Steve grew up in a children’s home in Scotland. Every week, the staff took a proportion of the children’s pocket money to pay for holidays. Little Steve developed a daring strategy to hang on to what little money he had. He laughs about it now. “I used to swallow all my coins. That got

them really furious, so they’d put me in a room on my own as a punishment. After a few minutes

in there, I’d hit myself on the chest and cough the money back up.”

Since then, Steve has turned into Steve Starr, a professional regurgitator who does up to four shows a day, and can demand fees of500−500−2,000 a show. Everything Steve swallows comes back dry, except for the goldfish. They swim about in his stomach in the water that he swallows for them first. After ten minutes they resume their normal lives in a goldfish bowl. “They never die”, says Steve.

Medical experts might have a few worries about Steve. The sight and sound of him swallowing and bringing back a snooker ball sometimes causes even normally calm people to panic. He also smokes a cigarette, retains the smoke in his stomach, then swallows some butane gas and mixes the two. Next he swallows some Wl:lShing-up liquid, blows a huge bubble, brings up

the smoke and gas inside the bubble, cuts the bubble off, gets someone to set light to it, and bang!

Physically, Steve doesn’t believe he is any different from the rest of the human race, who use their stomachs simply to digest food. “It’s all done by muscle control”, he says. “I imagine a little pair of hands in there doing everything, controlled by my brain. I’m sure I could teach anyone to do what I do”.

1.Why was Steve punished in the children’s home?

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2. What does the sentence “Steve grew up in a children’s home~ tell you about Steve’s early

childhood?

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3. What does the sentence “They’d put me in a room on my own as a punishment” tell you

about the children’s home?

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4. Why does the bubble go bang when someone sets light to it?

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5. What, according to Steve, is the secret of his skill?

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