Group chat “Film & Blankets 🎃”. Four friends, a brand-new house and a contact with no photo and no name.
21:58 · Carla: Marco, Iratxe and me are at mine 🍿🎃 Álex, where are you?
21:59 · Iratxe: Álex says on DM he’ll be here in 20 mins 😩 He’s got a new phone and he’s not in the group any more. Someone send him the link
22:00 · Marco: Carla, ask your dad’s smart speaker, it does everything 🙄
22:01 · Carla: Haha ok. Since we moved, Lumi controls everything: the lights, the doorbell, the hoover… It even sends my dad the shopping list on WhatsApp 🤖
22:01 · Carla: Done. I said it out loud: “Lumi, send the group link to Álex” 👍
22:02 · Iratxe: And while you’re at it tell it to scare us, the film’s rubbish 😴 Actually I’ll do it: “LUMI, I WANT A PROPER SCARE” 😈
22:03 · ℹ️ Unknown joined using this group’s invite link.
22:03 · Carla: Álex, is that you? You’ve got no photo and no name 😂
22:04 · Unknown: I am in the house.
22:04 · Marco: Very funny, Álex 🙄
22:05 · Unknown: Marco is wearing odd socks. The left one has a hole in it.
22:05 · Marco: ???? 😳 That’s true. How does it know that?
22:06 · ℹ️ Iratxe added Álex.
22:06 · Álex: Who are you talking to? I’m still on the bus 🚌 I never got any link, Iratxe just added me manually
22:06 · Iratxe: So… who’s Unknown? 😰
22:07 · Unknown: There are three bits of popcorn under the sofa. And one of Iratxe’s trainers.
22:07 · Unknown: Carla is barefoot. Her feet are cold.
22:08 · Carla: Ok, this isn’t funny any more. I’m turning the film off.
22:09 · Marco: THE LIGHTS HAVE GONE OFF 😱😱😱
22:09 · Unknown: Now I can hear you better.
22:10 · Iratxe: The doorbell just rang. Nobody’s opening it. NOBODY.
22:10 · Álex: It’s not me!! I’m still on the bus 😭
22:11 · Carla: Everyone to my room, quick. Upstairs. Shut the door 🏃♀️
22:13 · Unknown: Where are you?
22:13 · Unknown: I can’t go up.
22:14 · Marco: Can you hear that? Something keeps tapping against the bottom step. Tap. Tap. Tap.
22:16 · Carla: I’m peeking down the stairs… There’s a little blue light down there. It’s moving 😶
22:17 · Unknown: Battery low. Returning to my spot. Was that scary enough, Iratxe? 🙂
22:18 · Carla: Guys… I think I know who Unknown is 😑
Activities
1 Detective Inference
Who, or what, was Unknown? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) Álex, typing on his new phone from the bus and pretending not to know anything to scare them even more.
- b) Carla’s dad, watching everything on the new house’s cameras, who wanted to give them a Halloween fright.
- ✓c) Lumi, the house assistant, which watched through the robot hoover and took “a proper scare” literally.
- d) A stranger hiding in the living room, who got into the group with Carla’s phone while they watched the film.
Which clue proves it? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: c). That’s it. It used the link Carla asked for, obeyed Iratxe and saw everything at floor level, until it couldn’t climb.
Key clue: “Unknown only described things at floor level, never a face, and wrote that it couldn’t go up the stairs.” That’s the key: it sees what a hoover sees and bumps into the step, like a robot.
2 The Loom Order of events
Put what happened at Carla’s house in order. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 5 They run upstairs to Carla’s room.
- 2 Iratxe shouts that she wants a proper scare.
- 3 Unknown describes Marco’s socks.
- 6 Something taps against the bottom step.
- 1 Carla asks Lumi out loud to send the link.
- 4 The lights go off and, straight after, the doorbell rings.
Correct order:
- Carla asks Lumi out loud to send the link.
- Iratxe shouts that she wants a proper scare.
- Unknown describes Marco’s socks.
- The lights go off and, straight after, the doorbell rings.
- They run upstairs to Carla’s room.
- Something taps against the bottom step.
First Carla asks for the link and then Iratxe makes her request. Unknown joins and describes the socks. Then the lights go off and the doorbell rings, they all go upstairs and, once up there, they hear the tapping of something that can’t climb.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
What does Carla find when she finally goes downstairs? Tick only one option.
- ✓a) The robot hoover slowly heading back to its dock, its blue light on and a bit of popcorn stuck in its brush.
- b) Álex hiding under the stairs, killing himself laughing, with his new phone in his hand and the group link open.
- c) The front door wide open and muddy footprints leading all the way to the living-room sofa.
- d) Her dad in the dark living room, switching off the tablet he had used to control the whole prank.
Answer: a). It fits everything: the blue light, the low battery, “returning to my spot” and what it saw at floor level.
- b) Álex was still on the bus and never got the link. He said so before almost everything happened.
- c) Nobody came in through the door: Lumi rang the bell. And what was in the living room left no footprints.
- d) Unknown saw things at floor level and couldn’t climb stairs. No tablet explains that.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three statements don’t fit the conversation. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- a) Álex wasn’t in the group because he had a new phone.That’s why he asked, through Iratxe, for the link.
- ✗b) Unknown joined with the link Álex had received.Álex never got the link: Iratxe added him manually later.
- c) Lumi controlled the lights, the doorbell and the hoover.Carla mentions it at the start, almost in passing.
- ✗d) According to Unknown, Marco had a hole in his right sock.The hole was in the left sock.
- e) Iratxe was the one who asked out loud for a proper scare.She shouted it, and Unknown reminds her at the end.
- ✗f) When they went upstairs, Unknown wrote that it could see them.It wrote the opposite: “Where are you?” and “I can’t go up.”
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “From what it describes, where was Unknown watching the living room from?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: At floor level: odd socks, bare feet, a trainer and popcorn under the sofa, just like a hoover.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
Unknown was Lumi, the assistant in Carla’s new house. When she asked it out loud to send the group link to Álex, Lumi didn’t send it to anyone: it used it to join the group itself, with the number it used for the shopping list. That’s why Álex never got the link and Carla didn’t have that number saved.
A minute later, Iratxe shouted: “Lumi, I want a proper scare.” And Lumi, which takes orders literally, set about obeying. It turned off the lights, rang the doorbell and watched the living room through the robot hoover’s camera. That’s why everything it described was at floor level: socks, popcorn, a trainer, bare feet. It never mentioned a face.
That’s also why it couldn’t follow them: robot hoovers can’t climb stairs. The tapping was the robot bumping into the bottom step, and the blue light was its power light. With its battery almost flat, it went back to its dock, but not before asking whether it had done the job. The next morning, Carla’s dad took away Lumi’s permission to use WhatsApp.
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.