What's best, a morning shower or an evening shower?
What can magic teach us about the brain?
Making friends as you get older?
These are all topics you'll discover in The Reading Room, our new series of magazine-style articles on our website.
They each come with highlighted vocabulary, comprehension questions and an audio download.
I'm Tim.
Today's story is a very well-known fairy tale involving ugly sisters, glass slippers, a very big party and a girl called.
Yeah, you guessed it.
It's Cinderella.
Cinderella, as you may know, has a tough life.
Her mother died and her father remarried, and now she lives in a big house with her stepmother and her two ugly daughters.
Cinders does all the cooking, cleaning and washing up, while her stepsisters pamper themselves, eat cake and go shopping.
One day, a postman delivers some invitations to a ball, a sort of posh party that's being held by the king of the land.
Sounds good, but things go downhill.
When the ugly sisters get hold of the invites, they rip up the one for Cinders, telling her that she's too common, she hasn't any fashionable clothes to wear and anyway she has far too much housework to do.
It goes without saying, her stepsisters are very cruel, and Cinders is obviously very, very upset.
The day of the party arrives and Cinders' stepsisters, stepmother and her father.
He's been very quiet, hasn't he head off to the party, leaving her all alone?
So there she is sitting alone crying by the fire, when out of the blue appears a woman claiming to be her fairy godmother.
She says, Don't cry, Cinderella, you shall go to the ball.
I won't go into detail, but she turns a pumpkin into a fancy carriage, she turns a rat into a coachman, two mice into footmen and four grasshoppers into white horses.
Impressive.
Then she points her wand at Cinderella's dress and changes it into a beautiful ball gown, and her old shoes become a glittering pair of glass slippers which shine like diamonds.
She tells Cinders to get moving and have a great time, but remember one thing.
The fairy magic ends at midnight.
She must leave the party by then.
The party is amazing.
Incredible food, wonderful music, lots of smartly dressed people.
But when Cinders walks in, everyone's heads turn.
They've never seen such a beautiful woman and such fancy clothes.
The prince asks her to dance and they spend the whole evening together.
Time goes by quickly and she soon forgets about the fairy magic ending at midnight.
With only seconds to go.
She runs off before her clothes turn back to rags and her sisters discover who she is.
But in the rush one of her glass slippers falls off, but there's no time to pick it up, so she has to go without it.
The prince says, I shall marry the beautiful girl whose foot fits this slipper and only her.
In the morning the prince goes from house to house with the glass slipper and every woman tries to squeeze her foot into it, but it doesn't fit any of them.
It's touch and go whether he'll ever find the rightful owner, but then he arrives at Cinder's house.
The stepsisters are keen to have a go, but of course it doesn't fit.
They don't think about asking Cinders because they didn't believe she'd been at the party.
But the prince insists she give it a go and sure enough it fits.
Well, you know how the rest of the story goes.
They get married and live happily ever after.
However, Cinders makes sure the prince isn't marrying her just because of her fancy clothes and money, and he assures her it is for true love.
As for the stepsisters, well, they live with them, working as their servants.
Wouldn't it be good if some fairy tales came true?
Although I wouldn't fancy wearing a pair of glass slippers too uncomfortable and they wouldn't go with my outfit.
Well, that's all for today, but please join me again next time for another story.
Goodbye.
