The clock strikes… Eleven… Twelve… Thirteen! Tom ran down the stairs and finds a…

Extract from Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

I chose this sentence because ”Thirteen” to me sounds like the clock that Tom hears is magical and a sound leads to a noun which is why the number thirteen might be a specific noise that the author wrote so that the reader can feel like the clock is special and that it allows Tom to wake up and go somewhere.

The part where it says:

”Tom raced down the stairs and finds a……”could be a cliff hanger because the author hasn’t told us where Tom is going and I think that’s suspense because there are no full stops just ellipses and that might pause the sentence to make us think what might happen next.

The common nouns are the clock and stairs and the proper noun is Tom.

The verbs are strikes, finds and ran as it is an action

There is one definite articles: THE , and there is one indefinite article which is (A) at the end of the sentence and it adds suspense because we don’t know what will happen next..

The main clause is when “Tom goes down the stairs” because that sentence alone introduces a character and tells us that he ran which is the verb.

There are no adjectives and adverbs.

The exclamation mark has been put in the sentence because it wants us to think about what happens next and also because it’s a surprising number on a clock especially during the morning. The exclamation mark also tells us something loud is in the sentence and that might be referring to a specific onomatopoeia which again tells us that the clock is special in a different kind of way.