Where Is My Ticket?

Nora and Perry had been planning the trip for weeks. The following morning they were going to catch an early train and spend the day walking in the hills, so on the evening before they sat on the living-room floor and packed their bags.

Nora had a map and a bottle of water, and Perry had two apples and a hat. “I’ve got the sandwiches,” Nora said, patting her bag. “That means we have food, water and a map,” Perry said, ticking everything off on his fingers.

Then he looked into his rucksack again and frowned. “Where is my train ticket?” he asked. “I have mine,” Nora said. “But you obviously don’t have yours!” Perry emptied his bag onto the floor and searched through everything twice, without success.

In the end they asked their mother, who was washing up in the kitchen. She dried her hands, opened a small box on the shelf and smiled. “You have two tickets in here,” she said. “Nora’s ticket and Perry’s ticket. I put them away so that nobody would lose them.”

Nora and Perry burst out laughing. “Now we have everything,” Nora said. But their mother had one more surprise: she went to the cupboard and took out two warm blue scarves, one for each of them. “The hills are colder than you think,” she said.