The Blue Guitar (A2 Reading Story)

A2 · ELEMENTARY Reading practice · ~1,700 words · 11-min read

This is an original story for A2 learners. It is about two friends, a guitar, and a lie. The story uses the past simple tense. 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 · Two friends and one guitar

Sam and Leo lived on the same street in a small town by the sea. They were friends for ten years — since their first day at school. On that day, a big boy took Sam’s bag and threw it in the mud. Leo picked it up, cleaned it with his sleeve, and said, “Come and sit with me.” After that day, they were always together.

They liked the same things: football, films, and — most of all — music. Every Friday evening, they played music in the garage behind Leo’s house. Leo played the guitar and Sam sang. They had a band. A band is a small group of people who play music together. Their band had only two people, but it had a big name: The Sea Lions.

Leo had a special guitar. It was blue, old, and beautiful. His grandfather bought it in Spain fifty years ago. Before he died, the old man gave it to Leo and said, “Music is like friendship, Leo. You must take care of it every day.”

Leo loved the blue guitar more than anything. He cleaned it every week with a soft cloth. He kept it in a black case under his bed. He never gave it to anybody — not even for one day.

Sam wanted a guitar too, but guitars were expensive, and Sam’s family did not have much money. So Sam saved his money. To save means to keep your money little by little because you want to buy something later. Every Saturday, he worked in his uncle’s shop, and every Saturday night, he put a few pounds in an old tea box under his bed. But the box filled very slowly.

“One day I’m going to buy my own guitar,” Sam always said.
“And then we will play real concerts,” Leo always answered. “The Sea Lions, on a real stage!”

2 · The competition

One morning in spring, Sam saw a poster in the school window: TOWN MUSIC COMPETITION — THIS SATURDAY. A competition is an event where people try to win a prize. And the first prize was three hundred pounds.

Sam’s heart jumped. Three hundred pounds! With that money, and the money in his tea box, he could buy his own guitar at last.

But there was a problem. Sam did not have a guitar for the competition, and the old school guitars sounded terrible. And there was a second problem: Leo was away. He went to his aunt’s house in the city for two weeks, so he could not play in the competition with Sam.

That evening, Sam phoned Leo. “Can I borrow the blue guitar?” he asked. “Only for one day. For the competition.” To borrow means to take something from a person and give it back later.

Leo was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “All right, Sam. My mum will give it to you. But please be careful. You know what that guitar means to me.”

“I will guard it with my life,” Sam said. And he really wanted to.

On Saturday, Sam played and sang in the town hall. His hands shook at the start, but the blue guitar sounded warm and beautiful, and soon he forgot to be afraid. When he finished, people stood up and clapped. Sam won second prize: fifty pounds. It was not three hundred, but he was happy.

Then, on the way home, everything went wrong. It started to rain. Sam ran across the wet street with the guitar case in his hand. Near his house, a cat jumped out in front of him. Sam slipped, fell, and the case hit the ground hard.

At home, in his room, Sam opened the case with cold hands. There it was: a crack. A crack is a thin line on something that is broken. It was small — as long as his finger — but it was there, near the bottom of the beautiful blue guitar.

Sam sat on his bed for a long time. He felt sick. “Leo gave me the most important thing in his life,” he thought. “And I broke it.”

3 · The lie

Two weeks later, Leo came home. He ran to Sam’s house with a big smile. “Tell me everything!” he said. “How was the competition? And how is my guitar?”

“The guitar is fine,” Sam said. “Everything is fine.”

That was a lie. A lie is something you say that is not true. The words came out of Sam’s mouth before he could stop them. He was afraid — afraid of Leo’s sad face, afraid of losing his best friend.

“Can I keep it a little longer?” Sam asked quickly. “I want to practise more.”

“Of course,” Leo laughed. “You’re a real musician now!”

Sam had a plan. On Monday, he took the guitar to a small second-hand music shop near the station. Second-hand means not new — another person had it before you. The shop sold old guitars, old drums, and old radios, and the owner, Mr Novak, repaired instruments in the back room. To repair means to fix something that is broken.

Mr Novak looked at the crack for a long time. “I can repair this,” he said at last. “It will look almost new. But it is careful, slow work. It costs eighty pounds.”

Eighty pounds. Sam had fifty pounds from the prize and twelve pounds in his tea box. It was not enough. “Please start the work,” Sam said. “I will bring the rest of the money soon.”

So Sam worked. He worked in his uncle’s shop on Saturdays. He washed cars on Sundays. He walked the neighbours’ dogs after school. And all this time, he told Leo more small lies. “I can’t play on Friday — I have homework.” “I’m busy this weekend — family things.”

Leo did not understand. “Why doesn’t my friend want to see me?” he thought. “What did I do wrong?” The Friday music evenings stopped. The garage stayed dark and quiet.

4 · The shop window

One afternoon, Leo walked to the station to meet his aunt. On the way, he passed the second-hand music shop. He stopped. He looked again.

There, on the work table behind the window, lay a blue guitar. His blue guitar. His grandfather’s blue guitar — with a long, thin crack near the bottom.

Leo went inside. His face was white. “That guitar,” he said. “Where did it come from?”

“A young man brought it three weeks ago,” said Mr Novak. “It has a bad crack. He is paying for the repair little by little. A pound here, two pounds there. He works very hard, that boy.”

Leo walked straight to Sam’s house. Sam opened the door and saw Leo’s face, and he knew.

“You broke my guitar,” Leo said quietly.

“Leo, I wanted to repair it first, and then—”

“You lied to me!” Now Leo was shouting. “For three weeks you lied! ‘The guitar is fine. Everything is fine.’ I asked you about it, and you looked at me, and you lied. The crack is not the problem, Sam. The lie is the problem.”

“I was afraid,” Sam said. His voice was very small.

“And now I don’t know when your words are true,” Leo said. He turned and walked away, into the rain.

After that, the two friends did not speak. At school, they sat in different corners. On the street, they looked at their shoes. A month passed — the longest month of Sam’s life. But every evening after school, Sam still went to work. He still saved every pound. There was one thing he could finish, and he was going to finish it.

5 · Music is like friendship

On a bright Saturday morning, Mr Novak put the last coin in his till and gave Sam the black case. “Finished,” he said. “Look.”

The repair was beautiful. The blue guitar shone like the sea, and the crack was almost invisible — only a thin, pale line, like an old story.

Sam carried the case through the town to Leo’s house. His heart beat fast. He knocked on the door.

Leo opened it. For a moment, nobody spoke.

“I broke your guitar,” Sam said. “And then I lied to you, because I was afraid. That was worse than the crack. I’m sorry, Leo. The repair is finished. I paid for all of it — the prize money, the tea box, everything. It is yours again.”

Leo took the case and opened it. He looked at the guitar for a long time. Then he did something strange. He smiled.

“Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something. Look inside the hole, under the strings.”

Sam looked. Inside the guitar, in the dark wood, there was another repair — an old, thin line, and next to it, small letters: 1975.

“My grandfather broke this guitar too,” Leo said. “Fifty years ago, in Spain. He had a big fight with his best friend, and in the fight, the guitar fell. His friend repaired it for him. It took him the whole summer. My grandfather told me that story when he gave me the guitar. He said, ‘Music is like friendship. It can break — and you can repair it. But only with the truth.'”

“Do you forgive me?” Sam asked. To forgive means to stop being angry with a person after they did something bad.

“I forgave you at the door,” Leo said. “When you told me the truth.” He took out the guitar and put it in Sam’s hands. “Now play something. The Sea Lions have a lot of practice to do. There is a band competition at the summer festival — first prize, five hundred pounds. This time, we enter together.”

That Friday, the light in the garage was on again, and music came through the open door. And on Sam’s birthday, one month later, Leo came to his house with a very large box and a very big smile. But what was inside the box? Well — that is another story.

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.

• band — My cousin plays drums in a band with three friends.
• save — I saved money for a year and bought a bicycle.
• borrow — Can I borrow your pen? I will give it back after class.
• competition — She won first prize in the school photo competition.
• crack — Be careful with that cup — it has a small crack.
• lie — He told a lie, and later he felt very bad about it.
• repair — My father repaired the old radio, and now it works again.
• second-hand — This coat was cheap because it is second-hand.
• forgive — She said sorry, and I forgave her. We are friends again.

Talk about it · Write about it

Talk about it: Did a friend ever borrow something from you? What was it? Sam lied because he was afraid. Was there a better way? What could he say to Leo on that first day?

Write about it: Write 6–8 sentences about a good friend. How did you meet? What did you do together last year? Use the past simple (met, played, went, helped).

🎉 Well done — you finished a whole story in English! You read about 1,700 words, and you now know nine useful new words too.

But two questions stay open. Will The Sea Lions win the five hundred pounds at the summer festival? And what was inside the very large box on Sam’s birthday? Maybe you can guess…

Next story: Read another A2 story →

About this story: This is an original A2 graded reader (~1,700 words). It uses controlled elementary vocabulary and the past simple tense, 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

My name is Khamis Maiouf. I am the creator of the English Teacher Site, dedicated to providing valuable resources and insights for students around the world. With a passion for education and a commitment to helping students enhance their skills, I aim to make English teaching more effective and enjoyable for both educators and students.