ZUZU LULU Y T U

An everyday tale of delusion, defiance and disaster

that will teach you English.

CHAPTER NINE -

ZUZU AND THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Hello! Zuzu here!  The Olympic Games are coming to Santander soon and I’ve been picked for the Spanish team.

I am a very good runner and I will beat everybody in the races. I was nearly the fastest runner on planet Hamoco when I lived there.

My special races are the one hundred meters, two hundred meters and the four hundred ninety nine and two halves meters. The five thousand meters is a bit too long for me.

The reason we have a 499 and two halves meters race is that the number 500 doesn’t exist in the Hamocan language. It used to exist but someone borrowed it a long time ago and never brought it back, so that’s why.

Talking about language – we’ve just started learning English at school. It’s a weird language, isn’t it?

I wasn’t surprised to find out that the letter ‘e’ is mute at the end of English words and in some other words, like sometimes, and baseball.  We’re used to this in Hamoco. For example, the “Ha” in “Hamoco” is mute or, as I say, silent.

Anyway, our teacher told us that in North America the events that I do are called ‘track and field’ but we call them ‘athletics’.

I could enter for the high jump but I’m not very tall and my legs are too short for the long jump. I’m going to suggest a new event – the low jump, which basically involves clinging to the floor. I’ll win this every time because of my practice on Hamoco on Tuesdays (see Chapter Five).

Mom has bought me a new outfit: I have white shorts, a red tee shirt and red tennis shoes. I also have a woolen sweatband. Mom says it’s to wipe the sweat from my brow but it’s also good for blowing my nose. Athletes like me don’t carry hankies, you know.

They tell me that the Olympic Games will be held all over Spain. This means that if I win my first rounds I might have to travel to faraway places like Laredo or Torrelavega. I’ll tell you how I got on and what my scores were in a later chapter.

LULU SAYS:

Oh dear! Did you guess? Zuzu is going to take part in his school Sports Day soon. He is a good runner and might win something. He could come first, second or third or he might fail to win a place. But he’ll enjoy it, I’m sure, because he’s a good sport.

It’s a good job there’s only one Hamoco, because now that I know how to pronounce it I wouldn’t like to go around talking about Hamocos in the plural, would you?

VOCABULARY - VERBS:

VOCABULARY