Hampton House - the Helping Hand Club

Hampton House

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HAMPTON HOUSE

By Jenny Dooley

Summary

There’s an office called The Helping Hand Club that helps people. Joan is the leader and many teenagers work there. A new girl joins the club, she is Kathy.

That day, Kathy, Joan and William go to an Old People’s Home to carry them books. Kathy goes to Room 16 to listen to the story of an old woman. She tells her life and job at Hampton House.

Kathy is happy working for The Helping Hand Club and meeting new people there. She comes back to the Old People’s Home and receives an invitation to go to Hampton House.

Some months later, Joan tells everyone that the Council is going to pull their office down, so they need to find another meeting place. All of them ride their bicycle out in the countryside to find it. Kathy uses a bicycle, but its back brakes don’t work well, and she crashed into the side of a lorry.

She’s at a hospital some days and get better.

One day, Kathy’s friends tell her to go to Hampton House, but it’s falling down. She goes in very frightened and sees a large table, chairs and a candlestick. She hears a relaxing voice that tells her to eat, and invites her to go to the house another day. When she tells this to her friends, they don’t believe her.

Next day, they all go again to the old house to investigate what Kathy has told them. But they see nothing in the house. They think that she said funny things to them, they left her really upset. Kathy goes into the house and sees two armchairs, a table and a fireplace. She was scared and nervous when the voice tells her to put on a diamond heart on a chain, and begins telling her his story.

“When he was young he was very poor, one day a girl with a diamond heart round her neck help him. But he decided to steal it at night. He sold it and worked for a rich man. When that old man died, he inherited his money and house, he became Lord Hampton. He was a very cruel master. One day the girl whose diamond heart he have stolen went to his house. He didn’t help her, but he made her work very hard until she left when she got married. Some years later he heard a voice telling him that he wouldn’t find peace because he has been very cruel and selfish. He will be free to find peace when he finds a young girl who eats at his house and be honest to her. And the diamond heart was on his pillow. From that moment on, he lost all he had”. But now, after her arrival, he can find peace.

William is worried about Kathy, because she seems different, Joan tells him that if she’s really special to him, then he