p>JENNIFER BASSETT
One-Way Ticket: Short Stories
ONE-WAY TICKET
SHORT STORIES
A train is a closed world. Each carriage is like a small room, with windows and doors, but you can’t get out when the train is moving. The world outside is far away, and you can forget your home, your work, your friends. On a train you sit with strangers. You don’t know anything about them, but you sit next to them for hours, or perhaps days, in the same small room. You can’t get away from them.
As the wheels of the train turn, these stories show us three different people. A beautiful young wife – going on holiday with her new husband, through the green hills of England. A carefree young man – travelling across the mountains of Yugoslavia, looking for work. A sensible middle-aged man – travelling north through the forests and lakes of Finland, hoping for a quiet journey.
Three different journeys, three different people – all locked in the closed world of the train … where anything can happen.
To my brothers, Nick and Rod, who do a lot of travelling around Europe by train
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0X2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis edition © Oxford University Press 2008The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19912 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department,Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information onlyOxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 478914 1A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of One-Way Ticket is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478849 6 Illustrated by: Nick HarrisWord count (main text): 5520 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478714 7e-Book first published 2012 
