Ray Bradbury's story of a clever house that makes breakfast every morning for a family who are not there any more.
Want the fuller version? Read this story at B2/C1 level →
Ten words. Do the four short activities, and say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words: dust · silence · an alarm. Say the right word out loud, then reveal.
There are no people in this story — only a house, a clock and a dog. Here it is in three parts, in simple English. After each part, answer the questions from memory, then discuss.
It is seven o'clock in the morning. A voice in the living room sings: "Time to get up! Seven o'clock!" But nobody gets up. The house is empty.
In the kitchen, the machine makes breakfast. It makes eight pieces of toast, eight eggs, sixteen pieces of bacon, two coffees and two glasses of milk. That is breakfast for four people — two adults and two children. But nobody comes to eat it.
Another voice says the date: "Today is August 4th, 2026." It repeats it three times. Then it reads the plans for the day: a birthday, an anniversary, and the bills for water, gas and electricity.
At eight o'clock the voice says: "Time for school! Time for work!" No door opens. No feet walk on the floor. Outside it is raining. The garage door opens, the car waits, and after a long time the door closes again.
At half past eight the breakfast is cold. A machine pushes it into the sink. At quarter past nine, small cleaning robots — like little metal mice — come out of holes in the walls. They clean every room. Then they go back inside the walls.
At ten o'clock the sun comes out. And now we understand. Outside there is no city. There are only ruins — broken stones for many kilometres. This is the only house left. At night the ruins give a strange light.
One wall of the house is completely black and burnt. But there are five white shapes on it, like shadows. A man cutting the grass. A woman picking a flower. A small boy with his hands in the air. A ball. And a girl with her hands up, waiting to catch the ball. The ball never comes down.
1. How many people lived in this house? How do we know?
2. What is on the black wall outside?
1. Four — two adults and two children. We know because of the breakfast: two coffees for the adults and two glasses of milk for the children.
2. Five white shapes, like shadows: a man cutting grass, a woman picking a flower, a boy, a girl, and a ball in the air.
At twelve o'clock a dog comes to the door. The door knows its voice, and it opens. The dog was big and strong before. Now it is very thin and ill.
The dog runs upstairs. It barks at every door. But every room is empty. There is only silence.
Then it smells food in the kitchen. The machine is making pancakes. But the dog cannot open the door. It runs in circles. Then it falls down, and it dies.
The little cleaning robots are not sad. They are angry — because the dog made the floor dirty. Two hours later they take the dog away and put it in the fire in the cellar. At quarter past two, the story says only four words: "The dog was gone."
At half past two the house puts tables outside. It makes drinks and sandwiches. It plays music. Nobody comes. At four o'clock the tables close and go back into the walls.
At half past four the children's room wakes up. The walls become a jungle. There are yellow giraffes, blue lions, pink antelopes and purple panthers. You can hear the rain and smell the grass. It is beautiful. But there are no children.
At five o'clock the bath fills with hot water. At nine o'clock the beds get warm. At five past nine a voice asks: "Mrs McClellan, which poem would you like this evening?" This is the first time we hear the family's name. Nobody answers. So the voice says: "You have no favourite tonight, so I will choose one." And it reads a poem.
1. Why does the dog die?
2. What does the house do at 9:05, and why is it strange?
1. It is very ill and very hungry. It smells the food, but it cannot open the kitchen door. It runs in circles and dies.
2. It asks Mrs McClellan to choose a poem. Nobody answers, so it chooses one and reads it. The house thinks she has no favourite — but really, she is not there.
At ten o'clock the house starts to die.
The wind is strong. A branch from a tree breaks the kitchen window. A bottle of cleaning liquid falls on the hot cooker, and the kitchen catches fire.
The house tries to save itself. The alarms shout: "Fire! Fire!" Water comes down from the ceiling. All the doors close. But the windows break in the heat, and the wind makes the fire bigger. Then the water finishes. The house used all its water for baths and for washing plates on all those quiet days.
Green chemical foam comes from the roof, and the fire goes back. But then the fire goes outside and up to the roof, and the machines there explode. Now nothing can stop it. Everything the house does is useless.
The voices shout in every room. One by one, they stop. In the children's room, the painted animals run away from the fire and disappear. In the kitchen, the cooker makes breakfast again and again — hundreds of eggs, hundreds of pieces of toast — until the roof falls into the kitchen, and the kitchen falls into the cellar.
Then there is smoke, and there is silence.
In the morning, one wall is still standing. Inside it, one voice is still working. It says the same thing again and again: "Today is August 5th, 2026. Today is August 5th, 2026. Today is…"
1. How does the fire start?
2. What is the last thing in the story? What is different from the beginning?
1. The wind breaks a branch. The branch breaks the kitchen window. A bottle of cleaning liquid falls on the hot cooker and the kitchen catches fire.
2. One wall and one voice, saying the date. It is the same as the beginning — but the date is one day later, August 5th, and the sentence stops in the middle.
This story is a day, hour by hour. To tell it, you need two things: the past simple, and time words to put the events in order.
1. At seven o'clock the voice (sing) in the living room.
2. The machine (make) breakfast for four people.
3. Nobody (come) to eat it.
4. At ten o'clock the sun (come) out.
5. The little robots (clean) every room.
1. sang 2. made 3. came 4. came 5. cleaned
Four of these are irregular. Only one takes -ed. Say them all out loud twice.
Write the correct form. Be careful: after did and didn't, the verb has no past ending.
1. The family (not / eat) the breakfast.
2. the dog (find) anybody in the house?
3. The water (not / stop) the fire.
1. didn't eat 2. Did … find 3. didn't stop
Never "didn't ate" or "Did found". The word did already carries the past.
Put in the past simple verb, or the missing time word. Then read the whole paragraph aloud.
seven o'clock the house (wake) up and made breakfast. that, the robots (clean) the rooms. At twelve o'clock a dog (arrive), but it (not / live) very long. Two hours , the robots took it away. In the evening a voice (read) a poem to an empty room. , at ten o'clock, the fire (begin).
At · woke · After · cleaned · arrived · didn't live · later · read · Finally (or Then / In the end) · began
Note number 8: the past of read is spelled read but said like "red".
Keep these — in the Speak tab you will tell the whole day, hour by hour.
Ray Bradbury wrote this story in 1950, five years after the end of the Second World War. At that time, many people were afraid of a new war with very big bombs. He put his story in the future: August 2026. You are reading it in that month.
The title is from a poem. An American poet, Sara Teasdale, wrote it in 1918, at the end of the First World War. In the story, the house reads this poem out loud — to an empty chair.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Sara Teasdale, 1918
This is the most important part — say everything out loud. Use the timer, and try to fill the whole time.
Tell the whole story in your own words. Start at seven o'clock in the morning and finish in the morning of the next day: 7:00 the voice → the breakfast → 8:00 nobody goes to work → 10:00 the ruined city → the shadows on the wall → 12:00 the dog → the children's room → 9:05 the poem → 10:00 the fire → the morning.
Use at least five past simple verbs and at least four time words (at, then, after that, later, finally), and at least four key words.
Is this house a good thing or a bad thing? Give three reasons for your answer. Then say one thing you would change about the house to make it better.
Now try the other side for one minute. Say the opposite of what you just said. It is difficult — that is the point.
Tell me about yesterday, hour by hour, like the story. Start with the time you woke up. Use at, then, after that, later, finally, and use the past simple every time.
Prefer a different idea? Choose one: