9th week -The Mystery of Allegra-

Title: The Mystery of Allegra

Author: Peter Foreman

Publisher (level): Oxford University Press (2.6)

Summary:

One night in April twelve years ago a man met Allegra. He was sixteen years old and she was only five. Allegra means “happy” in Italian. When his family were driving a dark road in heavy rain, they found a villa. They decided to stay there.

The old woman’s name was Margaret and her daughter’s was Chiara. Chiara had a daughter whose name was Allegra. When he went to bed, a girl entered his room and woke him up. Her name was Allegra and she asked him to take her to her mother. He wondered because her mother is at this villa.

Next morning he talked with Chiara about that night. She called Allegra and she came. But she was different from the first Allegra, he met that night. This night he met the first Allegra again and she asked same thing. He asked some questions to her. Then he knew where her mother is, at Bagno a Ripoli, near Florence. On April 21^st the second Allegra died for terrible fever. She was five years and three months old.

When he was eighteen, he went to university. In spring he went Italy and stayed in Florence with an Italian family. They had a daughter called Allegra. She was born on January 21^st and five years old. He remembered the second Allegra and went to Bagno a Ripoli. Then he knew that the first Allegra was ghost and her mother was died long years before and that her father took her from her mother. The ghost was looking for her dead mother.

At that night the third Allegra suffered from fever. The date was April 20^th. She was going to die on the next day. He met the first Allegra and hurried to her mother’s tombstone at Bagno a Ripoli. When arrived there, she cried happily and disappeared. Next morning the third Allegra got to be better. He saved the ghost, who is the first Allegra, and the third.

Evaluation: 5 stars

Perhaps this story is sorted mystery. But I could read it without so much fear. To say the truth, I hated the mystery because authors who write this kind of story think simply that the more fearful story is better. However this story excited me.

I recommend it for beginners because its story is not so complex that we can understand it without deep thinking.