「故事·听力」My Grandma Tricked Me Into Stealing

My Grandma Tricked Me Into Stealing

Hello! I’m Evan. Recently I had the most emotional night ever, which was full of fear, tears, embarrassment, and disappointment. I even almost went to jail! And it all that happened because of my grandma.

Let me start from the beginning. I am almost 16 now and for the past 10 years we’ve been living at my grandma’s place. She has plenty of illnesses she’d been suffering from, and she calls her condition “a simple senility,” but me and my parents had to move in with her to look after her. I’ve always loved my granny and tried to help out with whatever was asked of me, but she just so happens to love my big brother more than me. And now he's already a grownup, living in Europe, but granny still continues to compare the two of us, and this never works out in my favor. Her words are sometimes pretty offensive, especially taking into account that grandma has never been what I would call soft-spoken. Anyway, since she lives with us, I've had no chance to avoid her.

By the time this whole story happened, grandma was about to celebrate her 80th birthday. The doctor said it would probably be her last celebration, so we decided to arrange a huge party for her. I really wanted to cheer her up and make her less nervous, so I asked granny what she would like for me to get her as a birthday present. This cunning old lady has always been pretty devious. She said the best present for her would be if I were to be as good as my brother, but since I happened to be the black sheep, the only thing I could do to make her happy was to give her a beautiful ruby necklace. Just like the one she knew our neighbor Mrs. Delphi had.

I knew that something like that was really expensive and I unfortunately couldn’t afford it. But when I told granny this, trying to persuade her to pick another birthday present, she said something to me that I will never be able to forget. “If you can’t buy it, go and steal it.” Of course, I thought that she was kidding and I tried to add to her joke by asking whether she knew where I could get a gun to rob the jewelry store. She said she always knew that I wasn’t that smart, but she didn’t know I was that stupid. “Go and get Mrs. Delphi’s necklace. Not one from a jewelry store” – she said. And then she added that if I would just show some courage and prove my love to her in this way, she would give me a car, like she did for my older brother, and she would finally be able to be proud of both of her grandsons. This left my head spinning. Did she really meant it? Did my almost 80-year-old grandmother really want me to steal a necklace for her?

And literally, since that talk, I constantly found myself thinking over her request. I mean, it definitely was illegal to steal something, but I desperately wanted a car. Plus, grandma won’t live long, so I might not actually be stealing but more like borrowing that necklace, and nobody would actually ever know what I’d done. And Mrs. Delphi had always treated me well. So at first I decided to go visit her and find out whether she still had that necklace and where she kept it. I’d decided to convince her to let me help mow her lawn. Mrs. Delphi was happy that I'd helped and after I did my work, she invited me in for a cup of tea. During the talk I learned that the necklace was a wedding gift from her husband who had passed away a long time ago and she still had it in her console, in a box next to their photo. Even though I still was not up for the robbery, later that night I came up with the perfect plan, just in case. 

A few days later the day of the big party came. Practically the whole street had gathered at our house to celebrate my grandma’s last birthday. Mrs. Delphi also came, even though she used to be pretty cold toward granny for reasons I’d never known about. At this point I couldn’t bear to give granny her requested present, but when she once again said what a shame it was to have such a coward like me in the family, I made up my mind. The only thing I was thinking about while trying to break in to Mrs. Delphi’s house was to just steal the necklace and stop grandma from bullying me. It wasn’t hard either, getting into the house or finding the necklace. It was really beautiful, by the way. But on my way back out, I suddenly heard the door open and shut. Mrs. Delphi had already come back home.

I had no place and no time to hide. I was in a panic and scared to death, already imagining myself in the custody of police officers, with handcuffs on, being taken to prison. Thoughts were flashing through my mind and then she saw me...