The Curse of Cogston House

Jack strode up an overgrown path away from the park as though relishing
a mission through the jungle, dodging the occasional stinging nettle with an
effortless skip or jump.

“Come on, Luca. This is going to be epic!” Dipping his head and swiping away
leaves like some intrepid explorer, he manoeuvred under a tree branch which
hung over the narrow track.

Luca dawdled behind. Only a few minutes earlier, he had been perfectly happy
practising his limited gymnastics moves upside down on the monkey bars.
Now, he was torn between making the effort to keep up with his friend and
deliberately getting left behind.

“Speed up, we’re nearly there!” Jack called eagerly over his shoulder.

Luca wasn’t at all sure that they should be leaving the park swings, where
they had been allowed to hang out without their parents since both recently
celebrating their eleventh birthdays in the same week. He was even less sure
that he wanted to be venturing towards the Top End, as everyone called that
part of the park grounds. He spun around to look behind him. The monkey
bars were now way out of sight and the watery evening sun above was being
muscled out of position by ever-darkening shades of grey, layering over each
other in the sky like a collage.

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 The Curse of Cogston House

“Maybe it’s getting too late for today,” Luca suggested hopefully. He looked down
towards his watch. Scowling at the time – 10:31 – he shook his wrist vigorously.
Clearly, the watch had stopped working, as it was only just beginning to go
dark. He was going to need a new excuse. “We could come back tomorrow, when
it’s lighter. I think it’s going to rain, from the look of those clouds, and Dad’s
making bolognese for tea. We don’t want to miss that!”

Being two days older than his friend clearly gave him no superiority at all.

“Come on, forget about your stomach for a minute! I can see the scaffolding
through this gap!” enthused Jack, trampling undeterred over the thorny
undergrowth.

Luca followed him unhappily along the gradually dwindling path. Hands up in
front of himself and elbows tucked in, he was now having to place his trainers
precisely onto prickly stems to pin them down with his soles and avoid any
contact with his bare arms or legs.

On the other side of a tangled row of bushes, the broken-looking building loomed.
Fifty-foot-high scaffolding encased the crumbling walls of Cogston House like a
rusty exoskeleton. The long, metal poles, bolted together at regular right angles,
seemed as though they were keeping the whole house from falling apart.

About a hundred years ago, the house had apparently been quite a grand
sight, belonging to a rich family who owned the entire park. Until about thirty
years ago, it had still been inhabited but for decades now, it had wasted away,
shedding scraps of brickwork and hiding itself under a cloak of creeping ivy.
Even from the outside, it had a look of being infested with sadness.

Everyone had a story about Cogston House. No one quite knew what was true
and what was rumour, and Luca didn’t want to stick around to find out.

Extract from the Twinkl Originals short story ‘The Curse of Cogston House’

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 The Curse of Cogston House

Questions
1. Who are the two main characters?

Jack and Lucas

Luca and Jake
Jack and Luca

2. Where are the boys going?

The park
Cogston House
The swings

3. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


4. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
The boys arrived at Cogston House.
Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

5. Find and copy one word that shows that Luca did not want to join in Jack’s adventure.


6. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.



7. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?




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 The Curse of Cogston House

Answers
1. Who are the two main characters?

Jack and Lucas

Luca and Jake
Jack and Luca

2. Where are the boys going?

The park
Cogston House
The swings

3. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


4. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

2 Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

1 The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
4 The boys arrived at Cogston House.
3 Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

5. Find and copy one word that shows that Luca did not want to join in Jack’s adventure.
Accept any from: torn; unhappily.

6. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.

Accept ‘manoeuvred’ only.

7. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?
Children’s own responses, justified using evidence from the text, for example: ‘I think
that Cogston House sounds dangerous because the text says that the scaffolding is
keeping it from falling apart.’

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 The Curse of Cogston House
Jack strode up an overgrown path away from the park as though relishing
a mission through the jungle, dodging the occasional stinging nettle with an
effortless skip or jump.

“Come on, Luca. This is going to be epic!” Dipping his head and swiping away
leaves like some intrepid explorer, he manoeuvred under a tree branch which
hung over the narrow track.

Luca dawdled behind. Only a few minutes earlier, he had been perfectly happy
practising his limited gymnastics moves upside down on the monkey bars.
Now, he was torn between making the effort to keep up with his friend and
deliberately getting left behind.

“Speed up, we’re nearly there!” Jack called eagerly over his shoulder.

Luca wasn’t at all sure that they should be leaving the park swings, where
they had been allowed to hang out without their parents since both recently
celebrating their eleventh birthdays in the same week. He was even less sure
that he wanted to be venturing towards the Top End, as everyone called that
part of the park grounds. He spun around to look behind him. The monkey
bars were now way out of sight and the watery evening sun above was being
muscled out of position by ever-darkening shades of grey, layering over each
other in the sky like a collage.

“Maybe it’s getting too late for today,” Luca suggested hopefully. He looked
down towards his watch. Scowling at the time – 10:31 – he shook his wrist
vigorously. Clearly, the watch had stopped working, as it was only just
beginning to go dark. He was going to need a new excuse. “We could come back
tomorrow, when it’s lighter. I think it’s going to rain, from the look of those
clouds, and Dad’s making bolognese for tea.
We don’t want to miss that!”

Being two days older than his friend clearly

gave him no superiority at all.

“Come on, forget about your stomach for a

minute! I can see the scaffolding through
this gap!” enthused Jack, trampling
undeterred over the
thorny undergrowth.

Page 1 of 4 visit twinkl.com

 The Curse of Cogston House

Luca followed him unhappily along the gradually dwindling path. Hands up in
front of himself and elbows tucked in, he was now having to place his trainers
precisely onto prickly stems to pin them down with his soles and avoid any
contact with his bare arms or legs.

On the other side of a tangled row of bushes, the broken-looking building loomed.
Fifty-foot-high scaffolding encased the crumbling walls of Cogston House like a
rusty exoskeleton. The long, metal poles, bolted together at regular right angles,
seemed as though they were keeping the whole house from falling apart.

About a hundred years ago, the house had apparently been quite a grand
sight, belonging to a rich family who owned the entire park. Until about thirty
years ago, it had still been inhabited but for decades now, it had wasted away,
shedding scraps of brickwork and hiding itself under a cloak of creeping ivy.
Even from the outside, it had a look of being infested with sadness.

Everyone had a story about Cogston House. No one quite knew what was true
and what was rumour, and Luca didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“Ow!” he squealed, as Jack reached back and hauled him through the gap he
had just made in the twisted greenery. Luca rubbed at a fresh, pale scratch on
his arm.

Unconcerned, Jack stood triumphantly, his hands on his hips, admiring the
enormous house. His eyes swept the building as if they belonged to an ancient
explorer who had just discovered a long-forgotten corner of the world.

“Told you it would be epic,” Jack grinned.

“‘Epic’? Looks like it’s barely still standing up”.

At home, Luca had heard his stepmum say that it was about time Cogston House
was renovated, and that it would be good for the area if it was properly restored
with access opened up again. In reply, his dad had said that it would be better
to take a wrecking ball to it, after everything that had gone on. Luca didn’t
know exactly what ‘gone on’ meant, but he was now regretting mentioning the
place at all to Jack.

Extract from the Twinkl Originals short story ‘The Curse of Cogston House’

Page 2 of 4 visit twinkl.com

 The Curse of Cogston House

Questions
1. Who are the two main characters?

Jack and Lucas

Luca and Jake
Jack and Luca

2. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


3. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.



4. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
The boys arrived at Cogston House.
Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

5. Find and copy one word that shows how Luca was feeling.


6. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?




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 The Curse of Cogston House
7. Which of these words best describes how Jack was feeling?

bored
anxious
excited
nervous
Explain your choice.



8. What do you predict will happen next? Explain why you think this.




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 The Curse of Cogston House

Answers
1. Who are the two main characters?

Jack and Lucas

Luca and Jake
Jack and Luca

2. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


3. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.

Accept ‘manoeuvred’ only.

4. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

2 Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

1 The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
4 The boys arrived at Cogston House.
3 Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

5. Find and copy one word that shows how Luca was feeling.
Accept any from: torn; hopefully; unhappily.

6. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?
Children’s own responses, justified using evidence from the text, for example:
‘I think that Cogston House sounds dangerous because the text says that the
scaffolding is keeping it from falling apart.’

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 The Curse of Cogston House
7. Which of these words best describes how Jack was feeling?

bored
anxious
excited
nervous

8. Explain your choice.

Accept any evidence from the text which shows that Jack is excited, for example: ‘I
think that Jack is excited because he ‘strode’ around and called ‘eagerly’. This shows
that he was looking forward to getting to the house.’

9. What do you predict will happen next? Explain why you think this.
Children’s own responses, justified using evidence from the text, for example: ‘I think
that Luca and Jack will go inside Cogston House because Jack grinned when he got to
the house, implying that he was excited to continue exploring! Also, I think that they
will find something horrible because the title suggests that a curse is inside the house.’

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 The Curse of Cogston House
Jack strode up an overgrown path away from the park as though relishing a
mission through the jungle, dodging the occasional stinging nettle with an
effortless skip or jump.

“Come on, Luca. This is going to be epic!” Dipping his head and swiping away
leaves like some intrepid explorer, he manoeuvred under a tree branch which
hung over the narrow track.

Luca dawdled behind. Only a few minutes earlier, he had been perfectly happy
practising his limited gymnastics moves upside down on the monkey bars.
Now, he was torn between making the effort to keep up with his friend and
deliberately getting left behind.

“Speed up, we’re nearly there!” Jack called eagerly over his shoulder.

Luca wasn’t at all sure that they should be leaving the park swings, where
they had been allowed to hang out without their parents since both recently
celebrating their eleventh birthdays in the same week. He was even less sure
that he wanted to be venturing towards the Top End, as everyone called that
part of the park grounds. He spun around to look behind him. The monkey
bars were now way out of sight and the watery evening sun above was being
muscled out of position by ever-darkening shades of grey, layering over each
other in the sky like a collage.

“Maybe it’s getting too late for today,” Luca suggested hopefully. He looked
down towards his watch. Scowling at the time – 10:31 – he shook his wrist
vigorously. Clearly, the watch had stopped working, as it was only just beginning
to go dark. He was going to need a new excuse. “We could come back tomorrow,
when it’s lighter. I think it’s going to rain, from the look of those clouds, and
Dad’s making bolognese for tea. We don’t want
to miss that!”

Being two days older than his friend clearly

gave him no superiority at all.

“Come on, forget about your stomach

for a minute! I can see the scaffolding
through this gap!” enthused Jack,
trampling undeterred over the thorny
undergrowth.

Page 1 of 5 visit twinkl.com

 The Curse of Cogston House

Luca followed him unhappily along the gradually dwindling path. Hands up in
front of himself and elbows tucked in, he was now having to place his trainers
precisely onto prickly stems to pin them down with his soles and avoid any
contact with his bare arms or legs.

On the other side of a tangled row of bushes, the broken-looking building loomed.
Fifty-foot-high scaffolding encased the crumbling walls of Cogston House like a
rusty exoskeleton. The long, metal poles, bolted together at regular right angles,
seemed as though they were keeping the whole house from falling apart.

About a hundred years ago, the house had apparently been quite a grand
sight, belonging to a rich family who owned the entire park. Until about thirty
years ago, it had still been inhabited but for decades now, it had wasted away,
shedding scraps of brickwork and hiding itself under a cloak of creeping ivy.
Even from the outside, it had a look of being infested with sadness.

Everyone had a story about Cogston House. No one quite knew what was true
and what was rumour, and Luca didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“Ow!” he squealed, as Jack reached back and hauled him through the gap he
had just made in the twisted greenery. Luca rubbed at a fresh, pale scratch on
his arm.

Unconcerned, Jack stood triumphantly, his hands on his hips, admiring the
enormous house. His eyes swept the building as if they belonged to an ancient
explorer who had just discovered a long-forgotten corner of the world.

“Told you it would be epic,” Jack grinned.

“‘Epic’? Looks like it’s barely still standing up”.

At home, Luca had heard his stepmum say that it was about time Cogston House
was renovated, and that it would be good for the area if it was properly restored
with access opened up again. In reply, his dad had said that it would be better
to take a wrecking ball to it, after everything that had gone on. Luca didn’t
know exactly what ‘gone on’ meant, but he was now regretting mentioning the
place at all to Jack.

The house had always been there, as long as both boys could remember, but was
just somewhere that they had never visited. Of course, it had been Jack’s idea
to go and investigate, after Luca had brought it up that day at the swings. No
doubt, Jack would know some story about the place, and if he didn’t, he’d be

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 The Curse of Cogston House

making one up anyway.

“Have you heard the story of what happened to those two girls here?”

Right on cue, thought Luca. Here it comes.

“I heard it from my cousin’s next-door neighbour,” Jack went on. “Her mum
knew one of the girls from school, years ago, and her grandad worked in the
factory that the Cogston family owned.”

“What are you going on about?” Luca asked with a shake of his head, distracted
by pulling furry goosegrass buds from his shoulders.

Before an answer came, the crack of snapping wood grabbed Luca’s attention
and he looked up, eyes widening, to see Jack grinning back at him from a
narrow doorway at the side of the house. The splintered length of rotten wood
in his hand matched a large panel, daubed with graffiti, which hung limply at
angle where a proper door should have been.

“Come through here and I’ll tell you,” said Jack.

“Oh, I really don’t think we should be doing that,” Luca responded, looking
around in search of any other signs of life. He flicked a creepy-crawly from his
arm with his finger and rubbed manically at a telltale tickle on his head which
suggested that more critters were making a new home in his hair. By the time
that he’d dealt with them, Jack’s feet were just disappearing after the
rest of his body into the building.

A few raindrops were released from the bulging grey clouds. Inside
Luca’s head, a slow drumbeat was gathering momentum and a voice
was screaming at him to turn around, yet his dry mouth barely
let out a murmur in protest. Inwardly, he wished that an invisible
force field would propel him backwards from the narrow opening
in the doorway but instead, he swallowed hard and copied Jack’s
crouching motion to squeeze through the broken door frame.

Extract from the Twinkl Originals short story

‘The Curse of Cogston House’

Page 3 of 5 visit twinkl.com

 The Curse of Cogston House

Questions
1. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


2. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.



3. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
The boys arrived at Cogston House.
Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

4. Find and copy one word that shows how Luca was feeling.


5. “Have you heard the story of what happened to those two girls here?”
Right on cue, thought Luca. Here it comes.

Why has the author written some of these words in italics?



6. How did the boys get into the house?




7. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?




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 The Curse of Cogston House
8. Which of these words best describes how Jack was feeling?

bored
anxious
excited
nervous
Explain your choice.



9. Why do you think Luca doesn’t want to go inside the house?





10. What do you predict will happen next? Explain why you think this.




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 The Curse of Cogston House

Answers
1. Match these nouns with the adjective that describes them.

creeping stems

overgrown path

prickly ivy


2. Find and copy one word that means ‘moved expertly’.

Accept ‘manoeuvred’ only.

3. Label these events 1-4 in the order that they happened.

2 Jack and Luca went to the park to play on the swings.

1 The boys celebrated their eleventh birthdays.
4 The boys arrived at Cogston House.
3 Jack and Luca went to the Top End.

4. Find and copy one word that shows how Luca was feeling.
Accept any from: torn; hopefully; unhappily.

5. “Have you heard the story of what happened to those two girls here?”
Right on cue, thought Luca. Here it comes.

Why has the author written some of these words in italics?

These words are written in italics because they show Luca’s thoughts. If they were in
speech marks, Luca would have been saying them out loud.

6. How did the boys get into the house?

Jack pulled a piece of rotten wood out of a large panel, daubed with graffiti, on the side
of the house.

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 The Curse of Cogston House
7. Read through the last three paragraphs. What impression do you get of Cogston House?
Which words or phrases give you this impression?
Children’s own responses, justified using evidence from the text, for example: ‘I think
that Cogston House sounds dangerous because the text says that the scaffolding is
keeping it from falling apart.’

8. Which of these words best describes how Jack was feeling?

bored
anxious
excited
nervous
Explain your choice.
Accept any evidence from the text which shows that Jack is excited, for example: ‘I
think that Jack is excited because he ‘strode’ around and called ‘eagerly’. This shows
that he was looking forward to getting to the house.’

9. Why do you think Luca doesn’t want to go inside the house?

Accept any of the following: because he had been happy on the monkey bars; because
it was getting too late; because it was getting dark; because the house looked like it
was going to fall down; because his dad had said that something had ‘gone on’ there;
because there were lots of rumours and stories about the house; because it looked like it
was going to rain; because he didn’t want to miss his dinner; because the house looked
like it was infested with sadness.

10. What do you predict will happen next? Explain why you think this.
Children’s own responses, justified using evidence from the text, for example: ‘I think
that Luca and Jack will go inside Cogston House because Jack grinned when he got to
the house, implying that he was excited to continue exploring! Also, I think that they
will find something horrible because the title suggests that a curse is inside the house.’

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