Tom's Trip

Tom went into the station soon after five o'clock in the afternoon. This is a bad time to travel in London, both by bus and by train, because lots of people go home from work at this hour. He had to join a long queue of people who were waiting for tickets. When at last his turn came, he got the right ticket. By asking several people the way, he also found the right platform. It was crowded and he was not able to get on the first train, but he was able to move nearer to the edge of the platform to be ready to get on the next one. When a train came in, Tom was thrown onto the train by the rush of people from behind. The doors closed and the train moved off before he was able to get his breath out. Since he was not able to see the names of the stations where the train stopped, he had to count the number of stops so that he knew where to get off. His station was the seventh along the line.

When the train reached the seventh station, Tom got off. But he was surprised to see that he had got off at a station that he had never heard of. A man on the platform told him that he had traveled on a train going in the wrong direction.