Saki's story of a boy in disgrace, a forbidden room, and an aunt defeated by her own rules.
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Ten words unlock the story. Work through the four activities — say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words from the story: retribution · tapestry · improvise. Say the right word, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, there's a quick comprehension check (try the questions from memory first), then one thing to discuss.
At breakfast Nicholas declined his bread and milk on the grounds that there was a frog in it. Older and wiser and better people informed him that such a thing was out of the question, and that he was not to talk nonsense. He continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed to them the most obvious nonsense, and described with some particularity the colouring and markings of the alleged frog. The remarkable part of the affair, which none of them considered, was that there really was a frog in his bread and milk. He had put it there himself, and he therefore felt entitled to know something about it.
The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of bread and milk was held to be rather serious. The greater offence, though nobody phrased it that way, was that a child of eleven had been demonstrably correct in a matter on which four adults had pronounced with confidence. Retribution followed within the hour. The other children were to be taken that afternoon to the sands at Jagborough — a treat arranged, it seemed, chiefly so that Nicholas could be excluded from it. He was informed of the arrangement several times, with careful emphasis, in case the moral escaped him.
The organiser of these events was not, strictly speaking, an aunt at all; she was somebody else's aunt who had assumed the office. She was also convinced that Nicholas would spend the afternoon attempting to enter the gooseberry garden, which was forbidden. She therefore positioned herself where she could observe the small door leading into it, glancing up from her gardening every few minutes with an air of alert virtue. Nicholas had no intention whatever of going into the gooseberry garden — but he made two or three thoughtful approaches to the door, which kept her at her post for the better part of an hour.
1. What did Nicholas claim at breakfast, and what was remarkable about the claim?
2. What is his punishment, and how does he redirect his aunt's vigilance?
1. That there was a frog in his bread and milk. He was told it was impossible — and he was entirely right, having put it there himself.
2. He is excluded from the trip to the sands. He then makes a few deliberate approaches to the forbidden gooseberry door, which keeps his aunt guarding it for nearly an hour while he goes elsewhere.
Having secured his aunt's attention at the wrong door, Nicholas produced the key he had studied at leisure over several weeks, and admitted himself to the lumber room. It was a place of legend. Entry was forbidden, questions about it went unanswered, and it had accordingly acquired, in his imagination, the status of a treasure house. For once in his experience, the reality exceeded the anticipation.
The room was crowded with objects that had been stored rather than discarded — the difference between a house that throws things away and a house that merely stops looking at them. There was a tapestry stretched on a frame, showing a hunter who had just brought down a stag with an arrow. It would have been a straightforward picture, except that four wolves were coming through the trees behind him. How many arrows did the hunter have left? Could he reach the tree beside him, and would the wolves be able to follow? Nicholas stood in front of it for a long time, conducting the enquiry with the seriousness of a general.
There was more. Candlesticks in the shape of coiled snakes; a teapot modelled as a china duck; a sandalwood box packed tight with brown paper, each piece wrapped as though it mattered; and, best of all, a heavy book of coloured plates showing birds he had never heard of — a mandarin duck, a toucan, a heron — creatures whose existence nobody had bothered to mention to him. He was entirely absorbed. And then, from somewhere out in the garden, came the sound of his aunt calling his name.
1. How has the lumber room acquired its reputation, and how does the reality compare?
2. What is happening in the tapestry, and what does Nicholas do with it?
1. Through prohibition and silence: entry is forbidden and questions go unanswered, so his imagination has filled it. Unusually, the room turns out to be better than he had imagined.
2. A hunter has shot a stag but four wolves are approaching behind him. Nicholas treats it as an unfinished problem, working out how many arrows remain and whether the tree offers escape.
The aunt, prosecuting her search for Nicholas among the gooseberry bushes, had slipped on the wet edge of the rainwater tank and discovered that she could not get out again. Her voice reached him thin and irritable, requiring him to fetch the ladder from beside the cherry tree.
Nicholas came into the forbidden garden and regarded her with courteous interest. Was he permitted to be in the gooseberry garden? He was told, from the tank, that he was not, and instructed to bring the ladder immediately. Would there be strawberry jam for tea? Certainly there would, came the exasperated reply — why on earth did he ask? "Because," said Nicholas, "you told me this morning that there was none, and I happen to know that there are four jars of it in the store cupboard. You know it, and I know it, and you clearly do not know that I know it. Therefore you are not my aunt. You are the Evil One, tempting me." Then, observing that she had assured him only the previous week that no such being existed, he judged the matter closed and walked away, leaving her the last word and no means of using it.
She was extracted, in due course, by the kitchen maid who had come out for parsley. Tea that evening was conducted in a heavy silence. Jagborough had been a failure of the first order: the tide was fully in, so there had been no sands to play on whatever, and one of the children had spent the entire afternoon in boots that did not fit. The aunt sat in the frozen dignity of a person who has suffered an outrage she cannot describe to anybody. And Nicholas said nothing either — not out of triumph, but because he was still occupied elsewhere, with a hunter, two remaining arrows, and four wolves closing through the trees while the light went.
1. On what grounds does Nicholas refuse to fetch the ladder?
2. Why is the tea table silent — and where is Nicholas's attention?
1. The voice promises strawberry jam, which his aunt had denied existed that morning; therefore, he reasons, the speaker cannot be his aunt but the Evil One in disguise — using her own recent assurance that no such being exists.
2. Because the outing failed (the tide was in, one child's boots pinched) and the aunt has been humiliated in a way she cannot report. Nicholas is silent because his mind is still in the tapestry, working out whether the hunter escapes.
Saki's narrator constantly folds two actions into one sentence: "Having secured his aunt's attention at the wrong door, Nicholas produced the key." This is the single most useful structure for making written English sound adult rather than assembled.
Rewrite the pair as one sentence, beginning with the participle. Write only the participle clause.
1. He had studied the key for weeks. He opened the lumber room easily. → , he opened the lumber room easily.
2. She was convinced he would try the gooseberry door. She watched it for an hour. → , she watched it for an hour.
3. She slipped on the wet edge. She fell into the tank. → , she fell into the tank.
1. Having studied the key for weeks (earlier action)
2. Convinced (that) he would try the gooseberry door (passive participle giving the reason)
3. Slipping on the wet edge (simultaneous)
Each sentence attaches the participle to the wrong subject. Rewrite the main clause so it works.
1. Standing in the doorway, the tapestry looked enormous. → Standing in the doorway, .
2. Having been excluded from the outing, the afternoon was spent indoors. → Having been excluded from the outing, .
3. Calling for help from the tank, the ladder was nowhere to be seen. → Calling for help from the tank, .
1. …he thought the tapestry looked enormous / …Nicholas found the tapestry enormous.
2. …Nicholas spent the afternoon indoors.
3. …she could see no sign of the ladder.
In every case the person doing the participle action must become the subject of the main clause.
Fill each gap with the correct participle form of the verb in brackets, then read the whole paragraph aloud.
(be) told repeatedly that he was excluded from the treat, Nicholas showed no interest in the outing at all. (make) two or three approaches to the gooseberry door, he left his aunt guarding it and went upstairs. (open) the lumber room, he found a tapestry, a book of birds and a china duck. (trap) in the rainwater tank, his aunt called for a ladder. (not / wish) to assist the Evil One, Nicholas walked away, (leave) her to the kitchen maid.
Having been told · Having made · Having opened · Trapped · Not wishing · leaving
Note the final one: a participle after the main clause usually expresses the result — "he walked away, leaving her…".
Hold on to this structure — in the Speak tab, narrating with participle clauses will make your account sound written rather than listed.
Saki was sent from Burma to England as a small child after his mother's death, and raised by two aunts of exactly the type he spent his career dismantling. The comic surface of these stories sits on something colder: a settled conviction that adults use rules not to protect children but to manage them.
This is the heart of the lesson — do all of it out loud. The timer is there to keep you going: fill the time with detail rather than racing through it.
Tell The Lumber Room as if to someone who has never read it. Move through the arc: the frog and the offence of being right → the treat he is excluded from → the aunt at the wrong door → the key and the forbidden room → the tapestry and the book of birds → the voice from the tank → jam, the Evil One, and the walk away → the silent tea.
Use at least three participle clauses and at least five key words (disgrace, self-satisfied, vigilance, tapestry, improvise, retribution, forbidden, humiliated, punitive, defiance).
Build an argument. He left an adult stuck in a water tank to score a philosophical point — but she had spent the day constructing his humiliation, and every word he used was hers. Take a side, give three reasons, deal with the strongest objection, and state the principle you think should govern a case like this.
Then argue the opposite side for one minute.
Take the story's themes outward.
Stuck for an idea? Pick one of these and run with it: