Year 3 Reading Task Tuesday 13th October

You?” But in spite of the scribbles on it the face of the great stone beast still looked terrible, and sad, and noble, staring up in the moonlight, that Edmund didn’t really get any fun out of jeering at it. He turned away and began to cross courtyard. As he got into the middle of it he saw that there were dozens of statues all about – standing here and there rather as the pieces stand on a chess-board when it is halfway through the game. There were stone satyrs, and stone wolves, and bear and foxes and cat-a-mountains of stone. There were lovely stone shapes that looked like women but who were really the spirits of trees. There was the great shape of a centaur and a winged horse and a long lithe creature Edmund took to be dragon. They all looked so strange standing there perfectly life-like and also perfectly still, in the bright cold moonlight, that it was eerie work crossing the courtyard. Right in the very middle stood a huge shape like a man, but as tall as a tree, with a fierce face and a shaggy beard and a great club in its right hand. Even though he knew that it was only a stone giant and not a live one, Edmund did not like going past it. He now saw that there was a dim light showing from a doorway on the far side of the courtyard. He went to it; there was a flight of stone steps going up to an open door. Edmund went up to them. Across the threshold lay a great wolf. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” he kept saying to himself; “it’s only a stone wolf. It can’t hurt me,” and he raised his leg to step over it. Instantly the huge creature rose, with all the hair bristling along is back, opened a great, red mouth and said in a growling voice.
For each question, choose one key word. Find it in the text. Read the sentence before it, the sentence containing it, and the sentence after it. Answer the question.