Daniel sailed out of Southampton on the Queen Mary that evening with his mother
waving from the dockside. It was nice to have someone to see him (A)________, someone
who cared about him. Daniel showed his passport to a ship’s officer at the
gangplank and walked up into the ship. On deck, a steward looked at his ticket
and directed him to his (B)________. It was small but quite comfortable. He was excited as a
child about his first trip abroad. While on board the great liner he wrote a long letter
to his parents, which he posted five days later from Fifth Avenue. Early the following
morning he purchased a ticket at a (C)________ agency for a Pullman to Chicago. The train
pulled out of Penn station at eight the same night, Daniel having spent a total of
six hours in Manhattan where his only other purchase was a guide book of
America. He couldn’t (D)________ thinking about his parents. His parents didn’t know that
he was going to Australia. They were sure he was going to spend his holidays in the
USA.
Once the express had (E)________ the station, the Pullman carriage was attached to the
super Chief which took him all the (F)________ to San Francisco. Whenever the train pulled
into a new station Daniel would leap off, buy a colourful postcard that indicated
exactly where he was, fill in the white space with yet more information gained from
the guide book before the train started to move. He would then post the filled-in
card at the following stop and repeat the process. By the time the express had
arrived (G)________ Oakland station, San Francisco, Daniel had posted twenty-seven
different cards back to his parents in the Little Boltons.