Name____________________________________                             Date_______________________
           Never Alone
Reading Comprehension Worksheet           

Directions:  Read the passage below carefully. When you have finished reading it completely, answer the questions that follow.

For just about my entire life, I have had insomnia and migraine headaches. I normally do go to sleep, but wake up again around 2:00 am. The only medications I have taken in my life has been for depression and migraines, all prescribed by doctors.

Up until about a year ago, I have awakened to find other people in my room. I'm sure that they weren't actual people. If they were spirits or just my imagination, I honestly don't know. When I saw these "apparitions", they were usually the size of a human and slightly transparent. I could feel them there, but nothing actually was.

As a child, I was always afraid of whatever these things were, and could barely shut my eyes from fright. As time went on, the only thing that would happen when I saw one was that it startled me. For a while, I thought I was crazy and even tried to talk to them or send thoughts to them. I seemed to know things about these "spirits" that you just couldn't know by looking at them but that was probably just my overactive imagination.

For example, I remember seeing an old couple (probably someone's grandparents) sitting at opposite ends of my bedside table, playing chess. If they had been real people, this would have been impossible because my bedside table is blocked off on the sides they were sitting at. Sometimes, I would wake up to find them sitting right next to my bed, just staring at me. They always seemed to be looking at me in a sad way.

Sometimes there would be a person so huge that it filled up my whole room. Like "Alice in Wonderland", that writer also had migraines and there is a certain type of migraine headache that can make you see that type of thing. Of course, ordinary things would look like them; a laundry basket filled with white clothes transformed into a baby or a dress hanging in the closed would be a woman with long brown hair.

The worst incidents were the ones I couldn't get away from, such as when I would go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and come out to see a man or something watching me.

I know that location has nothing to do with it. I have seen them at friends' houses, in different states, and even different countries. When I visited Guatemala for Christmas, I shared a bed with my cousin and woke up to see a man with a large hat leaning against the wall, staring out the window. I don't know what this means, or why it happens, but it's the truth. Story submitted by Charolette

Questions:

1)   What is the tone of this selection?

2)   What is the setting of this passage?

3)   What seems to be the author's intent for writing this selection?

4)   What is the Main Idea of this passage?

5>   Does this story seem interesting to you?  Why or Why Not?

6>   Use your imagination to draw a picture about the story.  The ADD ONE NEW thing of your own that fits but was not in the original story.

7>   If you were in the story, what would you do?

8>   Tell me about the main character -- use your own words.