The Book on the Train (B1 Reading Story)

B1 · INTERMEDIATE Reading practice · ~2,700 words · 14-min read

This is an original story for B1 (intermediate) readers. The sentences are a little longer, and the story uses the present perfect tense a lot. First, read the ten key words. Then read the story — it is in six short chapters. At the end, there are questions to check your understanding, and a small writing task.

The story

1 · The same seat, every morning

Amina has taken the number 47 bus to work every morning for six months now. Six months of dark winter starts and grey spring mornings. Six months of the same short walk to the bus stop on Bell Street. Six months of a life she is still learning how to live.

She moved to the city in October, when the company she works for offered her a place on their marketing team. It was a good offer, and she said yes at once. Her sister helped her carry two heavy boxes up the stairs of her new flat, hugged her, and drove home. Since that day, Amina has lived alone in a small flat above a launderette.

Her commute — the daily journey to work — is always the same. To commute means to travel to work and home again every day. She leaves the flat at seven fifteen. She walks four minutes to the bus stop. She stands in the queue with the same tired faces. She gets on the number 47 bus at seven twenty-three. She always sits in the same seat, near the back, by the window. She puts her headphones in, but she does not always play music. Sometimes she just listens to the low sound of the engine and watches the city wake up.

The 47 bus goes through half of the city before it reaches her office. It crosses the river. It passes the old cinema that has been closed for years. It stops outside the big red-brick school. Amina has learned the shape of every street by heart. She could draw the route from memory.

She has also learned the other passengers. There is a young woman in a bright yellow coat who gets on at Bell Street and gets off at the university. There are two schoolboys who argue about football all the way to the school stop. There is a nurse in blue who always looks half asleep. Amina does not know their names, but she feels safe with them, in a small way. They are her strangers — the people she does not know, but sees every day. A stranger is simply a person you do not know.

But there is one passenger she has watched more than the others.

He is an old man. He gets on at Riverside Road, three stops after Amina. He is always in the same brown coat and a soft grey cap. He walks slowly and holds the rail with a shaking hand. He sits at the very front, right behind the driver.

And every morning, he takes a small red notebook out of his coat pocket. A notebook is a small book of empty pages, used for writing or drawing. He opens it on his knees. He puts on a pair of round glasses. Then, for the whole journey, he draws.

Amina has never seen him look up. His pencil moves in tiny, careful lines. Sometimes he stops. He looks at the page. He smiles a little. Then he draws again.

Amina has wondered about him many times. What has he been drawing all these months? Why does he do it on a moving bus, when the pages must shake? Who is he going to see?

She has never asked him. She is not a person who talks to strangers. But she has thought about him often. On grey mornings, when the sky feels heavy and the flat feels empty, the old man and his little red notebook have felt like a warm thing in her routine. A routine is the same things you do in the same order, every day.

She has one. And he is part of it.

2 · The dropped notebook

One Tuesday in April, the weather is bad. The rain has been falling since the night before. The pavements are wet. The bus is very late.

When the number 47 finally comes, it is crowded. To be crowded means to have too many people in one place. There is barely room for one more passenger. Amina squeezes on. She cannot reach her usual seat. She stands in the middle, holding a wet rail with a wet hand.

She sees the old man in his usual spot at the front. His notebook is open. He is drawing, as always.

The bus stops and starts. People push. Umbrellas drip on shoes. Amina counts the stops. Three more to go.

At Cornmarket, the old man begins to stand up. That is his stop. He closes the notebook, puts it under his arm, and reaches for his cap. But the bus jerks. The old man loses his balance. He grabs the rail. And the little red notebook falls — softly, silently — onto the empty seat behind him.

He does not notice.

Amina sees it fall. She sees the old man walk to the door. She calls out — “Excuse me! Sir!” — but the bus is loud, and her voice is thin. He steps down. The doors close. The bus pulls away.

The notebook lies on the seat.

Amina pushes through the crowded bus. She picks up the notebook. It is warm from his pocket. It is smaller than she had thought, and thinner, and much older. The red cover is soft, and the corners are worn.

She holds it all the way to her stop.

At her desk that morning, she cannot stop thinking about it. She has always wondered what was inside. Now she has it in her bag. Would it be so wrong to look? Just to find his name, so she can give it back?

At lunchtime, she opens it.

Inside, on every page, there are birds. Beautiful, careful pencil sketches of birds. A sketch is a drawing done with a pencil, but these are not quick sketches — some have taken many hours. There is a robin with tiny, exact feathers. There is a heron standing in wet grass. There is a small brown bird — a wren, she reads at the bottom — with the date “17 March” and the place “Elm Park, north gate”.

Amina turns page after page. There are hundreds of sketches. Some pages are yellow with age. Others are new. The most recent one is dated only yesterday.

At the very front of the notebook, there is a small square of paper glued in. It says, in careful writing:

Property of Samuel Okonkwo. If found, please call 020 4-6-1-1-3-2-2. Thank you.

Amina reads it twice. Then she takes out her phone. She calls the number.

The phone rings, and rings, and rings. Nobody answers.

She waits five minutes and calls again. Still no answer.

She writes a short message: “I have your notebook. I’m on the 47 bus every morning. I will bring it tomorrow.”

Then she puts the notebook back in her bag and goes back to work. But she cannot think about work. She keeps seeing those tiny, careful feathers.

3 · Giving it back

Wednesday morning comes. Amina walks to the bus stop earlier than usual. She has not slept well. She has kept the notebook safe on her bedside table all night, like something valuable.

She gets on the 47 bus at Bell Street. She takes her usual seat, near the back, by the window.

At Riverside Road, she watches the door.

The old man is not there.

Her heart drops.

The bus moves on. She walks to the front and asks the driver, “The old man who takes this bus — the one with the brown coat and the red notebook — do you know him?”

The driver shrugs. “Old people. There are many,” he says.

Amina goes back to her seat. She feels stupid for asking.

She rides the whole way to her stop. She goes to work. All day, she checks her phone. There is no reply to her message.

That night, she cannot eat.

On Thursday morning, she gets on the 47 again. Her hand is in her bag, on the little red notebook.

At Riverside Road, the doors open.

And there he is.

The old man steps up slowly. He does not have his usual brown coat today — he has an old raincoat and a wet cap. His hands are shaking. His face is grey and tired. He walks to his seat at the front and sits down heavily.

Amina stands up. She walks to the front of the bus. Her legs feel soft.

“Excuse me,” she says. “Are you Samuel?”

The old man looks up. He blinks behind his round glasses. “Yes,” he says. “I am. And you are?”

“I’m Amina,” she says. “I take this bus every morning. I have your notebook.”

She takes it out of her bag and holds it toward him.

For a moment, he does not move. Then his mouth opens. His hands come up to his face. His eyes fill with tears.

“Oh,” he whispers. “Oh, my child.”

He takes the notebook. He holds it against his chest. He closes his eyes.

“I thought it had gone forever,” he says. His voice is soft and shaking. “I have not slept for two nights. I have looked everywhere. I even walked all the way back to Cornmarket in the rain. Fifty years of drawings. I thought I had lost them all.”

The word for what she sees on his face is relief. Relief is the good, calm feeling you get when a worry ends.

“I called your number,” Amina says. “I sent a message.”

“I do not check the phone often,” he says, smiling now through the tears. “I am old, and old fingers are slow. I am so, so sorry you had to carry this worry with me.”

“It was not a worry,” Amina says. “It was an honour.”

He laughs a small, bright laugh. “Sit with me a moment,” he says. “Please. Tell me your name again.”

4 · The park

Samuel is much easier to talk to than Amina had expected. By the time the bus reaches Cornmarket, he has told her three stories, and she has laughed twice.

He is a retired teacher. To be retired means you no longer work because you are old enough to stop. He taught biology at the big red-brick school for thirty-eight years. Now he draws birds. He has drawn birds all his life, but only in his little notebooks. He has never shown them to anyone.

“Why not?” Amina asks.

“Fear, perhaps,” he says. “Or maybe habit. It is a small thing I do for myself.”

“They are not small,” Amina says. “They are beautiful.”

Samuel smiles. He looks out of the window, then back at her.

“You must come with me on Saturday,” he says. “I go to Elm Park. If you truly like the birds, you should meet them yourself.”

Amina is surprised. She had not expected that. But the word “yes” comes out of her mouth before her brain has thought about it. Yes. She will come.

Saturday morning is cold and bright. Amina takes the number 12 bus to Elm Park. She has never been. She has walked past this park many times on her way to the shops, but she has never gone inside.

Samuel is waiting by the north gate. He waves.

“Come,” he says. “The best time is early. The birds have not seen many people yet.”

They walk slowly. The park is bigger than Amina had expected. There is a small pond, tall old trees, and a wooden bench under an oak. Samuel points at the bench. “That is my bench. That is where I sit.”

A bench is a long wooden seat, often found in parks.

They sit down. Samuel takes out his notebook, and a second, empty notebook from his other pocket. He gives the empty one to Amina.

“You will need this,” he says. “Now watch.”

At first, Amina sees nothing. Then, slowly, she starts to notice things.

A small brown movement on the grass. A quick shape between the trees. A tiny bird with a red front, hopping on the path. Samuel whispers the names — a wren, a great tit, a robin — and she writes them in her new notebook. She tries to sketch the robin. Her sketch is bad. She laughs.

“That is fine,” Samuel says. “The sketch is not the point. To draw, you must first observe. To observe means to watch something carefully so that you learn about it. And most people, when they walk through a park, do not observe at all.”

Amina thinks about this. She thinks about her six months of commuting. She has walked past this park, past this pond, past these trees, many, many times. She has been looking. But she has not been observing.

For the first time since she moved to the city, she feels she is starting to see it.

They sit on the bench for three hours. When they walk out of the north gate, Amina has three bad sketches, four bird names, and a warm feeling in her chest that she does not want to lose.

5 · A new way of seeing

The weeks pass. Amina and Samuel meet at the north gate of Elm Park every Saturday morning at eight o’clock.

Samuel teaches her the names of the birds. He teaches her to sit still. He teaches her to listen for the small sounds under the traffic — a song, a flap of wings, a call.

Slowly, Amina’s sketches get better.

But she also starts her own notebook — not birds, but the city itself. She sketches the shapes of chimneys. She sketches the doorway of an old church. She sketches the queue at her bus stop. She sketches the young woman in the bright yellow coat. She sketches the two schoolboys who argue about football. She sketches the tired nurse in blue.

At first, they are still strangers to her — people she does not know. But now, when she draws them, they become more than shapes. They become people with lives she can only guess at.

One morning on the 47 bus, the young woman in the yellow coat looks over. She smiles.

“I’ve seen you drawing,” she says. “It’s lovely.”

Amina almost drops her pencil. But she smiles back. And by the time the bus reaches the university stop, she has learned that the young woman’s name is Priya, that she studies music, and that she has been taking this bus for a year.

That night, on the phone, Amina tells her sister about Priya. She tells her about Samuel. She tells her about the birds.

“You sound different,” her sister says.

“I feel different,” Amina says.

She thinks about it after she has hung up. What is different? She still has the same job. She still lives in the same small flat. She still takes the same bus. But something inside has changed. She has stopped waiting for her life to start. She has started to see the life she is already in.

She knows she has Samuel to thank for this. He has never said “let me change your life”, or anything as big as that. He has only shared his little red notebook, his bench, and his birds. But that has been enough.

One Friday evening in June, she buys a small present — a soft leather cover for his notebook, dark green, with a tiny bird pressed into the corner. She wraps it in brown paper. She writes “For Samuel, from Amina” on the front. She plans to give it to him on Saturday.

Saturday morning comes. The sky is warm and blue. Amina walks to Elm Park, the present in her bag. She feels a little nervous, but happy. She reaches the north gate at five to eight.

She waits.

6 · The parcel

Eight o’clock passes. Then quarter past. Then half past.

Samuel does not come.

Amina waits by the north gate for another twenty minutes. She checks her phone. There are no messages. She calls him. The phone rings and rings. Nobody answers.

Something small and cold moves in her chest.

She walks into the park anyway. She goes to their bench under the oak, half hoping that Samuel is already there, that he has changed the plan and forgotten to tell her.

The bench is empty.

But not quite.

In the middle of the wooden seat, there is a small parcel. It is wrapped in the same soft brown paper Samuel uses to cover his notebook. A piece of string is tied around it in a careful bow. On top, in Samuel’s careful writing, is a single word.

Amina.

She sits down. Her hand shakes a little as she reaches for it.

What is inside? Why is Samuel not here? Is he all right? What has he left her — and why has he left it on the bench, and not put it into her hands himself?

Slowly, carefully, Amina begins to untie the string.

Check your understanding

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

Words to remember

Here are the ten key words again, in fresh sentences. Read each one out loud, and try to remember how it was used in the story.

• commute — My brother lives in a small town, so his commute to work takes over an hour.
• routine — I have a simple evening routine: dinner, a walk, a book, then bed.
• stranger — A kind stranger helped me carry my heavy bag up the stairs.
• crowded — The market on Saturday is always very crowded, so we go early.
• notebook — I keep a small notebook in my bag for new English words.
• sketch — She made a quick sketch of the old bridge before the rain started.
• retired — My grandmother is retired now, but she is busier than ever.
• relief — When the test results came back and I had passed, I felt huge relief.
• observe — A good writer has to observe people carefully to write about them well.
• bench — We ate our sandwiches on a wooden bench by the pond.

Talk about it · Write about it

Talk about it: Do you have any “strangers” in your own daily routine — people you see every day but have never spoken to? Have you ever wondered about their lives? What would you like to ask one of them?

Write about it: Write a short paragraph (about 80–120 words) about one thing you have started doing since you moved to a new place — a new city, a new school, or a new job. Try to use the present perfect at least three times. For example: “I have lived in this city for two years. Since I moved here, I have started …”

🎉 Well done — you have just read a full B1 story of nearly 2,700 words in English. That is a real achievement. And along the way, you have met ten new key words and seen the present perfect in action many, many times.

But wait — what is inside Samuel’s parcel? Why has he not come to the bench? Amina is about to untie the string. You will find out what she discovers in the next story…

Next story: Read another B1 intermediate story →

About this story: This is an original B1 (intermediate) graded reader of about 2,700 words. It uses controlled vocabulary at roughly the 1,000-headword level and features the present perfect tense so intermediate learners can practise it in context. Any word that sits above the B1 level is glossed before the story and then reused inside it, so you should understand around 98% of the words the first time through.

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.