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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Runt think he will be ok when he runs away from home?
(a) He thinks the police will protect him if anyone tries to hurt him.
(b) He knows it will not be long before he is found and brought home, but wants to make a point.
(c) He plans to go find distant relatives and stay with them.
(d) He has read fairy stories and knows that there are good people as well as monsters out there.

2. Who is in the car with Mr. Alice when he picks up the narrator at the station?
(a) A professor of ancient languages.
(b) A detective.
(c) An old Shahinai woman.
(d) The narrator's mother.

3. What kind of animal joins Miss Finch and then circles around the circus audience?
(a) Pygmy elephants.
(b) Smilodons.
(c) Mammoths.
(d) Aepyornis.

4. What is the first story about?
(a) A woman who falls in love with a man at an airport by looking at the x-ray of his luggage.
(b) A boy who plays a cello very badly, and one day manages to inexplicably play fantastic music on it, but breaks it the next day and can never play it properly again.
(c) A little boy who is dared by some other boys to knock on the door of a strange playhouse. The playhouse traps the other boys and they are never seen again.
(d) A chef who changes a customer's order to suit the wine, but the customer ends up having an allergy to the food.

5. Who suggests that the young man should try writing fantasy instead?
(a) Amelia.
(b) A raven.
(c) His older brother.
(d) The butler.

6. Who are the other three men at the club on the night they tell each other ghost stories?
(a) Sam (a drunk), Martyn (a plastic surgeon), and Ollie (a mechanic).
(b) Neil (a writer), Martyn (a drunk), and Daniel (who never told them his profession).
(c) Paul (a police inspector), Robert (a writer), and an unnamed old man.
(d) Paul (an actor), Martyn (a gaming magazine editor), and an unnamed old man.

7. Why are the first two ghost stories unsatisfying?
(a) They do not involve any of the people at the club.
(b) They are not actually about ghosts.
(c) They are urban legends and do not make a lot of sense.
(d) They are told badly.

8. What happens when the three older boys go inside?
(a) The narrator runs away and never looks back.
(b) The door shuts behind them and they do not come out.
(c) There is the sound of an evil laugh on the wind.
(d) The playhouse disappears, taking them with it.

9. What is the Swallows?
(a) A river.
(b) A manor house.
(c) A playhouse.
(d) A den that the three boys built from tree branches.

10. Who suddenly turns up in the young writer's house?
(a) A publisher who is interested in his book.
(b) Amelia Earnshawe.
(c) His older brother who he thought was dead.
(d) His lost wife, who left him long ago.

11. What does the narrator talk to Miss Finch about in the refreshment room?
(a) How terrible the circus is.
(b) The ethics of fish trawling.
(c) Smilodons and other prehistoric creatures.
(d) Microbes and other harmful things that can be found in Sushi.

12. Where does a woman from the bar take the narrator?
(a) To a bar for gumbo.
(b) Back to the hotel.
(c) To a graveyard.
(d) To an abandoned house.

13. Who comes for the narrator right at the end of the story?
(a) Death.
(b) The woman with the red ribbon in her hair.
(c) A zombie master.
(d) A Haitian coffee girl.

14. How does the killer know that the detective is on his track?
(a) He has seen the detective before, so he saw straight through his disguise.
(b) The detective pretended to be American but used a southern accent when he said he was from the north.
(c) The detective pretended to be a fan, but forgot the name of the play.
(d) The detective pretended to be a pipe smoker, but his pipe was brand new and he had no tobacco.

15. What does the old man tell Amelia she will find in the house?
(a) Her inheritance.
(b) Her future husband.
(c) A lost treasure.
(d) Death.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the narrator not understand the jokes the other boys tell?

2. Who is Mr. Alice?

3. What happens to Miss Finch?

4. What does Amelia promise them in return for not killing her?

5. What is the name of the club in the story 'Closing Time'?

(see the answer keys)

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