The Piano Man. Tim Vicary

p>TIM VICARY

      The Piano Man

      THE PIANO MAN

      When somebody has an accident, there are sometimes two kinds of injury. One is an injury to the body, perhaps a broken arm or a leg, or something worse. But there is also another kind of injury, and you cannot see these injuries because they are inside a person’s head. The shock of a bad accident can do strange and terrible things to a person’s brain.

      Avril is a nurse in a hospital. She is very good with patients like the man from the sea. He was on a beach, in wet clothes, and nobody knows anything about him, not even his name. He has an injury to his head, but it is not a bad one. He can eat, and drink, and see, and hear. But he cannot speak, and he is very unhappy. Why? What happened to him, and where did he come from?

      One day he draws a picture of a piano, so Avril gives him a name – the Piano Man. Somebody, somewhere, knows something about the Piano Man. But that person is on a boat, and the boat is sailing back to St Petersburg in Russia …

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First published in Oxford Bookworms 2013

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ISBN: 978 0 19 478610 2

A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of The Piano Man is available in an audio pack. ISBN: 978 0 19 478602 7

Printed in China

Word count (main text): 6,476

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Illustrations by: Owen Freeman/Killington Arts

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463018 4

e-Book first published 2014

      CHAPTER 1

      THE MAN FROM THE SEA

      The boat, the boat … where is it? I must find the boat … I’m cold … so cold. Oh, Lida, where are you? How can I find you? I must find you … So cold, so cold … I must get back on the boat … Oh, Lida … Lida … Lida …

      ‘Mummy, look at that man!’