The Message in the Window (A2 Reading Story)

A2 · ELEMENTARY Reading practice · ~1,700 words · 9-min read

This is an easy story about life in a big city. It uses the past simple tense and short sentences. First, read the nine key words. Then read the story. At the end, there is a small quiz to check what you understand.

The story

1 · High above the city

Tomas moved to the city six months ago. He came from a small town in the mountains, where everybody knew everybody. The city was different. It was big, loud, and fast. Thousands of people walked past him every day, but nobody said hello.

Tomas worked as a window cleaner. A window cleaner cleans the windows of buildings — and in this city, the buildings were very tall. Every morning, he put on his orange jacket, checked his ropes two times, and went up. Way up.

Most people were afraid of his job. His mother telephoned him every Sunday and said, “Tomas, please be careful. It is so high!” But Tomas loved it. Up there, the city was quiet. The cars looked like toys. The people looked like little dots. The wind carried the smell of rain and coffee. From the twentieth floor, the noisy city looked calm and beautiful.

There was only one problem. His job was lonely. He talked to the sky, the birds, and the glass. On the other side of every window, people worked at their desks. They looked at their computers. They drank their coffee. They never looked at him. For them, Tomas was invisible — a man outside the glass, a man nobody saw.

His evenings were quiet too. Tomas lived in a small flat above a pizza restaurant. After work, he cooked dinner, watched football on his phone, and listened to the city under his window: buses, music, a thousand voices. So many people lived around him — but he ate dinner alone every night.

“One day,” Tomas thought, “somebody is going to look up. One day, somebody is going to see me.”

Every Tuesday, Tomas cleaned the Marlow Building on King Street. It was his favourite building — old, brown, with big square windows. He started at the top and went down slowly, floor by floor. Fifteenth floor: a bank. Twelfth floor: a travel company with posters of beaches. Ninth floor: a small office full of paper, boxes, and green plants.

And in that office, at a desk by the window, sat a woman.

2 · The first sign

The woman was about sixty years old. She had grey hair and red glasses. She always wore a green cardigan. Every Tuesday, Tomas saw her at the same desk, with the same cup of tea, next to the same little plant.

She worked alone. The other desks on the ninth floor were empty. Tomas often wondered about her. “Who is she? Why is she always alone? What is her name?”

Then, one grey Tuesday in October, something new happened.

Tomas came down his ropes to the ninth floor. He lifted his cloth to clean the glass — and stopped. The woman stood at the window. She held a big white sign, a piece of paper with large words on it. The sign said:

“GOOD MORNING! YOUR WORK LOOKS COLD. THANK YOU!”

Tomas laughed. He could not remember his last laugh at work. He waved at her with his wet cloth, and she waved back. Then she smiled, sat down, and went back to her papers.

All week, Tomas thought about the sign. On Sunday, when his mother telephoned, he told her about it. “You see?” his mother said. “There are kind people in that big city too. You only need one.”

The next Tuesday, Tomas was ready. He made his own sign at home with a black pen. When he arrived at the ninth floor, he took it out and held it against the glass:

“GOOD MORNING! I AM TOMAS. WHO ARE YOU?”

The woman read it and laughed. She found a pen and wrote quickly. Her new sign said: “I AM GRACE. 40 YEARS IN THIS OFFICE!”

Forty years! Tomas could not believe it. Forty years at the same desk, by the same window, in the same building.

After that day, the signs became a tradition. Every Tuesday, Grace prepared a new sign for Tomas, and Tomas prepared a new sign for Grace. Their talks were short, because a sign is small. But they were real.

Grace’s signs said things like: “IT IS GOING TO RAIN AT 3. GO HOME EARLY!” and “MY PLANT HAS A NEW FLOWER. LOOK!” Tomas answered with: “I SAW TWO EAGLES TODAY. TRUE STORY!” and “YOUR WINDOW IS THE CLEANEST IN THE CITY.”

One Tuesday in November, Grace’s sign was different. It said: “BAD DAY TODAY. THE COMPANY WANTS TO CLOSE MY OFFICE.” Tomas did not have a good answer for that. He thought for a minute. Then he turned his own sign over and wrote on the back: “THEY CAN CLOSE AN OFFICE. THEY CANNOT CLOSE A PERSON.” Grace read it slowly. She did not laugh this time, but she put her hand on the glass, and Tomas put his glove on the other side.

The city did not feel so big any more. Tomas had a friend on the ninth floor — a friend behind glass, nine floors above the street. All week he waited for Tuesday. It was the best day of his job.

3 · The empty desk

Winter came to the city. The days became short and dark. One cold Tuesday in December, Tomas went down his ropes to the ninth floor with a new sign in his jacket. It said: “ONLY 20 DAYS TO NEW YEAR!”

He looked through the glass — and his smile died.

The desk was empty. The computer was off. The cup of tea was not there. The little plant stood alone by the window, and its leaves looked dry and sad. No Grace.

“Maybe she is ill today,” Tomas thought. “Or maybe she is on holiday.”

But the next Tuesday, the desk was empty again. And the Tuesday after that, the office was worse: the boxes were gone, the papers were gone, and somebody took the pictures off the walls. The ninth floor was empty and dark.

Now Tomas was worried. Where was Grace? Was she all right? He knew her name, her red glasses, and her green cardigan — but nothing more. He did not know her family name. He did not know her address. He did not know her telephone number. His only friend in the city was gone, and he could not find her.

So that afternoon, Tomas did something new. He finished his work, came down to the street, and walked into the Marlow Building — not on a rope this time, but through the front door.

A security guard sat behind a big desk. He was a tall man with a friendly face. His name card said “Victor”.

“Good afternoon,” Tomas said. “I am the window cleaner. I want to ask about the woman on the ninth floor. Her name is Grace. Where is she?”

Victor smiled sadly. “Ah, Grace. She retired three weeks ago. Forty years in this building, and then — finished. Friday afternoon, she took her plant, said goodbye to me, and went home.”

“Was there a party for her?” Tomas asked.

“No party,” said Victor. “The company closed her office. Everybody was too busy. After forty years, nobody said thank you.” He shook his head. “In a big city, my friend, it is easy to become invisible.”

Tomas stood quietly. He knew that feeling very well. Then Victor lifted one finger. “Wait. Are you Tomas? The man with the signs?”

“Yes! How do you know?”

Victor opened a drawer and took out a white envelope. “She left this for you. She said, ‘Give it to the man outside the window.'”

4 · Tea on the ground floor

Tomas opened the envelope with cold fingers. Inside, there was a small letter. The words were big and round, like the words on her signs:

“Dear Tomas, I retired! Forty years is enough. Do not worry about me, and please do not stop smiling. For one year, your signs were the best part of my week. Nobody saw me in that office — but you saw me. Come to the Blue Door Café on Park Street, any Tuesday at four o’clock. The tea is hot, and the window is very clean. Your friend, Grace.”

Tomas read the letter two times. Then he laughed, put it in his jacket, and ran to the bus stop.

The Blue Door Café was small and warm, with yellow lights and the smell of cake. And there, at a table by the window, sat a woman with red glasses and a green cardigan. On the table, next to the teapot, stood a little plant with a new flower.

“Tomas!” Grace said. “At last! Sit down. You look different with no ropes.”

They talked for two hours — with voices this time, not with signs. Grace told him about her forty years in the city: the old cinema on King Street, the market before the big shops came, the winter when the river froze and children walked on the ice. Tomas told her about his little town in the mountains, about his mother’s Sunday telephone calls, and about his first lonely months in the city.

“Were you never afraid, up there on the ropes?” Grace asked.

“Only on my first day,” Tomas said. “After that, I was more afraid of the quiet evenings than of the high buildings.”

Grace nodded. “I understand that,” she said. “I worked in a building with two hundred people. And in the end, only two of them knew my name — the security guard, and the man outside the window.”

“The city is not cold,” Grace said. “The people are not cold. They are only busy. Sometimes you must stand at the window with a big sign and say: I am here!”

When it was time to go, Grace took out a piece of paper and a pen. She wrote something, folded the paper, and put it in Tomas’s hand.

“Do not open it now,” she said, and her eyes laughed behind the red glasses. “Open it next Tuesday, at work, on the ninth floor. It is a surprise — and it is going to change your Tuesdays again.”

Tomas held the folded paper all the way home. What did Grace write? He did not know. But one thing was sure: in this big, loud, fast city, he was not invisible any more.

Check your understanding

Read each question. Think about your answer. Then click “Show answer” to check.

Words to remember

Here are the key words again, in new sentences. Say each one out loud.

• window cleaner — The window cleaner cleaned all the windows of our school in one day.
• rope — We tied the boat to the tree with a strong rope.
• sign — The sign on the door said “Closed on Sundays”.
• wave — The children waved at the train until it was gone.
• floor — My flat is on the fifth floor, so I use the lift.
• security guard — The security guard checked our bags at the door.
• retire — My grandfather retired last year, and now he grows tomatoes.
• invisible — In the big meeting, the new worker felt invisible — nobody asked her anything.
• surprise — My friends made a surprise party for my birthday.

Talk about it · Write about it

Talk about it: Do you live in a big city or a small town? Is it easy or difficult to make friends there? Why?

Write about it: Imagine you can hold one sign at your window, and all your neighbours can read it. Write your sign. Then write 5 sentences in the past simple about a kind person you met in your life.

🎉 Well done — you finished a whole story in English! You read about ropes, signs, and a friendship nine floors above the street. And you now know nine new words too.

But wait — what did Grace write on that folded paper? Why must Tomas open it on the ninth floor? You will find out in the next story…

Next story: Read another A2 story →

About this story: This is an original A2 graded reader (~1,700 words). It uses controlled elementary vocabulary, the past simple tense, and simple connectors, so A2 learners can understand about 98% of the words. Any harder word is explained before the story and used again inside it.

Khamis Maiouf

I’m Khamis Maiouf. English is not my first language – I learned it as an adult in the UK, passed Functional Skills Level 2 in English, qualified in Hairdressing at Level 3, and I’m now studying Business at university. For over five years I’ve taught ESOL classes in my community and tutored students through GCSE English. I write every lesson on this site myself, for the learner I used to be.