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DOMINOES

DOMINOES
2

be Virtual Friends
VIrtual FrIENDS

y, do Helen salter
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Helen salter

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DOMINOES
Two

4
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DOMINOES

Virtual Friends
Helen Salter

Founder Editors: Bill Bowler and Sue Parminter

Illustrated by Monique Dong

Helen Salter has a degree in Modern Languages and has taught English in Paris. She works
in the financial technology sector in London, and has written a number of books, including
The Summer Intern in Oxford Bookworms and three teen fiction novels. This book was a
delight to write because Paris is her favourite city. She lives in Surrey with her husband,
two daughters, and the world’s laziest cat.

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1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade
mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Oxford University Press 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
2020 2019 2018 2017 2016
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
No unauthorized photocopying
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as
expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the
appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must
impose this same condition on any acquirer
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work
isbn: 978 0 19 424574 6 Book
isbn: 978 0 19 462245 5 Book and Audio Pack

Printed in China
This book is printed on paper from certified and well-managed sources

acknowledgements
Illustrations by: Monique Dong/The Bright Agency
The publisher would like to thank the following for their permission to reproduce photographs:
123RF pp4 (emoticons/oberart), 6 (Paris skyline at sunset/unknown1861), 7 (Notre Dame
cathedral and River Seine in Paris/Ivan Bastien), 12 (smartphone/tuntekron petsajun), 18
(laptop/Manit Khumrod), 35 (blue jeans/artqu), 35 (stain remover/George Tsartsianidis), 47
(smashed smartphone/rangizzz), 54 (graffiti/Engin Korkmaz), 54 (woman painting/Dmytro
Gilitukha), 54 (photo frame/Валентин Агапов), 56 (Paris flea market/Lembi Buchanan),
60 (Rio de Janeiro beach/ostill); Alamy Stock Photo pp (street art/guichaoua), 56 (Paris
river beach/eye35.pix); OUP pp (Eiffel Tower/Image Source), 26 (red umbrella/Mega Pixel),
60 (Mount Fuji, Japan/Sean Pavone), 60 (Tower Bridge, London/Medioimages), 60 (New
York City/upthebanner), 60 (Istanbul/Luciano Mortula); Shutterstock pp (Notre Dame
Catherdral/Neirfy), (Montmartre, Paris/T.W. van Urk), (Basilica Sacre Couer, Paris/Sailorr),
54 (explosion/Kuznetsov Alexey), 60 (Sagrada Familia, Barcelona/Rodrigo Garrido).

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Contents

Before Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Chapter 1 In Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Chapter 2 The international school . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Chapter 3 A long message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Chapter 4 The picnic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Chapter 5 A great weekend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 6 Jess goes home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 7 A surprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Chapter 8 Real friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Project A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Project B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
About Dominoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

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ACTIVITIES
Before reading
1 Match the people in the story with the sentences.

Violet’s mum Eline Violet Jess Joy

1 just moved to Paris with her mum.

2 works for a make-up company.
3 and are sisters.
4 is Violet’s best friend from London.

2 This story is in Paris. Which places do you think are in it? Tick the boxes.
1 2 3

The Eiffel Tower Notre Dame Montmartre

4 5

Les Frigos Sacré-Cœur

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1. In Paris

I watched Mum run up the stairs to our new flat. She was so
excited!
I was not happy.
There was a lift in the building, but it was busy. The men
helping us move were using it, mostly for light boxes of clothes.
I was carrying heavy books and there were hundreds of stairs
to climb.
‘I liked our old house,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to live in a flat.’
I tried not to be too unhappy this morning on the fast Eurostar
train from London to Paris. But now I was tired and I couldn’t
hide it any more.
‘We’ll have the same number of rooms here as back home,’
laughed Mum. ‘But it will be wonderful. A real French flat! With lift this takes
people to different
big, tall windows! Look at these beautiful wooden stairs, Violet!’ floors in a building

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Mum loves Paris. Really loves it. Just because she lived here
when she was a student, about a hundred years ago.
It was so annoying.
‘A flat won’t feel right, with the kitchen on the same floor as
the bedrooms,’ I said.
‘I’m sure you’ll learn to like it,’ smiled Mum. ‘It’ll be a great
home.’
‘It will never be home,’ I said and I put down my box. ‘Wait – I
feel ill. We’re too high up. The air is too thin! I can’t live here.’
Mum turned to give me a look. ‘Fourteen and in Paris! What
an adventure!’
‘Yes,’ I thought to myself, ‘But we’re very different.’
Mum looked at my face and said, ‘Wait until you’re an adult
and you need to work. Sometimes you have to make difficult
decisions.’
‘Oh, good,’ I thought. ‘The Difficult Decisions conversation
annoying not again.’ I picked up my box. Back home in London, I always felt
nice; something that something would go wrong. Firstly, I thought that Starlight
that you want to
stop happening Cosmetics would change their decision and not give Mum the
air we take this marketing job in their Paris office. Mum did the marketing
in through our
mouth and nose in London. It was her job to give the make-up great names so
decision a thing people wanted to buy it. She loved her job.
that you have to
choose Then, I thought that the teachers at my old school would say,
pick up to ‘Violet can’t leave! All her friends are here and they really like
start carrying
something
her!’ But when I told the teachers where I was going, they all
marketing said I was going to have a wonderful time.
helping to sell the I didn’t think so. At home, it was easy to be myself. My friends
things a company
makes all liked the same things as me. In the evenings, we all sent
make-up messages on our phones. At the weekend, we went shopping
something that
you put on your and talked for hours. Here, Mum wanted me to be excited all the
face to look good
time because I was in Paris. But Paris meant nothing without
message you
write this to the right people. To me, Paris was a stupid place full of buildings
someone and send that all looked the same. People thought it was beautiful and
it with your phone
or computer special. But it was just old and boring.

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I arrived at the door of the new flat for the first time and
went inside. I didn’t look around. I sat on the big, comfortable
chair from home – it was the first thing the men took upstairs. I
quickly got my phone from my pocket and began to think about
my friends in London. I felt sure that Jess wasn’t in bed yet, and
Ruby, Danielle, and Lara were watching TV as usual.

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Mum saw me and looked unhappy. She didn’t like it when I

spent time on my phone. But I needed to use it more now, didn’t I?
Oh, good! I already had not one, or two, but seven messages!
Jess’s message was a photo of herself. She was next to
an empty seat outside the shops in town. She looked really
unhappy. Underneath, it said, ‘I’m so lonely. ’
For a second, I felt better. Jess was my best friend, and we
had plans for a holiday in Spain this summer with her family.
Mum said I could fly there from Paris!
I quickly took a photo of
myself in the new flat and sent
it to everyone with the words,
‘We have arrived. Bad luck to
me. ’
About five seconds later, there
was a message from Jess. ‘WHY
AREN’T YOU HERE? ’
‘My phone is the answer,’ I
thought to myself. ‘I’ll be there
with my friends, just virtually.
I’ll still send messages! I’ll
still show people my photos!
Nothing will change!’
‘Come and see your room,
Violet!’ said Mum. She was
carrying her big light. She
bought it before we came
to Paris because she got excited
in the shop and thought it
looked French. I told her the lights in France would be more
French, but she didn’t listen to me.
‘You can see lots of interesting buildings from your window,’
said Mum.
virtual not real,
not really there ‘I’ll look in a minute,’ I said.

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She smiled at the man helping us move. He smiled back. Men

always think my mum is wonderful. I don’t know why. She’s
really untidy and she can’t cook.
When I didn’t move, Mum said, ‘You can take your things out
of your boxes before we go out!’
‘Go out where?’ I asked.
‘I told you on the train!’ said Mum. ‘There’s a party at the
international school. So you can meet the other students
during the summer, before school starts in September.’
‘I don’t need more friends,’ I said. ‘I have friends already.’
‘Yes, but new friends are good, too,’ smiled Mum. ‘Ones that
are in the same country.’ international
I showed her my phone. ‘This is all I need,’ I said. to do with many
countries
She laughed.
joke to say
But I wasn’t joking. something funny

YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF THE SAMPLE.

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