501 English Verbs.pdf -

At 2 a.m., the PDF glitched.

Mariana laughed nervously. “That’s the first one in the book.” She took a breath. “I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, they are. Past: I was, we were. Future: I will be. Present perfect: I have been. Past perfect: I had been. Future perfect: I will have been. Present progressive: I am being. Past progressive: I was being. Present perfect progressive: I have been being…”

“That’s insane,” Mariana whispered.

She opened the PDF. Page one: “To be: am, is, are, was, were, being, been.” Simple. She yawned. By page 30 ( “To catch: caught, catching” ), her eyes glazed. By page 112 ( “To spring: sprang, sprung” ), she was dreaming of irregular past participles dancing the cha-cha. 501 English Verbs.pdf

Mariana froze. Her cursor moved on its own. The file expanded, swallowing her desktop icons one by one. Suddenly, her room dissolved. She was standing in a gray, infinite void—and in front of her stood a stern-looking, animated letter with tiny feet.

“Wait!” she screamed. “I drink. I drank. I have drunk . I had been drinking . I will have been drinking for three hours by noon!”

She closed the laptop, looked at Mittens, and whispered: “I will have been studying. You hear that, cat? Will have been studying. ” At 2 a

She passed the exam the next day. And she never, ever made fun of 501 English Verbs.pdf again.

“Tonight,” she told her cat, Mittens. “Tonight, we conquer tenses.”

Mariana panicked. “I drink, I drank, I have drunk—no, I have drank ?” Verbius buzzed red. “Incorrect. Drunk is the past participle.” A trapdoor opened beneath her left foot. “I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, they are

Verbius snapped his stick-figure fingers. A giant screen appeared with the word .

“Begin.”

Sweating, Mariana recited: “Fly, flew, flown, am flying, was flying, have flown, had flown, will fly, will have flown, will have been flying…”

The red buzzer stayed silent. Verbius nodded. “One more.”