l'M going TO TELL You about a funny thing that happened to my mother and me yesterday evening. i am twelve years old and l'm a girl. My mother is thirty-four but i am nearly as tall as her already Yesterday afternoon, my mother took me up to London to see the dentist. He found one hole. It was in a back tooth and he filled it without hurting me too much, After that, we went to a café. i had a banana split and my mother had a cup of coffee. By the time we got up to leave, it was about six o'clock. When we came out of the café it had started to rain. We must get a taxi, my mother said. We were wearing ordinary hats and coats, and it was raining quite hard Why don't we go back into the café and wait for it stopr i said. I wanted another of those banana splits. They were gorgeous. It isn't going to stop, my mother said. "We must get home. We stood on the pavement in the rain, looking for a taxi. Lots of them came by but they all had passengers inside them. I wish we had a car with a chauffeur, my mother said. Just then a man came up us, He was a small man and he was pretty old, probably seventy or more. He raised his hat politely and said to my mother, Excuse me, I do hope you will excuse me He had a fine white moustache and bushy white eyebrows and a wrinkly pink face. He was sheltering under an umbrella which he held high over his head Yes? my mother said, very cool and distant. I wonder if I could ask a small favour of you. he said. It is only a very small favour t saw my mother looking at him suspiciously. She suspicious person, my mother. She is especially suspicious of two things strange men and boiled eggs. When she cuts the top off a boiled egg, she pokes around inside it with her spoon as though expecting to find a which mouse or something. With strange men, she has a says. The nicer the man seems to be, the more suspicious you must become This little old man was particularly nice. He was polite. He