheel on the car, I helped him.
‘If you’re an idiot,’ he said angrily, ‘how do you know how to do that?’
‘Maybe I am an idiot,’ I said, ‘but ‘I’m not stupid.’
I was born an idiot, but ‘I’m cleverer than most people think.
We quickly realize this is true in this wonderfully warm and funny story about Forrest Gump, a good-hearted young man from Alabama in the USA. He wins a medal for being very brave in the Vietnam war and meets the President of the United States of America. He becomes a footballer, a film star, a businessman and he goes into space. And his best friend is an ape called Sue!

Forrest Gump is now a film, with Tom Hanks and Sally Field in it. Tom Hanks won an Oscar for the film in 1994. In its first eighteen days, the film of Forrest Gump took $100 million in American cinemas — more than any other film that Paramount Pictures has made before. Forrest Gump is an unusual man who does a lot of unusual things. Millions of ordinary Americans liked the film. They felt Forrest Gump’s story was also partly a story about themselves and about America from the 1960s to today. Forrest Gump lived the ‘American Dream’. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, you can be anything you want to be.
Winston Groom’s other books are Better Times Than These, about the war in Vietnam, and As Summers Die. He lives for some of the time in New York City and for the rest of the time in Clear Point, Alabama.
Chapter 1 School and Football

I was born an idiot ─ but I’m cleverer than people think. I can think things OK, but when I have to say them or write them down, sometimes they come out all wrong. When I was born, my Mom named me Forrest. My daddy died just after I was born. He worked on the ships. One day a big box of bananas fell down on my daddy and killed him.
I don’t like bananas much. Only banana cake. I like that all right.
At first when I was growing up, I played with everybody. But then some boys hit me, and my Mom didn’t want me to play with them again. I tried to play with girls, but they all ran away from me.
I went to an ordinary school for a year. Then the children started laughing and running away from me. But one girl, Jenny Curran, didn’t run away, and sometimes she walked home with me. She was nice.
Then they put me into another kind of school, and there were some strange boys there. Some couldn’t eat or go to the toilet without help. I stayed in that school for five or six years. But when I was thirteen, I grew six inches in six months! And by the time I was sixteen, I was bigger and heavier than all the other boys in the school.
One day I was walking home, and a car stopped next to me. The driver asked me my name, and I told him. ‘What school do you go to?’ he asked.
I told him about the idiot school.
‘Do you ever play football?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘I see other people playing, but I don’t play and they never ask me to play with them.’
‘OK,’ the man said.
Three days later, the man in the car came and got me out of school. Mom was there, and they got all the things out of my desk and put them in a brown paper bag. Then they told me to say goodbye to the teacher.
The man in the car took me and Mom to the new high school. There, an old man with grey hair asked me lots of questions. But I knew that they really wanted me to play football. The man in the car was a football coach called Fellers. Coach Fellers asked me to put on a football suit, then asked me to undress and dress again, twenty times, until I could do it easily.
I began to play football with the high school team, and Coach Fellers helped me. And I went to lessons in the school. One teacher, Miss Henderson, was really nice. She taught me to read. And who do you think I saw in the school cafe? Jenny Curran! She was all grown-up now, with pretty black hair, long legs, and a beautiful face. I went and sat with her, and she remembered me!
But there was a boy in the cafe who started calling me names, and saying things like, ‘How’s Stupid?’. Then he threw some milk at me, and I jumped out of my chair and ran away. A day or two later, after school in the afternoon, he and his friends came up to me and started pushing and hitting me. Then they ran after me across the football field. I ran away fast!
I saw that Coach Fellers was watching me. He had a strange look on his face, and he came and told me to put on my football suit. That afternoon, he gave me the ball to run with. The others started running after me, and I ran as fast as I could. When they caught me, it needed eight of them to pull me down! Coach Fellers was really happy! He started jumping up and down and laughing. And after that, everybody liked me.
We had our first game, and I was frightened. But they gave me the ball, and I ran over the goal line two or three times. People were really kind to me after that!
Then something happened which was not so good.
‘I want to take Jenny Curran to the cinema,’ I told Mom one day.

Then he threw some milk at me, and I jumped out
of my chair and ran away.

So she phoned Jenny’s Mom and explained. Next evening, Jenny arrived at our house, wearing a white dress, and with a pink flower in her hair. She was the prettiest thing that I ever saw.
The cinema was not far from our house. Jenny got the tickets, and we went inside. The film was about a man and a woman, Bonnie and Clyde, and there was a lot of shooting and killing. Well, I laughed a lot. But when I did this, people looked at me, and Jenny got down lower and lower in her place. Once I thought she was on the floor, and I put my hand on her shoulder to pull her up. But I pulled her dress, and it came open, and she screamed.
I tried to put my hands in front of her, because there were people looking at us. Then two men came and took me to an office. A few minutes later, four policemen arrived, and took me to the police station!
Mom came to the police station. She was crying, and I knew that I was in trouble again. And I was in trouble, but I was lucky. Next day, a letter arrived from a university. It was good news: if I played in their football team, there was a place for me in school there.
And the police said, ‘That’s OK with us. Just get out of town!’
So the next morning, Mom put some things into a suitcase for me, and put me on a bus. She was crying again. But they started the bus, and away I went.
Chapter 2 Life at University
When we got to the university, Coach Bryant came to talk to us.
‘Last man to get to the practice field will get a ride there on my shoe!’ he shouted at us. And he meant it when he said that kind of thing. We soon learned that.
The building that I went to live in was nice on the outside but not on the inside. Most of the doors and windows were broken, and the floor was dirty. I lived in a room with a man called Curtis. He crashed into the room with a wild look in his eyes. He wasn’t very
tall, but he was very strong. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.
‘Mobile,’ I told him.
‘That’s a stupid town!’ he said.
And that was all of our conversation for several days.
On the practice field, things didn’t start very well. I got the ball, but I ran the wrong way with it, and everybody got angry and started shouting at me.
But Coach Bryant called me across. ‘Just get in the line and start catching the ball,’ he told me.
And then I told him something that he didn’t want to hear.
‘They never taught me to catch a ball at high school,’ I said. ‘It was difficult enough for me just to remember where our goal line was.’
I don’t think he was very pleased. But he started to teach me to catch.
I wanted my Mom, and I wanted to go home. I didn’t like that place.
And Curtis was always angry, and I couldn’t understand him. He had a car, and sometimes he gave me a ride to the practice field. But one day when he had to change a wheel on the car, I helped him.
‘If you’re an idiot,’ he said, angrily, ‘how do you know how to do that?’
‘Maybe I am an idiot,’ I said, ‘but I’m not stupid.’
Then Curtis ran after me, and called me all kinds of terrible names.
After that, I moved my bed to another room.
♦
The first football game was on Saturday. I ran well, and we won 35 to 3. Everybody was pleased with me. I phoned Mom to tell her.
‘I heard the game on the radio!’ she said. ‘I was so happy, I wanted to cry!’
That night, everybody went to parties, but nobody asked me to go. I went back to my room, but I heard music from somewhere upstairs. I found a young man who was sitting in his room playing the harmonica.
His name was Bubba. He broke his foot in football practice and couldn’t play in the game. I sat and listened to him. We didn’t talk, but after about an hour, I asked, ‘Can I try it?’ and he said ‘OK’, and gave me the harmonica. I began to play.
After several minutes, Bubba was getting really excited and saying, ‘Good, good, good!’ Then he asked, ‘Where did you learn to play like that?’
‘I didn’t learn anywhere,’ I said.
When it got late, he told me to take the harmonica with me, and I played it for a long time in my room.

I found a young man who was sitting in his room playing the harmonica.
6
Next day I took it back to Bubba.
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got another one.’
I was really happy, and I went and sat under a tree and played all day.
It was late afternoon when I began to walk back to my room. Suddenly, I heard a voice shout, ‘Forrest!’ I turned round ─ and saw Jenny!
She had a big smile on her face, and she held my hand.
‘I saw you play football yesterday,’ she said. ‘You were wonderful!’
She wasn’t angry about the cinema, and she asked me to have a drink with her!
‘I’m taking lessons in music, and I want to be a singer,’ she told me. ‘I play in a little group. We’re playing at the Students’ Centre tomorrow night. Why don’t you come and listen?’
‘OK,’ I said.
Chapter 3 The Big Game
On Friday night, I went to the Students’ Centre. There were a lot of people there, and Jenny was wearing a long dress and singing. Three or four other people were in the group with her, and they made a good sound. Jenny saw me and smiled, and I sat on the floor and listened. It was wonderful.
They played for about an hour, and I was lying back with my eyes closed, listening happily. How did it happen? I’m not sure. But suddenly I found that I was playing my harmonica with them!
Jenny stopped singing for a second or two, and the others in the group stopped playing. Then Jenny laughed and began to sing with my harmonica, and then everybody was saying ‘Wonderful!’ to me.
Jenny came to see me. ‘Forrest, where did you learn to play that thing?’
‘I didn’t learn anywhere,’ I told her.
Well, after that, Jenny asked me to play with their group every Friday, and paid me $25 every time!
♦
The only other important thing that happened to me at the uni-versity was the Big Game at the Orange Bowl in Miami that year. It was an important game which Coach Bryant wanted us to win.
The game started, and the ball came to me. I took it ─ and ran straight into a group of big men on the other team! Crash! It was like that all afternoon.
When they were winning 28 to 7, Coach Bryant called me across. ‘Forrest,’ he said, ‘all year we have secretly taught you to catch the ball and run with it. Now you’re going to run like a wild animal. OK?’
‘OK, Coach,’ I said.
And I did. Everybody was surprised to see that I could catch the ball. Suddenly it was 28 to 14! And after I caught it four or five more times, it was 28 to 21. Then the other team got two men to run after me. But that meant Gwinn was free to catch the ball, and he put us on the 15-yard line. Then Weasel, the kicker, got a field goal, and it was 28 to 24!
But then things began to go wrong again. Weasel made a bad mistake ─ and then the game finished, and we were the losers.
Coach Bryant wasn’t very happy. ‘Well, boys,’ he said, ‘there’s always next year.’
But not for me. I soon learned that.
♦
I couldn’t stay at the university. I wasn’t clever enough at the lessons, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it. Coach Bryant was very sad.
‘I knew this would happen, Forrest,’ he said. ‘But I said to them.

I took it ─ and ran straight into a group of big men on the other team!
“Just give me that boy in my team for a year!”, and they did. And we had a good year ─ the best year, Forrest! Good luck, boy!’
Bubba helped me to put my things in my suitcase, then he walked to the bus with me to say goodbye. We went past the Students’ Centre. But it wasn’t Friday night, and Jenny’s band wasn’t playing. I didn’t know where she was.
It was late when the bus got to Mobile. Mom knew that I was coming, but she was crying when I got home.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘A letter came,’ she cried. ‘You’ve got to go in the army!’
Chapter 4 Vietnam
After I left the idiot school, people were always shouting at me ─Coach Fellers, Coach Bryant, and then the people in the army. But I have to say this: the people in the army shouted louder and longer than anybody!
Fort Benning was in Georgia. After about a hundred hours on a bus, me and a lot of other new young soldiers arrived there. The place where I had to live was just a bit better than the rooms at the university, but the food was not. It was terrible.
Then, and in the months to come, I just had to do the things that I was told to do. They taught me how to shoot guns, throw hand grenades, and move along the ground on my stomach.
One day, the cook was ill, and somebody said, ‘Gump, you’re going to be the cook today.’
‘What am I going to cook?’ I said. ‘How do I cook?’
‘It’s easy,’ said one of the men. ‘Just put everything that you see in the food cupboard into a big pot and cook it.’
‘Maybe it won’t taste very good,’ I said.
‘Nothing does in this place!’ he said. He was right.
Well, I got tins of tomatoes, some rice, apples, potatoes, and everything that I could find. ‘What am I going to cook it in?’ I asked one of the men.
There are some pots in the cupboard,’ he said. But the pots were only small.
‘You’ve got to find something,’ one of the other men said.
‘What about this?’ I asked. There was a big metal thing about six feet tall and five feet round, sitting in the corner.
‘That’s the boiler. You can’t cook anything in that.’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘It’s hot. It’s got water in it.’
But the men had other things to do. ‘Do what you like,’ they said.
So I used the boiler.
I put everything in it, and after about an hour you could smell the cooking. It smelled OK. Then the men came back and every- body was waiting for their dinner.
‘Hurry up with that food, Gump! We’re hungry!’ they shouted.
Suddenly, the boiler began to shake and make noises ─ and then it blew up!
It blew the food all over us ─me, and all the men who were sitting at the tables.
‘Gump!’ they screamed. ‘You’re an idiot!’
But I already knew that.
♦
After a year, we went to Vietnam to fight in the war. One even-ing we went to have a shower. The ‘showers’ were just a long hole in the ground for us to stand in, while somebody threw water over us. We were standing in it, when suddenly there was a strange noise.
Then the ground began to blow up all round us!
We threw ourselves on to the floor of the shower hole, and somebody started screaming. It was some of our men on the far side of the hole, and there was blood all over them. Then everything went quiet again, and after a minute or two the rest of us climbed up out of the hole.
The enemy soldiers tried to blow us up for the next five nights, then it stopped. But it was time for us to move up north to help some of our other men in the jungle.
We went in helicopters, and there was smoke coming up out of the jungle when we got there. The enemy started shooting at us before we got on the ground, and they blew up one of our helicopters. It was terrible! People on fire, and nothing that we could do. It was almost night before we found our other soldiers in the jungle.
And who do you think one of them was? It was Bubba!
Well, in between the shooting, Bubba told me about himself. His foot got too bad to play football, and he had to leave the university. But his foot wasn’t too bad for the army to get him ─and here he was.
‘What happened to Jenny Curran?’ I asked.
‘She left school and went off with a group of people who were against the war,’ he said.
Chapter 5 Danger in the Jungle
There was a little valley between two hills. We were on one hill and the enemy was on the other. Then we got orders to move the machine gun about fifty metres to the left of the big tree that was in the middle of the valley, and to find a safe place to put it before the enemy blew us all up.
We found a place to put the gun and stayed there all night. We could hear shooting all round us, but they didn’t hit us. When it was day again, our planes came, and they blew up the enemy soldiers. Then we watched while our men moved off the hill and came down into the valley.

The enemy started shooting at us before we got on the ground, and they blew up one of our helicopters.
Suddenly, somebody started shooting at them! We couldn’t see the enemy soldiers because the jungle was too thick, but somebody was shooting at our men.
The shooting was in front of us, which meant that the enemy soldiers were in between us and our men. And this meant that the enemy was able to come back and find us, so we had to get out fast.
We began to move back to the hill, but Doyle suddenly saw more enemy soldiers who were going towards our men! We waited until they got to the top, then Bones began shooting with the machine gun. He probably killed ten or fifteen enemy soldiers. Doyle and I and the other two men threw grenades, but then an enemy soldier shot Bones in the head. I pulled the machine gun from his hands, and shouted to Doyle.
There was no answer.
Two of them were dead, and Doyle was only just alive.
I picked up Doyle and put him across my shoulders, then I ran towards the hill. There were bullets flying all round me from behind ─ and then I saw more enemy soldiers in the low grass in front of me! They were shooting at our men on the hill.
I ran fast, shouting and screaming as loudly as I could. And suddenly I was in the middle of our soldiers, and everybody was pleased and hitting me on the back! My shouting and screaming frightened the enemy soldiers away. They just ran!
♦
The weeks went past slowly. I got a letter from my Mom, and I wrote back to her that everything was OK. I also wrote a letter to Jenny Curran and asked Mom to ask her parents to send it on to her. But I didn’t get a reply.
Bubba and I decided that we would get a shrimp boat when we got home again, and catch shrimps, and make a lot of money. Bubba planned it all.
It started to rain one day, and it didn’t stop for two months! But

I ran fast, shouting and screaming as loudly as I could.

we still had to look for enemy soldiers ─and one day we found them. We were crossing a rice field when suddenly they started shooting at us. Somebody shouted, ‘Back!’ I picked up my machine gun and ran towards some trees.
I looked round for Bubba, but he wasn’t there. Then I heard that he was out in the rice field, and he was hurt, so I left my gun by the trees and ran back into the field. ‘Gump! You can’t go out there!’ somebody shouted. But I just ran.
Halfway out, I saw another man who was hurt. He was holding a hand up to me ─ so I picked him up and ran back to the trees with him. Then I ran out again and found Bubba. There was blood all over him and he had two bullets in his stomach.
He looked up at me, and said, ‘Forrest, why did this happen?’ What could I say? Then he said, ‘Play me a song on the harmonica, will you?’
There was still a lot of shooting going on, but I played a song. Then all the colour went out of Bubba’s face and he said something very softly: ‘Home.’
And then he died.
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
♦
The rest of the night was terrible. The worst night that I’ve ever known. Nobody could get any help to us, and the enemy soldiers were so near that we could hear them talking. Then, when it got light, an American plane came and used fire-throwers on the enemy ─ and almost on us! Suddenly the trees were on fire, and men were running out of the jungle with burned skin and clothes.
During all of this, somebody shot me in the back of the leg, but I can’t remember when it happened. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Bubba was dead, the shrimp business idea was dead with him. I just wanted to die, too.
Then our helicopters came, and the enemy soldiers who were left ran away.
An hour later, I was out of there and on my way to the hospital in Danang.
Chapter 6 The White House
I was at the hospital for two months. After the first few weeks my leg was getting better, and one day I went down into the little town, to the fish market. I bought some shrimps, and one of the cooks at the hospital cooked them for me. Two days later, I went back to the fish market and talked to a man who was selling shrimps.
‘Where do you get them?’ I asked him.
He immediately started talking fast in a language that I couldn’t understand, but he took me somewhere ─ past all the boats and the beach. There he took a net and put it in the water. When he took it out again, it was full of shrimps!
Every day for the next few weeks, I went with Mr Chi (that was his name) and watched him while he worked. He showed me how to catch shrimps with the net, and it was so easy that an idiot was able to do it!
Which I did!
Then one day I got back to the hospital and a Colonel Gooch said, ‘Gump, we’re going back to America together! You’re going to see the President of the United States, and he’s going to give you a medal because you were very brave.’
♦
There were about two thousand people waiting for us at San Fran-cisco airport when we got off the plane! What a surprise! A lot of them had beards and long hair. I thought perhaps they were there to welcome us, but I was wrong. They were shouting unpleasant

He showed me how to catch shrimps with the net, and it was so easy that an idiot was able to do it!
things, and then somebody threw a tomato at Colonel Gooch and it hit him in the face. He tried to clean it off and not look angry, but I didn’t want to wait for them to start throwing things at me! No sir! I started running.
The people ran after me ─ all two thousand of them! ─ but they couldn’t catch me. I ran all round the airport, and then I ran into a toilet and locked the door. I waited in there for almost an hour before I came out again.
I went to look for Colonel Gooch, and I found him in the middle of a group of policemen. He was looking very worried until he saw me.
‘Come on, Gump!’ he said. ‘The plane for Washington is waiting for us.’
The army sent a car to meet us at Washington airport, and we drove to a really nice hotel. After we put our suitcases in our rooms, the Colonel asked me to go out to a bar with him for a drink.
‘People are different here,’ he told me. ‘They aren’t like the people in California.’
He was wrong.
When we got there, he bought me a beer, and he was telling me about the President and my medal when something happened. A pretty girl came up to our table, and the Colonel thought she was a waitress.
‘Get us two more drinks, please,’ he said.
She looked at him and said, ‘I won’t get you anything ─ not as much as a glass of warm river-water, you pig!’ Then she looked at me and said, ‘And how many babies have you killed today, you big ape?’
Well, after that we went back to the hotel.
♦
Next morning we got up early and went to the White House, where the President lives. It’s a really pretty house with a big garden.
A lot of army people were there, and they immediately started shaking my hand and telling me that I was a brave man and that they were pleased to meet me.
The President was a great big old man who talked like somebody from Texas, and there were a lot of people standing round him in the flower garden.
Then an army man started to read something, and everybody listened. Everybody but me, because I was hungry and wanted some breakfast. At last the army man finished reading, and then the Presi-dent came up and gave me the medal. After that, he began to shake my hand.
I was just thinking of getting out of there and having some breakfast when the President said, ‘Boy, is that your stomach mak-ing that noise?’ So I said, ‘Yes,’ and the President said, ‘Well, come on, boy, let’s go and get something to eat!’ And I followed him into the house, and a waiter got us some breakfast.
The President asked me a lot of questions about Vietnam and the army, but I just said, ‘Yes, it’s OK’ or shook my head to say no, and after several minutes of this we were both silent.
‘Do you want to watch TV?’ the President asked suddenly.
So me and the President of America watched TV while I ate my breakfast!
Later, when we were back in the garden, the President said, ‘You were hurt, weren’t you, boy? Well, look at this . . .’ And he pulled up his shirt and showed me the place on his stomach where he was hurt once. ‘Where were you hurt?’ he asked me.
So I pulled down my trousers, turned round and showed him.
Well, lots of newspaper men started taking photographs before Colonel Gooch could run across and pull me away!
That afternoon, back at the hotel, he came to my room shouting and throwing newspapers on to the bed. And there I was, on the front page, with my trousers down!
‘Gump, you idiot!’ shouted Colonel Gooch.

. . . and then the President came up and gave me the medal.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘That’s what I am. But I just try to do the right thing.’

Chapter 7 Meeting Jenny Again
Soon after that, I heard that I was leaving the army early, and they gave me some money for a train ticket to go home.
But all this time, I was thinking about Jenny Curran. Just before I left the hospital in Danang, I had a letter from her. She was now playing in a group called The Broken Eggs, and they played two nights each week at a place called the Hodaddy Club near Harvard University. Now that I was free from the army, I just wanted to go and see her. So I got a ticket for Boston, instead of Mobile.
I tried to walk to the Hodaddy Club from the train station, but I lost my way, so I took a taxi. It was in the afternoon, and the man behind the bar said, Jenny’ll be here about nine o’clock.’
‘Can I wait?’ I asked.
‘OK,’ he said.
So I sat down and waited for five or six hours.
Students began to come in, most of them wearing dirty jeans. The men had beards, and the women had long, untidy hair. Later, the group ─ The Broken Eggs ─ arrived, but I didn’t see Jenny. Then they began to play ─ and they were loud. The music sounded like a plane that was taking off! But the students loved it.
And then Jenny came on!
She was different. Her hair was all the way down her back, and she was wearing sun-glasses ─ at night! She was wearing blue jeans and a shirt with lots of colours on it. The group started playing again and Jenny began to sing.
Later, I went outside and walked round for about half an hour, then went back. There were a lot of people waiting to go in, so I went round to the back of the place and sat on the ground. I had my harmonica in my pocket, so I took it out and started to play.

I had my harmonica in my pocket, so I took it out and started to play.

I could hear the music that was playing inside and, after a minute or two, I began playing with it. Suddenly, a door behind me opened ─ and there was Jenny!
‘Who is that playing the harmonica?’ she said. And then she saw me. ‘Forrest Gump!’ And she ran out of the door and threw her arms round me.
♦
We talked together until it was time for her to sing again.
‘I didn’t leave school,’ said Jenny. ‘They threw me out after they found a boy in my room one night. I went to California and stayed there for some time.’ She laughed. ‘I wore flowers in my hair, and talked about love. But the people that I was with were strange. Then I met a man, and we came to Boston. But he was dangerous. He was against the war, like me, but he blew up buildings and things. I couldn’t stay with him. Next, I met a teacher from Harvard University, but he was married. Then I began to sing with The Broken Eggs.’
‘Where do you live?’ I asked.
‘With my boyfriend,’ she said. ‘He’s a student. You can come back and stay with us tonight.’
The boyfriend’s name was Rudolph. He was a little man, and he was sitting on the floor with his eyes shut when we got to Jenny’s flat.
‘Rudolph, this is Forrest,’ Jenny said. ‘He’s a friend of mine from home, and he’s going to stay with us for a few days.’
Rudolph didn’t speak or open his eyes, but he put up his hand and smiled.
Next morning, when I got up, Rudolph was still sitting on the floor with his eyes shut.
That afternoon, Jenny took me to meet the other people in the group, and that night I began playing my harmonica with them at the Hodaddy Club. It went well, and I played with them every night after that.
Then one day I came back to the flat and Jenny was sitting on the floor.
‘Where’s Rudolph?’ I asked.
‘Gone,’ she said. ‘Walked out, like all the others.’ And then she started to cry.
‘Don’t cry, Jenny,’ I said. And I put my arm round her.
Well, it started like that. But the next minute we were kissing and making love! And when we finished, Jenny said, ‘Forrest, where have you been all this time?’
Chapter 8 Into Space
Spring and summer went by, and I continued to play my harmonica with the group. It was my happiest time of all. But ─ you’ve guessed it ─ something went wrong.
How did it happen? I don’t know. But one night I was sitting outside the Hodaddy Club, smoking a cigarette, when a girl smiled and came up to me. She sat down across my legs and put her arms round me. She was laughing and kissing me, and I didn’t know what to do.
Suddenly, the door opened behind me, and there was Jenny.
‘Forrest, it’s time to ─’ She stopped when she saw me with the girl. Then she said, ‘Oh, no! Not you, too!’
I jumped up and pushed the girl away. ‘Jenny!’ I said.
‘Stay away from me, Forrest!’ she said. ‘You men are all the same! Just stay away from me!’
She didn’t speak to me again that night. And the next morning she told me to find another place to live.
I went to live with Moses, one of the other men in the group, and soon after that Jenny went to Washington to talk and work against the war. Moses wrote down the address for me.
So I went back to Washington, too.

Suddenly Jenny said, ‘Did you know that Forrest won a medal?’

There was a lot of trouble there. Police were everywhere, and people were shouting and throwing things.
And the police were taking some of them away.
I went to find Jenny’s address, but there was nobody at home. I waited outside for most of the day. Then, at about nine o’clock, a car stopped near the house and some people got out. And there she was!
I started to walk towards her, but she turned and walked away. The other people ─ two men and a girl ─ didn’t know what to say.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ I asked one of the two men.
‘She just got out of prison,’ he said. ‘She was there all night before we could get her out.’
Jenny was in the back of the car now, so I went over and talked to her through the window. I told her how I felt ─ I was sorry about the girl, and I didn’t want to play in the group without her. She listened quietly, then opened the car door for me to get in, and we sat and talked.
The others were talking about something that would happen the next day. Some American soldiers planned to take off their Viet-nam medals and throw them away in front of the crowds of people.
Suddenly Jenny said, ‘Did you know that Forrest won a medal?’
The others went quiet and looked at me, then looked at Jenny.
♦
Next morning, Jenny came into the living-room. I was sleeping on
the floor of their house. She woke me up.
‘Forrest,’ she said. ‘I want you to do something for me.’
‘What?’ I said.
I want you to come with us today, and I want you to wear your army clothes.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re going to do something to stop all the killing in Vietnam.’
You can guess what I had to do, can’t you? I had to throw away my medal with the other American soldiers. But because my medal was a more famous medal than theirs, it was more important to Jenny and her friends.
But it got me into more trouble. Oh, I threw my medal away, OK ─ but it hit somebody really important! One of the President’s men! So they threw me into prison.
Why do things like that always happen to me?
♦
As it happened, I didn’t stay in prison long, because they soon real-ized that I was an idiot, and they put me in a special hospital for idiots. It was the doctors at the hospital who decided to send me to NASA ─ that’s the space centre at Houston, in Texas.
‘You’re just the kind of person that they’re looking for!’ the doctors told me.
I soon understood why! NASA sent me on a journey into space with a woman and an ape! Me, a spaceman! It was very strange.
All kinds of things went wrong because of that ape. Instead of coming down in the sea when we returned, the space ship came down in the jungle somewhere, and it was four years before the NASA people found us! But the ape and I were soon good friends. His name was Sue (yes, I know it’s a girl’s name, but they sent a male ape up by mistake, and NASA didn’t like to tell the news- papers that). And it was in the jungle that I met Big Sam ─ a man who taught me to play chess. And that was important, as you will see later.
Chapter 9 A Real Idiot
Of course, the first thing that I wanted to do when I got back to America was find Jenny. So I phoned Moses in Boston.
‘The Broken Eggs group has broken up,’ he told me. ‘I don’t know what happened to Jenny. I heard that she went to Chicago, but that was five years ago.’
‘Do you have a telephone number, or anything?’ I asked.
‘It’s an old number,’ he said, ‘but perhaps she’s still there.’
I phoned the number, and she wasn’t.
‘Jenny Curran?’ a man’s voice said. ‘She went to Indianapolis. Got a job at the Temperer factory.’
So I went to Indianapolis on the bus.
♦
The Temperer factory was outside the town. I asked about Jenny at the office, and the woman said, ‘Yes, she works in here. Why don’t you wait at the side of the factory? It’s almost lunch-time, and she’ll probably come out.’ So I did.
A lot of people came out at lunch-time. Then Jenny came out. She went and sat under a tree on the grass, and began eating an apple. I went up behind her and said, ‘That looks like a nice apple.’ She didn’t look up. She just said, ‘Forrest, it has to be you.’
A minute later, I had my arms round her and we were both crying. People were watching us with strange looks on their faces, but it didn’t matter. Jenny and me were together again.
‘I finish work in three hours, Forrest,’ Jenny said. ‘Why don’t you wait for me in that bar across the street? Then I’ll take you to my place.’
So I waited in the bar.
And I got into the wrestling business. How? I’ll tell you.
It started when I arm-wrestled a man in the bar, and won some money on a bet. That gave me an idea. But at first I didn’t say anything to Jenny.
She came across to the bar after work, and we had a drink and talked.
‘I saw you on TV when you went up into space, Forrest,’ she said.

And I told her all about that, and about Sue, the ape.
‘What happened to him?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But he was a good friend.’
Later, we went back to Jenny’s flat, and she said, ‘You can stay here.’
Next day, when Jenny went to work, I went back to the bar. Several people wanted to try arm-wrestling with me again, and I said OK. None of them won because 1 was too strong, but plenty of people wanted to try their luck.
After about a month, I was winning nearly two hundred dollars a week, arm-wrestling. Then one day a man called Mike came into the bar.
‘You can make a lot more money,’ he told me.
‘How?’ I asked.
‘Wrestling. Real wrestling,’ he said. ‘I can teach you.’
To make a long story short ─ he did.
Jenny wasn’t happy about the wrestling but I won a lot of money ─ sometimes by winning fights, sometimes by losing them because Mike told me to lose them. Yes, that happens, too. But then I did something stupid again. I bet on myself winning a fight, after Mike told me to lose it.
Jenny got really angry. ‘It isn’t honest,’ she said.
I didn’t listen. I bet all my money on myself to win ─ and then I lost the fight.
But there was worse to come. When I got back to the flat, Jenny was gone, and there was a letter waiting for me. It said:
Dear Forrest
You’re doing something bad tonight. It isn’t honest, and I cannot go on with you like this. I think about having a house and a family and things like that now. I watched you grow up big and strong and good. And then, in Boston, I realized that I loved you, and I was the happiest girl in the world. But then there was that girl outside the Hodaddy Club. Then you went up into space and I lost you for four years, and I think you changed. And I think perhaps I changed, too. I just want to live in an ordinary way now. So, I must go and find it.
I am crying while I write this, but please don’t try to find me. Goodbye, my dear. love, Jenny
And for the first time ever, I knew that I was a real idiot.
Chapter 10 Money for Playing Games
I decided to go home to Mobile, but the bus stopped at Nashville on the way and I went into town for a drink and something to eat. I was going past a hotel when I looked in the window and saw some people who were playing chess. Like I said before, Big Sam taught me how to play chess when I was in the jungle. Well, I went into the hotel to watch them, but it was a special chess tournament and it cost five dollars to watch, so I didn’t go into the chess room.
I was just walking out again when I saw a little old man who was playing chess with himself at a table near the door. I had another hour before I had to catch the bus again, so I went across and watched him. Then I said, ‘If you make that move, you’ll lose your queen.’
He didn’t look up but, after a minute, he said, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
It was time for me to get back to the bus station, but when I started to leave, the old man said, ‘Why don’t you sit down and finish this game with me?’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I have to catch a bus.’
So he waved at me with his hand, and I went back to the bus station.

It took me an hour to win that chess game.
But I missed the bus that evening, and there wasn’t another one until the next day. So I walked back to the hotel, and there was the little old man, still playing against himself. He looked up and saw me, and told me to sit down.
It took me an hour to win that chess game.
‘Just who are you?’ he said after the game.
‘Forrest Gump,’ I said.
‘Where did you learn to play chess?’ he asked.
‘In the jungle,’ I told him.
He looked surprised. ‘Aren’t you in the tournament?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘I’m going home, and I’m going to start a shrimp business.’
‘You can make a lot of money from chess,’ he said. ‘You’re very good.’
‘Am I?’ I said.
The old man’s name was Mr Tribble. Two days later we were on our way to Los Angeles, to a big chess tournament.
♦
We were a day or two early for the tournament, and Mr Tribble took me to see some people who were making a film. They make a lot of films in Los Angeles. We were watching a man who was crash-ing through a window in a film fight, when a man walked over to us.
‘Are you an actor?’ he asked me.
‘Who, me?’ I said.
‘We’re here for the chess tournament,’ said Mr Tribble.
But the other man was looking at me. ‘You are a big, strong man, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You’re just what I need for a film that I’m making. My name is Felder.’
‘He has to play chess in a tournament tomorrow,’ said Mr Tribble. ‘He hasn’t got time to be an actor.’
‘It won’t take long,’ said Mr Felder.
So we went with Mr Felder, and I found myself acting in a film about the jungle ─ with Raquel Welch, the famous film star!
‘Is that really Raquel Welch?’ I asked Mr Felder.
But things did not go well. Somehow, when I was helping Miss Welch to escape from the jungle, her dress came off and I had to run into the trees to hide her. But who do you think we met there? Sue, the ape! He was in another film!
The three of us ran out of there fast, and Miss Welch shouted and screamed.
No, things didn’t go very well. I wasn’t an actor for very long.
I think Mr Tribble was secretly pleased.
I was pleased because I was back with Sue again.
♦
Back at our hotel, the three of us sat in our room and tried to decide what to do.
‘It’s going to be difficult travelling with an ape,’ said Mr Tribble.
‘He won’t be any trouble, Mr Tribble,’ I said.
But Mr Tribble seemed worried.
Next day was the big chess tournament at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Mr Tribble and I got there early, and I had to play chess all day.
It took me about seven minutes to win the first game, and half an hour to win the next. I played all that day, and the next. And suddenly I was in the final, playing with a Russian, Honest Ivan, the best player in the world. He was a big man, with long black hair, and he didn’t want to lose!
It was a long game. Honest Ivan was good ─ very good. But just when Honest Ivan seemed to be winning, Sue ran across the room and jumped onto the chess table!
Honest Ivan fell off his chair, and everybody started screaming and running everywhere. ‘Let’s get out of here, Forrest!’ shouted Mr Tribble.
We got back to the hotel and hurried up to our room.
‘Forrest,’ said Mr Tribble, ‘You’re a wonderful chess player, but I never know what’s going to happen next! Here’s half of the money that you’ve won ─ it’s almost five thousand dollars. Take Sue back to Alabama with you, and start your shrimp business.’ He shook my hand and gave me his address. ‘Write to me sometimes, Forrest. Good luck!’
Chapter 11 The Shrimp Business
Well, I finally went home to Mobile again. The train got into Mobile station about three o’clock in the morning, and Sue and I got off. We walked into the town and finally found a place to sleep in an empty building.
The next morning I bought some breakfast and got Sue some bananas to eat. Then we went to see Mom. She was pleased to see me.

Sue ran across the room and jumped onto the chess table!

‘Oh, Forrest,’ she said, ‘you’re home at last!’
‘Yes, Mom,’ I said.
But I didn’t stay long. Two days later, Sue and I got the bus to Bayou La Batre, where Bubba’s parents lived, and I explained to Bubba’s daddy about the shrimp business that Bubba and I planned to start after we came out of the army. He listened, and he was very interested. And the next day he took Sue and me out in his little boat, to look for a good place to start the shrimp business.
It took almost a month to start things up ─ to get nets, and a boat, and everything. Finally the day came when Sue and I were ready to go shrimping. And by that night we had hundreds and hundreds of shrimps in our nets!
It was the beginning of my shrimp business. We worked hard, all that summer, and that autumn and winter and the next spring. And after a year, Mom was working for me, and Mr Tribble, and Curtis (my old football friend), and Bubba’s daddy.
At the end of that year, we had thirty thousand dollars!
Everybody was very happy. But me? I was chinking of Jenny, of course. I wanted to find her again. And one day I dressed in my best clothes and got the bus to Mobile, and I went to Jenny’s Mom’s house.
‘Forrest Gump!’ she said, when she saw me. ‘Come on in!’
Well, we talked about Mom and the shrimp business and every-thing. Then I asked about Jenny.
‘I don’t hear from her very often,’ she said. ‘I think they live somewhere in North Carolina now.’
‘They?’ I said.
Didn’t you know?’ she said. ‘Jenny married two years ago;
♦
Why wasn’t I ready for that news? I don’t know, but I wasn’t. And part of me seemed to die when I heard it. But Jenny only did what she had to do. Because I’m an idiot. A lot of people say that they married an idiot, but they don’t know what it’s like to marry a real
one. I cried that night, but it didn’t help.
‘I’m just going to work hard,’ I told myself. ‘It’s all I can do.’
And I did. And at the end of that year we had seventy-five thousand dollars.
♦
Time went on. I looked in the mirror and saw lines on my face and grey in my hair. The business was doing well, but I asked myself, ‘What are you doing all this for?’ And I knew that I had to get away.
Mr Tribble understood. ‘Why don’t you tell everybody that you’re taking a long holiday, Forrest?’ he said. ‘The business will be here when you want it again.’
So I did. Sue came with me, and we went to the bus station.
‘Where do you want to go?’ the woman in the ticket office asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Why don’t you go to Savannah?’ she said. ‘It’s a nice town.’
‘OK,’ I said.
Chapter 12 Little Forrest
Sue and I got off the bus at Savannah, then I went and got a cup of coffee and sat outside the bus station. What could I do next? I didn’t know. So after I finished my cup of coffee, I took out my harmonica and began to play. I played two songs ─ and a man walked past and threw some money into my empty coffee cup! I played two more songs, and soon the cup was half full of money!
By the end of the next week, we were getting ten dollars a day. Then, one afternoon when I was playing to some people in the park, I noticed that a little boy was watching me carefully. Then I looked up and saw a woman who was standing near him.
It was Jenny Curran.
Her hair was different, and she looked a bit older, and a bit

Then I looked up and saw a woman who was standing near the boy.
It was Jenny Curran.

tired, but it was her all right. And when I finished playing, she held the little boy’s hand and came across.
She was smiling. ‘Oh, Forrest, I knew it was you when I heard that harmonica. Nobody plays the harmonica like you do.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked her.
‘We live here now,’ she said. ‘Donald works in a business here in Savannah. We came here about three years ago.’
When I stopped playing, the rest of the people walked away. Jenny sat next to me while the little boy started playing with Sue.
‘Why are you playing your harmonica in the park?’ asked Jenny. ‘Mom wrote and told me about your shrimp business, and how rich you were.’
‘It’s a long story,’ I said. ‘Is that your little boy?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What do you call him?’
‘His name is Forrest,’ she said quietly. Then she went on, ‘He’s half yours. He’s your son, Forrest.’
I looked at the boy, who was still playing with Sue. ‘My . . . son?’
‘I knew that a baby was on the way when I left Indianapolis,’ said Jenny, ‘but I didn’t want to say anything. I don’t know why. I was worried that perhaps ─’
‘Perhaps he would be an idiot,’ I finished for her.
‘Yes. But Forrest, he’s not an idiot, he’s really clever.’
‘Are you sure that he’s mine?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure,’ said Jenny. ‘He wants to be a football player.’
I looked at the boy. ‘Can I see him for a minute or two?’
‘Of course,’ said Jenny, and she called to him. ‘Forrest, I want you to meet another Forrest. He’s an old friend of mine.’
The boy came and sat down. ‘What a funny animal you’ve got,’ he said.
‘He’s an ape,’ I said. ‘His name is Sue.’
‘Why is it called Sue if it’s a he?’
I knew then that I didn’t have an idiot for a son. ‘Your Mom tells me that you want to be a football player.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about football?’
‘A bit,’ I said. ‘But ask your daddy. He’ll know more than me.’
He put his arms round me for a second, then went off to play with Sue again.
Jenny looked at me. ‘How long have we been friends, Forrest? Thirty years? Sometimes it doesn’t seem true.’ She moved nearer, and gave me a kiss. ‘Idiots,’ said Jenny. ‘Who isn’t an idiot?’
Then she got up and held little Forrest’s hand, and they walked away.
♦
Well, after that, I did a few things. First I phoned Mr Tribble and told him to give some of my money from the shrimp business to my Mom, and some to Bubba’s daddy.
‘Then send the rest to Jenny and little Forrest,’ I said.
That night I sat up thinking. ‘Perhaps I can put things right with Jenny,’ I thought, ‘now that I’ve found her again.’ But the more I thought about it, the more I finally understood that it was better for the boy to be with Jenny and her husband, and not to have an idiot for a father.
An idiot? Yes, I’m an idiot. But most of the time I just try to do the right thing.
ACTIVITIES

Chapters 1─4
Before you read
1 Look at the picture on the front of this book. Where do you think the man is sitting, and why? What do you think he is going to do? 2 Check these words in your dictionary. Make sure you understand them all.
army boiler coach goal grenade harmonica idiot jungle
Find the right word(s) for these sentences.a A group of people who fight to protect their country.b Two words you can use in a conversation about football.c A stupid person.d Something that can get very hot.e Something that can kill people.
3 Find the picture where you can see a a harmonica b a jungle
After you read
4 Where do these sentences come in the story? Put them in the right order. a Jenny arrived at our house wearing a white dress, and with a pink
flower in her hair. b Jenny stopped singing for a second or two, and the others in the group stopped playing. c But one girl, Jenny Curran, didn’t run away, and sometimes she
walked home with me. d Jenny saw me and smiled, and I sat on the floor and listened. e But it wasn’t Friday night and Jenny’s band weren’t playing.
5 Forrest and Bubba have just met again in the jungle in Vietnam. Act out their conversation. Student A: You are Forrest. Student B: You are Bubba.
Chapters 5─8
Before you read
6 Do you think Forrest and Jenny will meet again? How and where? 7 Do you think Forrest and Bubba will stay together in Vietnam? Why or why not? 8 Check these words in your dictionary. Make sure you understand them all.
chess medal shrimp
Put the words in the right groups: a game/play/queen/king b brave/gold/best c water/catch/food 9 Find these words in your dictionary.
ape net
Look at the pictures in the book. Find the pictures where you can see: a a net b an ape
10 Find the word colonel in your dictionary. Finish this sentence: A colonel is one of the top men or women in the . . . . . . .
After you read
11 What happens to Bubba?12 Who shows Forrest how to catch shrimps?13 Why are there two thousand people waiting at San Francisco airport
for Forrest and the Colonel? 14 What do Forrest and the President do in the White House? 15 Why does Forrest go to these places?
a Boston b Washington c Houston
Chapters 9─12
Before you read
16 Why do you think chess is going to be important in Forrest’s life?17 How do you think Forrest will find Jenny again?18 Check the meaning of these words in your dictionary.
actor bet tournament wrestling
Now write a sentence for each word to show the meaning clearly.
After you read
19Who says these things? a That looks like a nice apple.’ b ‘If you make that move you'll lose your queen.’ c ‘It’s going to be difficult travelling with an ape.’ d Take Sue back to Alabama with you, and start your shrimp
business.’ 20 Who tells Forrest that Jenny is married? 21 Why does Forrest go to Savannah? 22 What is Forrest doing in the park when Jenny and her son see him? 23 What does little Forrest want to be? 24 What does Forrest do with the money from the shrimp business?
Writing
25 Which part of this story do you find the saddest? Explain why. 26 Forrest Gump does a lot of very different things. Which would you most like to do, and why? Which would you not like to do? Why not? 27 Look at the picture on page 26. Write about the people in the picture – their faces and their clothes. 28 It is six months after the end of this story. Write a letter from Forrest to Mr Tribble. Tell him what you are doing now.
Answers for the activities in this book are available from your local Pearson Education office or contact: Penguin Readers Marketing Department, Pearson Education, Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, Essex, CM20 2JE.

Treasure Island ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Level 2

Treasure Island

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Level 2
Retold by Ann Ward
Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter

Pearson Education Limited
Edinburgh Gate, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughout the world.

ISBN 0 582 46828 0

Treasure Island first published in 1883 This adaptation first published by Penguin Books 1995 Published by Addison Wesley Longman Limited and Penguin Books Ltd 1998 This edition first published 2000
Text copyright © Ann Ward 1995 Illustrations copyright © Victor Ambrus 1995 All rights reserved
The moral right of the adapter and illustrator has been asserted

Typeset by Digital Type, London Set in 12/14pt Bembo Printed in Spain by Mateu Cromo, S.A. Pinto (Madrid)
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.
Published by Pearson Education Limited in association with Penguin Books Ltd, both companies being subsidiaries of Pearson Plc
For a complete list of titles available in the Penguin Readers series, please write to your local Pearson Education office or to: Marketing Department, Penguin Longman Publishing, 5 Bentinck Street, London W1M 5RN.
Contents

page
Introduction v Chapter 1 Jim Hawkins’ Story I 1 Chapter 2 Dr Livesey’s Story 18 Chapter 3 Jim’s Story II 22 Activities 35



Introduction

‘Tomorrow I’m going to Bristol,’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘I’m going to buy a ship and find sailors. Jim, you and Dr Livesey are going to come with me to look for the treasure!’
Jim Hawkins works in his father’s inn by the sea. One day an old sailor comes to stay. He watches the sea and the ships. He is ill. He is afraid. But what - or who - is he afraid of?
Very soon Jim understands, because the old man has a map. A lot of people are interested in that map - and some of them are very dangerous people. Jim Hawkins is going to meet them when he sails in the Hispaniola to Treasure Island. It will be a journey with many difficulties . . .
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850 in Edinburgh, Scot-land and began writing when he was a boy. He finished his first book when he was sixteen.
He went to many different countries in his life. He was often dangerously ill and he wanted to find a place with warm weather where he could live and do his writing. In 1888, he went by ship to the Pacific islands, and after 1890 he lived on the island of Samoa, with his wife, mother and son. The Samoans called him ‘Tusitala’ - ‘the story-teller’.
He wrote many different books and stories. Treasure Island (1883) is his most famous book but Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is also very well-known. Stevenson died in 1894 on Samoa.
v

Chapter 1 Jim Hawkins’ Story I
My father had an inn near the sea. It was a quiet place. One day, an old man came to our door. He was tall and strong, and his face was brown. His old blue coat was dirty and he had a big old box with him. He looked at the inn, then he looked at the sea.
My father came to the door.
At first the old man did not speak. He looked again at the sea, and at the front of the inn.
‘I like this place,’ he said. ‘Do many people come here?’
‘No,’ said my father.
‘I’m going to stay here,’ said the old man. ‘I want a bed and food. I like watching the sea and the ships. You can call me Captain.’
He threw some money on the table. ‘That’s for my bed and my food,’ he said.
And so the old captain came to stay with us. He was always quiet. In the evenings he sat in the inn and in the day he watched the sea and the ships.
One day he spoke to me. ‘Come here, boy,’ he said, and he gave me some money. ‘Take this, and look out for a sailor with one leg.’
He was afraid of that sailor with one leg. I was afraid too. I looked for the man with one leg, but I never saw him.
Then winter came, and it was very cold. My father was ill, and my mother and I worked very hard.
Early one January morning, the captain went to the beach. I helped my mother to make the captain’s breakfast. The door opened and a man came in. His face was very white and he had only three ringers on his left hand. I could see that he was a sailor.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked.
1

The man looked at the captain's breakfast table.
'Is this table for my friend Bill?'

The man looked at the captain’s breakfast table.
‘Is this table for my friend Bill?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know your friend Bill,’ I said. ‘It’s the captain’s table.’
‘The captain?’ he said. ‘Well, they sometimes call my friend
Bill the Captain. Is he here in the house?’
‘No. He’s out,’ I said.
The man sat down and waited for the captain. Then the captain came into the room. He went to his table and sat down.
‘Bill!’ said the man.
The captain turned round quickly. His face went white. Suddenly, he looked old and ill.
‘Come, Bill, you know me. You know an old friend, Bill,’ said the man.
‘Black Dog!’ said the captain.
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘It’s me, Black Dog. I wanted to see my old friend Billy.’
‘Well, here I am,’ said the captain. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to talk to you, Bill,’ Black Dog said.
The captain looked at me. ‘Leave the room, boy,’ he said, ‘and don’t listen at the door.’
They talked for a long time. Then I heard them talking angrily.
‘No, no, no!’ said the captain. There was a fight and then Black Dog ran out of the house.
The captain’s face was white. ‘I must get out of here!’ he said.
I ran to get him a drink. I came back and found the captain on the floor. His eyes were closed.
Our doctor, Dr Livesey, came and looked at the old captain. ‘He’s very ill,’ said the doctor.
The captain opened his eyes and looked at the doctor. ‘Where’s Black Dog?’ he asked.
‘There’s no Black Dog here,’ said the doctor. ‘Now, Billy Bones, you must. . .’
3
‘Billy Bones?’ said the captain. ‘My name’s not Billy Bones.’
‘Oh?’ said the doctor. ‘Oh, yes. It’s the name of a famous pirate.’
We put the old captain in his bed. ‘He must stay in his bed for a week,’ said the doctor. ‘He’s very ill.’
♦
At twelve o’clock I went to see the captain in his room.
‘What did the doctor say?’ he asked.
‘You must stay in bed for a week,’ I told him.
‘Too late!’ he said. ‘You remember Black Dog. He’s a bad man, but there are worse men than Black Dog. They want my old box. You must look out for sailors. You must look out for Flint’s men.’
Then the captain closed his eyes.
But I didn’t look out for sailors, because my father died that night. I was too sad to think about the captain.
A week later, the captain came down and sat in his usual chair. I went outside the inn and looked up and down the road. I saw another man on the. road. He wore a long black coat and he walked very slowly.
‘He can’t see,’ I thought.
The man arrived in front of the inn and turned his face to me. ‘Can you tell me, please, where I am?’ I told him. He listened carefully;
‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘Take my hand, my young friend, and take me inside.’
He took my hand, He was very strong.
‘Now my young friend,’ he said, ‘take me to the captain. Quickly! I can break your arm.’
When the captain saw the man, he did not move. The man put something into the captain’s hand and then left the inn.

‘Now my young friend,’ he said, ‘take me to the captain. Quickly! I can break your arm.’
The captain looked at the black paper in his hand. Then he read the words on it.
‘Ten o’clock! They’re coming at ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘We’ve got six hours!’ He tried to stand up, but he was too ill.
I ran for my mother, but it was too late. When we came back the captain was dead on the floor.
♦
My mother and I went to the village, but the people there did not want to help us. They were too afraid. Our friend the doctor was away. Nobody could help us.
‘I must get my money from the captain’s box,’ my mother said. ‘It’s our money.’
We opened the box. There were some old coats and shirts and a bag of money. My mother began to take the money.
‘Quickly!’ I said. ‘It’s nearly ten o’clock.’
It was a cold night, and very quiet. Suddenly, I heard a sound on the road. Then I heard someone stop outside the inn. We waited, but then everything was quiet again. Nothing moved.
‘Quickly, mother!’ I said. ‘Take all the captain’s money.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it all.’ Then we heard someone
again, outside the front door.
‘Let’s go without the money,’ my mother said.
I took an envelope from the captain’s box. ‘I’m going to take
this,’ I said.
We left the inn very quietly through the back door. We heard men running along the road to the inn.
We stopped behind some trees and watched the men. There were seven or eight of them, all pirates. They broke down the
door of the inn and ran inside.
‘Bill’s dead!’ someone said.
‘Open his box!’ a second man said.
‘The money’s here!’
‘Flint’s map! Where’s Flint’s map?’
‘We can’t find it!’
‘It’s not here!’
‘It’s those people at the inn - it’s that boy! The boy’s got the
map. Find them, boys!’ The men moved quickly. They looked into every room in the
inn.
‘Listen!’ one of them said. ‘Someone’s coming! We must run!’
‘No, find the boy! He’s near here somewhere, I know.’
Then I heard a gun. The pirates heard it too, and began to run
6

We stopped behind some trees and watched the men.

away. We waited for a minute or two and then we went back to the inn.
‘What did the pirates want?’ a man from the village asked me. ‘Did they find the captain’s money?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I think they wanted this.’ I showed him the envelope. ‘I think there’s a map inside it.’
‘You must take it to Mr Trelawney,’ he told me.
♦
When I arrived at Mr Trelawney’s house, Dr Livesey was there.
‘Hello Jim, what is it?’ he asked.
I told him about the pirates.
‘Let’s see that map,’ the doctor said. ‘But first, Mr Trelawney,
what do you know about Captain Flint?’
‘Flint?’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘He was a famous pirate and a very bad man. Everybody was afraid of Captain Flint. But he’s dead
now.’
‘Did he have any money?’ asked the doctor.
‘Money!’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘He was the richest pirate in the
West Indies.’
‘Then perhaps this map shows where Captain Flint’s treasure is,’ said the doctor.
‘What?’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘Then I must buy a ship and we can all go and look for the treasure.’
The doctor opened the map very carefully. It was a map of an island. There was some writing on the map. It said: ‘Treasure here’.
Mr Trelawney and the doctor were excited. ‘Livesey!’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to Bristol. I’m going to buy a ship and find sailors. Jim, you and Dr Livesey are going to come with me to look for the treasure!’
♦
8

Treasure Island 1750
The next day Mr Trelawney left for Bristol. I stayed at home and waited. At last, weeks later, Dr Livesey got a letter from Bristol.
Dear Livesey,
The ship is ready. Its name is Hispaniola. I found a good man to be our cook on the ship. He’s an old sailor and he has an inn here in Bristol. He is going to help me find sailors for our ship. He knows a lot of men here. His name is Long John Silver. He has only one leg.
Please send Jim Hawkins to Bristol tomorrow.
Trelawney.

I was very excited. The next morning I said goodbye to my mother and started for Bristol. Mr Trelawney met me there.
‘When do we sail?’ I asked him.
‘Sail?’ he said. ‘We sail tomorrow!’
I had something to eat, then Mr Trelawney gave me a letter for Long John Silver at the Spy Glass Inn.
There were a lot of sailors in the Spy Glass Inn. I looked round and saw a tall strong man with one leg. ‘He’s Long John Silver,’ I thought.
‘Mr Silver, sir?’ I asked.
‘Yes, that’s my name. And who are you?’
I gave him the letter and he took my hand. Suddenly, one of the other men in the inn jumped up and ran to the door. I knew him. It was Black Dog!
‘Stop him!’ I said. ‘Stop him! It’s Black Dog!’ ‘Harry,’ said Silver, ‘run and catch that man.’ A man got up and ran after Black Dog.
Long John Silver turned to me. “Who was that man?’ he asked. ‘Black what?’
‘Dog, sir,’ I said. ‘He’s a pirate.’
‘A pirate!’ said Silver. ‘Ben, run and help Harry. You can catch him!’
But Ben and Harry came back without Black Dog. ‘We lost him,’ they said.
‘Well, what is Mr Trelawney going to think?’ said Silver. ‘You know, Jim, we did try to catch him. And nobody in the inn knew that he was the pirate Black Dog. Now, Jim, come with me. We’re going to see Mr Trelawney.’
Long John Silver walked with me to meet Mr Trelawney and Dr Livesey. He told them about Black Dog.
Mr Trelawney listened carefully, and then said, ‘Well, we can’t do anything about Black Dog now. John, tell all the men to come to the ship this afternoon.’
The doctor turned to me. ‘Come and see the ship, Jim,’ he said. And meet our captain, Captain Smollett.’
So we went to the Hispaniola. ‘Well, Captain Smollett,’ said Mr Trelawney, ‘I hope everything is ready.’
‘Well, sir,’ said the captain, ‘it is, but I’m not happy about it. I don’t like the sailors.’

Long John Silver turned to me. ‘Who was that man?’ he asked. ‘Black what?’
‘Oh?’ said Mr Trelawney. He was very angry with the captain. But Dr Livesey said, ‘Tell me, Captain Smollett. Why are you unhappy?
‘Well,’ said the captain, I don’t know where we are going. But
all the sailors say we are going to look for treasure. I don’t like it. I don’t know these men.’
‘Well, what do you want?’ asked the doctor.
‘We must have all the guns in our rooms, sir. And Mr Trelawney’s men must sleep near us, not with the other sailors.’
‘And?’ said Mr Trelawney.
‘You have a map. The sailors know about it. Nobody must see that map.’
‘Right, sir,’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘We can do that. But I think they’re very good men.’
‘Trelawney,’ said the doctor later, ‘you have two good men, Captain Smollett and Long John Silver.’
‘I don’t know about the captain,’ said Mr Trelawney angrily.
Then Captain Smollett found me. ‘And you, boy, go and help the cook!’
♦
We worked all night and in the morning, the ship left Bristol. The Hispaniola was a good ship and we had good weather. The sailors all liked Long John Silver. In the old days, before he lost his leg, he was a good fighter,’ some of them said. He was always very good to me.
Mr Trelawney liked to give the sailors things to make them happy. There was always a big barrel of fruit for them.
One night, after I finished my work on the ship, I went to get some fruit from the barrel. Everything was very quiet. I climbed inside the barrel to get the fruit. Suddenly a heavy man sat down next to the barrel. He began to speak. It was Long John Silver. I stayed very quiet.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Flint was our captain. I sailed with him many times. We had one big fight. I lost my leg and Old Pew lost his eyes. I saw a lot of fighting and a lot of treasure, too.’
‘Ah,’ said a younger man. ‘Flint was a bad man! And where are all Flint’s men now?’
‘Most of them are here,’ said Silver quietly, ‘on this ship. Old Pew’s dead. And you, young man, do you want to help us? Do you want to be a pirate?’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Good,’ said Silver. ‘You’re going to be a good pirate.’
Then a second man spoke to Long John Silver. It was Israel Hands.
‘I don’t like our captain, John,’ he said. ‘Let’s kill Smollett and the others.’
‘No. We must wait. We must have Captain Smollett to sail the ship,’ said Silver. ‘And Mr Trelawney and the doctor have the map. Let them find the treasure first. Then we can kill them. Now get me some fruit from this barrel.’
I was very afraid. But then someone said, ‘Land!’
♦
Everybody ran to see the island. I waited for a minute, then I climbed out of the barrel and ran, too. The ship was now quite near an island.
‘Does anybody know this island?’ Captain Smollett asked.
‘I do,’ said Silver. ‘There were a lot of pirates here in the old days. That hill in the centre of the island is called the Spy Glass.’
Then Captain Smollett showed Silver a map of the island. Silver looked at the map very carefully, but it was not Billy Bones’s map. It did not show the treasure.
I went to Dr Livesey. ‘Can I speak to you please, doctor?’ I said.
‘What is it, Jim?’ he asked.
Then I told the doctor, Mr Trelawney and Captain Smollett about Long John Silver. ‘Most of the sailors are pirates,’ I said. ‘They want to kill us and take the treasure.’
‘Thank you, Jim,’ said Mr Trelawney. ‘And Captain Smollett, you were right. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’
‘Silver is a very clever man,’ said the doctor. We all liked him.’
‘What are we going to do, captain?’ asked Mr Trelawney.
♦
The next morning we arrived at the island. I remembered Billy Bones’s map. ‘I know there’s a house on the island,’ I thought. ‘But I can’t see it from here.’
The sailors wanted to leave the ship, but Captain Smollett said, ‘Tell the men they can go to the island this afternoon.’
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Mr Trelawney. ‘We must think quickly.’
Three of the men on the ship, Hunter, Joyce and Redruth, were Mr Trelawney’s men. He told them about Long John Silver and the pirates and he gave them some guns. Then he spoke to the other men, the pirates.
‘Men,’ he said, ‘it’s a hot day and we’re all tired. Take a boat and go to the island. You can come back this evening.’
The pirates were happier. Six of them stayed on the Hispaniola and thirteen got into the small boats to go to the island. I quietly got into one of the boats, too.
We arrived on the beach and I ran away from the pirates. Long John Silver saw me. ‘Jim! Jim!’ he said. ‘Come here!’ But I did not listen to him. I ran into the trees.
I walked about for a time, then I heard the pirates talking angrily. There was some fighting, and one man died.
‘He didn’t want to help them, so they killed him,’ I thought,
‘They’re bad men.’
‘
14


‘I know there’s a house on the island,’ I thought. ‘But I can’t
see it from here.’

I ran and ran. ‘How can I get back to the ship?’ I thought. ‘The pirates are going to kill me, too.’
I climbed the hill. Suddenly I saw a man. Who’s this?’ I thought. ‘He isn’t one of our men. Nobody lives on this island.’
I began to run back to the beach, but I was tired and the man ran very quickly. I stopped and took out my gun.
The man carefully came out of the trees. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m Ben Gunn,’ he said. ‘I live here. The pirates left me on this island three years ago. What’s your name?’
‘Jim,’ I told him.
‘Well, Jim,’ he said, ‘I’m a very rich man. But tell me, who came in that ship? Is it Flint’s ship?’
‘No, it isn’t. Flint is dead,’ I said. ‘But some of his men are on the ship.’
‘Not. . . not a man with one leg?’
‘Silver?’ I asked.
‘Yes, Silver,’ he said. ‘Are you a friend of his?’
‘No, I’m not,’ I answered. And I told him everything.
‘Is Mr Trelawney a good man?’ Ben asked. ‘Perhaps I can help him.’
‘Yes, he’s very good. And I think he can help you, too.’ ‘Good,’ said Ben Gunn.
‘But can you help me now?’ I asked. ‘I must get back to the ship.’
‘I’ve got a little boat,’ he said. ‘You can use it tonight.’
Suddenly we heard the sound of guns. ‘Listen! they’re fighting!’ I said.
We ran to the beach. We heard more guns, then everything was quiet and a flag went up above the trees.
16

‘I’m Ben Gunn,’ he said. ‘I live here.’

Chapter 2 Dr Livesey’s Story

At half-past one in the afternoon two small boats went from the ship to the island. We looked for Jim Hawkins on the Hispaniola, but he was not there.
We waited on the ship. There were six pirates with us. Then Hunter and I took a boat and went to the island. I wanted to see the house on the island.
The house was strong and it was in a good place. ‘We can stay here,’ I thought. ‘There’s water, and we can bring food and guns from the ship.’
Then I heard the pirates fighting in the trees. ‘They’re killing someone,’ I thought. ‘Perhaps Jim Hawkins is dead.’
Hunter and I went back to the Hispaniola. I told the captain about the house, and we started to put food into the small boat. The pirates on the ship did not hear us.
Joyce and I carried the food from the beach to the house. Joyce stayed in the house with his gun and I went back to the ship. We put more food and our guns into the small boat and dropped all the other guns into the sea. Then Mr Trelawney’s men Redruth and Hunter, Mr Trelawney, the captain and I left the ship. There were five of us in a small boat and we moved very slowly.
Then we saw the pirates on the Hispaniola. They had the big gun on the ship.
‘They’re going to shoot at us,’ somebody said.
We tried to go faster. Mr Trelawney shot at the men on the ship. He hit one of them.
Then the pirates on the island ran out of the trees. They began to run along the beach.
18


‘There were Jive of us in a small boat and we moved very slowly.’


Captain Smollett said sadly, ‘Now there are only five of usand we have food for ten days. What are we going to do?’
‘Quickly!’ said the captain. ‘They’re going to catch us. Leave the boat.’
We heard the big gun on the Hispaniola behind us; we jumped on to the beach and ran. Most of our food and our guns went down into the sea with the small boat.
We heard the pirates running along the beach behind us, but we ran quickly through the trees to the house. We arrived at the house and turned to shoot at the pirates.
We hit one of the pirates, and the other men ran away. Then one of the pirates turned and shot Redruth through the head.
Captain Smollett said sadly: ‘Now there are only five of us and we have food for ten days. What are we going to do?’
Suddenly we heard somebody outside. ‘Dr Livesey,’ said Jim Hawkins, ‘it’s me, Jim. I’m here.’
So then there were six of us.
21

Chapter 3 Jim’s Story II
‘Your friends are in the house now,’ said Ben Gunn.
‘I must go to them,’ I said. ‘Are you coming with me?
‘No,’ said Ben. ‘But you know where to find me. Come tomorrow afternoon.’
I looked at the Hispaniola, out on the sea, and saw the pirates’ flag. ‘They have the ship now,’ I thought.
The pirates on the beach made a big fire. They started to drink and to talk loudly. I waited for a time, then went to the house. I told Dr Livesey about my meeting with Ben Gunn up on the hill.
‘Tell me about this man,’ said the doctor. ‘Is he going to help us?’
‘Yes, I think he is,’ I said.
‘There are fifteen pirates now,’ said the doctor. ‘And there are six of us. Seven, with Ben Gunn.’
I was very tired and I slept well that night. The next morning one of our men said: ‘Look! Someone’s coming! A man with a white flag.’
‘Don’t shoot!’ said the man. ‘It’s me. John Silver.’ ‘What do you want?’ asked Captain Smollett. ‘Captain Silver wants to talk to you,’ said Long John. ‘Captain Silver now? Come on, then,’ said Captain Smollett. Long John came slowly up the hill to the house. We all watched him.
‘Yes?’ asked the captain.
One of our men is dead,’ said Silver. ‘You killed him in the night.’
The captain said nothing.
22


‘We didn’t kill that man,’ I thought. ‘Ben Gunn killed him. Now there are only fourteen pirates.’
‘We want that treasure,’ Silver said. ‘And you’ve got a map, right?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the captain.
‘I know you’ve got it,’ said Silver. ‘Give us the map. Then you can leave the island with us, or, if you like, you can stay here.’
‘Is that all?’ asked Captain Smollett. ‘Now, listen to me, Silver. You can’t find the treasure and you can’t sail the ship. We aren’t going to help you find the treasure, so you can go now. I have nothing more to say to you.’
‘Then we’re going to fight you,’ said Silver angrily, and he went away, walking slowly down the hill.
It was a hot day. We waited for a long time and then the pirates started shooting again. Suddenly some of the pirates ran out of the trees up to the house.
‘Get them!’ said the captain. We all fought hard. We killed three of the pirates and the others ran away. But when we got back inside the house we found that Joyce was dead. Hunter and the captain were hurt, too.
‘Five pirates are dead,’ said the doctor.
‘Good,’ said the captain. ‘Now they have nine men and we have five.’
♦
The pirates went back to the beach. Everything was quiet. Later that day Hunter died.
The doctor left the house. ‘He’s going to meet Ben Gunn,’ I thought. It was very hot inside the house and I did not like waiting. So I took some food and a gun and went to look for Ben Gunn’s boat.
After about an hour I found it. It was very small and light. ‘I can take this boat and go out to the Hispaniola at night,’ I
thought.
I sat down and waited. Night came, and it was very dark. The pirates had a big fire on the beach, and there was a small light on the Hispaniola. Very quietly, I put Ben Gunn’s boat into the sea. The boat moved slowly and quietly across the water. Soon I was near the ship. Nobody saw me.
‘I can cut the ship’s rope with my knife,’ I thought. ‘And then the wind can push the ship away from the beach.’
I listened. There were two men on the ship. The other pirates were all on the beach. The men on the ship were talking loudly and angrily. ‘They’re going to have a fight,’ I thought. One of the men was Israel Hands.
I waited, then I cut the rope. Slowly the ship turned round and

‘I can cut the ship’s rope with my knife,’ I thought.

began to move away from the beach. The two men on the ship
started to fight. The pirates on the beach sat round their fire and sang. They did not see the ship moving away. I sat down in Ben Gunn’s boat and fell asleep.
In the morning I sat up and looked around. The little boat was not far from the island and I saw that I was quite near the Hispaniola. I looked for Israel Hands and the other pirate, but I did not see them. I moved slowly nearer and nearer to the Hispaniola. Then I climbed on to the ship.
The two pirates were there, on the ship. They did not move. One of them was dead. Israel Hand’s leg was badly hurt, but he
was not dead.
I looked round the ship. All the cupboards were open, and everything was dirty. There were a lot of bottles on the floor.
I found some drink and gave it to Hands. Then I took down the pirates’ flag. ‘The ship is ours, now,’ I thought.
Israel Hands spoke. ‘You can’t sail the ship, Jim Hawkins,’ he said. ‘Give me some food. I can help you.’
‘I don’t want to go back to the beach,’ I said. ‘Help me to sail it to the North Inlet.’
‘Right,’ he said.
So we sailed to the north of the island. The ship moved quietly through the water; I was happy. The old pirate watched me carefully.
Then he smiled. ‘Jim, go and get me . . . er . . . get me something to drink,’ he said. ‘I’m thirsty.’
I did not like his smile. I went away, but I came back very quietly and watched him. He moved slowly and took a knife from behind some rope. Then he put the knife under his jacket and he went back to his old place.
Ah,’ I thought. ‘He can move and he’s got a knife. He wants to kill me. I must be careful.’
I went back to him and gave him the bottle. We sailed on and
26


So we sailed to the north of the island. The ship moved quietly through the waters; I was happy.
came to the North Inlet. Hands told me what to do and I brought the ship near the beach. I watched the sails and the sea, but I did not watch Hands. Suddenly I turned and saw him behind me with his knife in his hand. I jumped away and took out my gun. I tried to shoot at Hands but nothing happened. The gun was wet with sea water.
I moved away quickly, but Hands followed me. I climbed up among the sails and tried to shoot again. Hands looked up, then
he threw his knife at me. It went into my arm. Then I shot him and he dropped into the sea.
The pirate’s knife was in my arm. I pulled it out and climbed down on to the ship.
It was now evening. ‘I must go back to the house now,’ I thought. ‘They’re going to be angry with me, but I’ve got the ship.’
So I left the ship and went happily back through the trees. I saw the house, and a big fire next to it. I moved on quietly through the trees and went into the house. It was dark and very quiet. ‘Everyone is sleeping,’ I thought.
Then somebody spoke. ‘Who’s there?’ he said. It was Long John Silver.
♦
Somebody brought a light. There were six pirates in the room. The other pirates were all dead.
‘So here’s Jim,’ said Long John Silver. ‘Here to visit us. That’s very nice ...’
I said nothing.
‘So now you want to be a pirate, Jim,’ Silver said. ‘The captain and the doctor are angry with you, I know.’
‘What’s happening?’ I asked.
‘Well, Jim,’ said Silver. ‘The ship’s far away. Your friends left the house yesterday, and we’re here now. And you, Jim, are you going to stay with us?’
‘Let’s kill him,’ said one of the other pirates.
‘No,’ said Silver. ‘I’m the captain. And I like this boy.’
The other men were angry with Silver. They went away to talk
about it together.
‘I want to help you, Jim,’ said Silver quietly to me. ‘But you must help me, too.’
At last the other pirates came back. They gave Silver some paper. It was black.
‘You aren’t our captain now, John Silver,’ one of the pirates said. ‘We don’t want you. And we don’t want that boy.’

‘So here’s Jim. Here to visit us. That’s very nice . . .’

‘Well,’ said Silver. ‘I have something you want. Look! And he showed them Mr Trelawney’s treasure map. ‘The doctor gave me this!’ he said.
The pirates were very excited and they all looked at the map. ‘Good old Silver!’ they said. ‘Good old Captain Silver!’
♦
The next morning the doctor came to the house.
‘Good morning, doctor,’ said Long John. ‘Look who’s here!’
‘Jim!’ said the doctor. ‘I want to talk to you. But first I must look at these men.’
‘Now I want to talk to Jim,’ said the doctor after a few minutes.
‘No, you can’t,’ said one pirate.
But Silver said, ‘Yes, he can. You can speak to the boy, doctor.’
The doctor turned to me. ‘Why are you with the pirates, Jim?’ he asked sadly.
‘It was a mistake,’ I said. ‘They caught me here last night. But doctor, I’ve got the ship. It’s in the North Inlet.’
‘The ship!’ said the doctor.
I told him my story.
‘Good boy!’ he said. Then he turned to Silver. ‘Silver! Look after this boy. Perhaps I can help you later. Goodbye, Jim.’ And the doctor left us.
♦
‘And now, Jim,’ said Silver, ‘we’re going to look for the treasure.’
The pirates thought about the treasure and they were happy. They ate their breakfast quickly and we all started to walk along the beach.
‘We must go this way, and look for a tall tree,’ said Silver.
There were a lot of tall trees on the island and the pirates ran to look at all of them.
Then one of the pirates said, ‘Here!’ Near a tree was a dead man.
‘He was a sailor,’ said one of the pirates. ‘Look at his jacket! But what’s he doing here? When did he die?’
‘Flint killed him years ago,’ said Silver. ‘He’s showing us the way to the treasure. Follow his arm. Come on! This way.’
The pirates followed quietly. They were afraid. We climbed a hill, then we sat down.
Suddenly we heard singing. ‘It’s Flint!’ said one man, his face very white. ‘No,’ said Silver. ‘Not Flint. Flint’s dead. Remember the treasure, my boys, and don’t be afraid!’ But all the pirates had white faces.
Silver listened carefully to the singing. ‘That’s not Flint!’ he said. ‘It’s . . . it’s Ben Gunn! We’re not afraid of Ben Gunn!’
The singing stopped and we moved on. After twenty minutes we saw a very big tree on top of a hill. The pirates started to run.
But they did not find any treasure. Under the tree they found an old box. There was nothing in it. Flint’s treasure was not there.
For a long time the six pirates sat and said nothing. Then Silver turned to me. ‘Be very careful, Jim,’ he said quietly. ‘These men are dangerous.’ He gave me a gun.
The pirates looked at us and we looked back at them. Suddenly, from the trees, guns started to shoot. Two of the pirates dropped to the ground and the other three ran away.
The doctor and Ben Gunn ran out of the trees and started to run after the pirates. ‘They can’t get away,’ said Silver. ‘And you, Ben Gunn, what are you doing here?’
The doctor and Ben told us Ben’s story. ‘Ben found the treasure a long time ago,’ said the doctor. ‘He moved it to his

I had a good dinner that night with all my friends.

home on the island. So I gave the pirates Flint’s map and we left the house and went to stay with Ben.’
We took one of the pirate’s boats, and broke the other. ‘The pirates haven’t got a boat now,’ said the doctor. ‘They can’t follow us.’
Then we went round the island to find the Hispaniola. At last we found our ship and met Mr Trelawney and Captain Smollett.
‘What are you doing here, John Silver?’ asked the captain.
‘I’m here to help you,’ said Silver.
‘Ah,’ said the captain.
I had a good dinner that night with all my friends. We were all happy. Silver ate and drank and smiled and laughed too.
♦
The next morning we started to carry the treasure to the ship. We did not see the three pirates on the island. Three days later, we finished our work. We heard the pirates singing loudly, but we did not see them.
We left some boxes of food for the pirates, and started across the sea to the nearest town. We were happy when we arrived there. And there Silver left us. We were in the town and he got away. He took some of the treasure with him, too.
And so, after some weeks at sea, we arrived home with our treasure. I never wanted to go back to that island again.
33

ACTIVITIES

Chapter 1 Before you read
1 All these words come in this part of the story. Do you understand them?
barrel captain flag hill inn island
pirates sail sailor treasure
Give each word the right meaning:
a some land with sea all round it
b a worker on a boat or ship
c the most important person on a ship
d used to put wine or other drinks in
e a ship does this when the wind moves it across the sea
f a small hotel with a bar
g a small mountain
h every country flies one of these
i these bad seamen fight other ships
j money etc, often in a box under the ground
2 Look at the pictures in this book. When do you think the story
happened?
a in the 1700s
b in the last 20 years
c in the 1900s
3 Which of these words do you think will come in the story?
beach bicycle cinema gun knife
map radio sea supermarket taxi
After you read
4 What did they do?
a Ben Gunn lost one of his legs in a fight.
b Black Dog brought the treasure to the island.
c Jim Hawkins lived on an island for three years.
d Mr Trelawney lost some fingers on his left hand.
e Captain Flint lived in an inn with his mother.
f Long John Silver bought the Hispaniola.
35

5 Answer these questions. a A captain stays at the inn. What is his name? b Who is he most afraid of?
c What thing in his box do the pirates want most? d Why don’t they find it? 6 Answer these questions. a When Jim is inside the barrel, he learns something very important about Silver and some other sailors. What is it?
b What happens when Silver wants to have some fruit from the barrel?
Chapter 2
Before you read
7 Put the best word in these sentences.
a hit kick shoot
He has a gun and he can ..................well.

b fell dropped threw
Is this your handkerchief? I think you ................. it. 8 Look at the picture on page 20. Are these men pirates or friends of the captain?
What do you think happened to the man on the ground?
After you read
9 The five men leave the ship and go to the island. a Then where do they go? b Why do they move very quickly?
Chapter 3
Before you read
10 Which picture shows Jim cutting a rope? 11 Finish the sentence with the best word:
pushed hurt ill
In the fight three people died and two were…… 12 Do you think that Jim and his friends will live or die?
Do you think that they will find the treasure?
Talk about these things with another student.
After you read
13 Answer these questions. a Who kills one of the pirates in the night? b Where does Israel Hands help Jim to sail the ship to? c What is wrong with Jim’s gun when he tries to use it?
14 How many pirates are still living at the end of the story? What happens to them?
Writing
15 Who do you like best in the story? Write three or four sentences about him.
16 The police are looking for Long John Silver. How will they know him? Write some things about him to help the police.
17 Look at the picture on page 17. Ben Gunn looks different from the other people in the story. How is he different?
18 Something dangerous happens to most of the people in this book. Did anything dangerous happen to you in your life? Write about it.
Answers for the Activities in this book are published in our free resource packs for teachers, the Penguin Readers Factsheets, or available on a separate sheet. Please write to your local Pearson Education office or to: Marketing Department, Penguin Longman Publishing, 5 Bentinck Street, London W1M5RN.