The Mystery of the Shattered Ice, Part 2
An Intermediate Level Lesson to Practice Winter Vocabulary
This lesson is for intermediate students (see our chart of English levels). It practices reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, essay writing, sentence structure, and role play.
Follow these steps:
- Before reading: go over the story's glossary. It contains winter words and other more advanced words.
- Reading: read the story. It has 3 parts: Part 1, Part 2 (this page), Part 3.
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After reading: do the exercises. The exercises section has several parts:
- vocabulary questions 1 (winter words)
- vocabulary questions 2 (non-winter words)
- grammar questions
- comprehension and essay writing
- sentence jumbles and role play - Answers: check your answers using the answer key.
Reading
The Mystery of the Shattered Ice, Part 2
Roger, remembering what the mayor said about everyone watching the ice, walks across the street to the diner. Normally, Roger would take his cap off in a building, but the diner is so drafty he decides to leave it on. He walks up to the counter and waves at Jess, the owner.
"What can I get you today, officer?" Jess asks.
"Information," Roger replies. "Did you see anything last night?"
Jess shakes his head. "You mean the ice? No. I locked up around nine and everything was fine then."
Roger asks a few other people, but none of them know anything. The windchill was below zero last night, so everyone just stayed inside and warmed themselves by their fireplaces.
Roger notices a group of six teenagers staring at him suspiciously. He walks over to their table and smiles. He recognizes a few of them from his games when they were little.
"Enjoying your break from school?" he asks. They all nod, but don't say anything. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about the ice, would you?"
"No sir," a boy wearing a hoodie with "Northbury High School" written on it replies.
"You know this is very serious, right? The competition is incredibly important to this town."
"I know, sir. We all love it just as much as everyone else. Maybe it was someone from Riverview."
Riverview is a nearby town that has a much smaller winter festival each year. They're always trying to steal people away from Northbury's festival. Riverview's main attraction is a snowshoe race that nobody ever attends. Roger thinks the theory actually makes a lot of sense, but then he notices one of the girls.
A short, redheaded girl named Emma. She's wearing an oversized sweater and nibbling on a gingerbread man. He used to play with her and her brother all the time. Normally, she's friendly and chatty, but now she won't even look at Roger. "She knows something," Roger thinks.
"Well, I have to get back to my investigation. If any of you hear anything, let me know." He takes a business card out of his wallet and sets it down on the table, right in front of Emma. "Just call or email me. I even text."
Roger leaves the diner and sits in his car, brushing the snowflakes from his jacket as he sits down. He turns up the defroster and waits for the fog to clear from the windows as he tries to decide what to do next.
Suddenly, his cell phone buzzes. He unlocks it and sees he has a text message from a number he doesn't recognize. It says...
