TASK DEFINITION: You will be given a summary of a story. You need to create a question that can be answered from the story. You can create a question about characters, events, facts and beliefs, etc. Your question should be specific, try not to use pronouns instead of full names. As the stories are sometimes movie plots, they will contain actor names in parentheses. You should not use those names. Only use character names. Try to ask a question about all parts of the plot, not just the beginning.
PROBLEM: Georgie Burgess, seven and a half years old, lives in Tampa Florida. His mother and her boyfriend abuse him savagely, but he keeps their beatings a secret. He gets in trouble at school and hasn't learned to read, but he loves looking at a book with pictures of flowers.
Georgie's life changes after he wins a rosebush at a supermarket contest. After his mother's boyfriend beats him severely, police remove Georgie from his dangerous home, and his unplanted rosebush comes with him. Georgie is placed temporarily with Mrs. Sims, a cashier from the supermarket. But as his social worker and the judge find a home for him, Georgie is increasingly worried about finding a home for his rosebush.
When Georgie is placed in a Catholic boys' boarding school, he is convinced that his rosebush belongs in the garden of the neighbors across the road. Though principal Sister Mary Angela tries to convince Georgie to plant it elsewhere, Georgie sneaks out at night to plant his rosebush there. The next morning, however, the infuriated neighbor, Molly Harper, rips the bush out of her garden and returns it to the school, demanding to see the principal.
Georgie returns to the garden with the bush and discovers that while planting his rosebush in the dark, he has accidentally crushed the lilies planted for Molly Harper by her husband. Mrs. Harper confronts Georgie and threatens to burn his rosebush if he plants it again, but she softens upon glimpsing the infected wounds on Georgie's back left by the abuse of his past.
During the confrontation, Georgie becomes ill and lapses into unconsciousness. While Georgie is delirious with fever, Mrs. Harper arranges to have the rosebush replanted in her garden and visits Georgie often. However, with her angry threat still in his mind, Georgie is unable to forgive Mrs. Harper and refuses to see her.
As Georgie recovers, he forms a friendship with Timothy, whom Sister Mary Angela calls her "public relations" boy. Timothy explains that Mrs. Harper's husband and elder son, Paul, were recently killed in a car accident. Mrs. Harper's grief makes it difficult for her to be around boys the age of her dead son.
Meanwhile, Georgie becomes friends with Mrs. Harper's younger son, Robin, who has severe cognitive impairments, and his grandfather, Mr. Collier. While Mr. Collier helps Georgie learn to read, Georgie tries to teach Robin to speak and feed the ducks. Georgie becomes closer and closer to the Harper family, playing with Robin and joining the gardener as his apprentice, but he is still unable to forgive Mrs. Harper for threatening his rosebush.
After, Georgie takes Robin to the pond to feed the ducks. All the ducks follow Robin, who is holding bread. Robin falls into the pond and drowns. At Robin's grave, Georgie decides to plant his rosebush on Robin's grave, not in the garden. Mrs. Harper and Georgie start to connect over his decision and they head back toward the school.
When Sister Mary Angela holds auditions for the choir, Georgie is proud to find he is a good singer with perfect pitch. When Mrs. Harper, despite struggling with her grief, brings Robin to the chapel to hear the choir, Georgie begins to feel sympathy for her. Nevertheless, he cannot bring himself to join the new dramatics class when he learns that Mrs. Harper will be teaching it. Instead, he watches every class from the audience seats, learning each role by heart from a distance. When another boy backs out, Georgie steps in to play the Mad Hatter opposite Mrs. Harper playing the part of Alice in the tea party scene from Alice in Wonderland. After speaking to her in character, Georgie finds he is able to speak to Mrs. Harper face to face and resolves to ask her the next day if she is his real mother.

SOLUTION: How does Robin die?

PROBLEM: The novel opens with Rebecca's journey to Riverboro, to live with her two aunts, Miranda and Jane Sawyer. Until this time, she has lived on the family farm. Rebecca is the second eldest of seven children. Most of the children have fanciful names, such as Marquis and Jenny Lind, influenced by their father's artistic background (Rebecca is named after both the heroines in Ivanhoe). The family is quite poor, due to the number of children, Mr. Randall's inability to stick to a job, and the farm being mortgaged. At the beginning of the novel, he has been dead for three years and the family is barely scraping by. Rebecca's stay with her aunt is a chance to improve her opportunities in life and to ease the strain on her family's budget, with one less mouth to feed. Despite her impoverished background, Rebecca is imaginative and charming. She often composes little poems and songs to express her feelings or to amuse her younger brothers and sisters. It is she who named their farm "Sunnybrook".
Miranda and Jane had wanted Hannah, the eldest sister, due to her pragmatic nature and household skills, but her mother needs her at home for the same reason. She sends Rebecca instead. Miranda is unimpressed by Rebecca's imagination and sallow complexion and says she's the image of her shiftless father, Lorenzo DeMedici Randall. Miranda determines to do her duty and train Rebecca to be a proper young lady, so she will not shame the Sawyer name. Jane takes on the role of Rebecca's protector and acts as a buffer between her niece and her sister. Jane teaches Rebecca to sew, cook and manage a household. Rebecca's liveliness and curiosity brighten Jane's life and refresh her spirit. Although Rebecca strives to win Miranda's approval she finds it hard to live up to Miranda's rigid standards. Rebecca is up against Miranda's view of her as "all Randall and no Sawyer".
The middle of the novel is for the most part a description of life at Riverboro and its inhabitants. Important characters are Jeremiah Cobb and his wife Sarah, who first encounter Rebecca's charm; Rebecca's schoolfellow and best friend, Emma Jane Perkins; and Adam Ladd, a young businessman who takes an interest in Rebecca's education. Adam meets Rebecca when she and Emma Jane are selling soap to help a poor family receive a lamp as a premium. Rebecca nicknames him "Mr. Aladdin".
Rebecca proves to be a good student, especially in English, and goes on to attend high school in Wareham. In the last section of the book Rebecca has become a young lady with the same high spirit and a talent for writing. She applies for a teaching place in Augusta, but her mother falls ill and Rebecca must return to care for her and the farm. While Rebecca is away from Riverboro, Miranda dies and leaves the Sawyer house and land to Rebecca. A railway company will buy Sunnybrook Farm for construction purposes and this gives the Randall family a sufficient living. Thanks to Miranda's will, Rebecca now has enough money to become an independent woman and help her siblings. The novel ends with her exclaiming, "God bless Aunt Miranda! God bless the brick house that was! God bless the brick house that is to be!"

SOLUTION: Who died and left the Sawyer house and land to Rebecca?

PROBLEM: In the home of Jonas Prim, president of an Oakdale bank, a thief makes off with a servant's clothing and valuables belonging to Prim's daughter Abigail. Abigail is thought to be absent visiting Sam Benham, whom her parents want her to marry. Escaping, the thief later encounters a group of hobos and is taken for one of them, the Oskaloosa Kid. Two of the hobos attempt to murder the newcomer for the loot, who shoots at one and flees.
Meanwhile, the Prims discover the theft and learn that Abigail never arrived at Benham's. The incidents are assumed to be connected to other crimes, the assault and robbery of John Baggs and the murder of Reginald Paynter, who had been seen with two men and a girl. The local paper speculates Abigail might have been involved with Paynter's murder. Mr. Prim hires a private eye.
The thief encounters another vagrant, Bridge, and the two take refuge from a storm in the deserted Squibb house, site of an old murder. Nearby, a shot is heard from a passing car, from which a woman is thrown. The two take the unconscious woman into the house. There they discover a dead body and hear something in the cellar dragging a chain. They lock themselves in one of the rooms. The woman, reviving, reveals herself as the girl with Paynter. The other men in the car were Terry, the driver, and the Oskaloosa Kid. She says the Kid murdered Paynter and afterwards threw her from the car and shot at her when she wouldn't keep quiet.
The two hobos pursuing the thief enter the house, find the body, encounter the thing in the cellar. Bridge lets them in the room to save them from the thing, at which the thief shoots. The thing retreats. Later, as the storm dies down, they again hear its approach, and a woman's shriek. When all is silent they emerge to find the dead man gone. The hobos threaten to turn the thief in for Paynter's murder unless they are given a share of the loot. Bridge, with the thief's gun, forces them to leave without it. Afterwards the thief goes to a nearby farmhouse of the Case family to buy food and brags to the Cases' son Willie about the exploits of the Oskaloosa Kid. After the thief's departure the Cases hear about the Baggs, Paynter and Prim mysteries from the local postman.
A car containing Burton, a private detective, and two others pulls up to the Squibb house, and Bridge, the thief and the woman flee into the woods. Burton goes to the Case farm and questions the family, after which Willie disappears. The detective apprehends the hobos Bridge had driven from the Squibb house and gets their story, after which he arrests them as material witnesses. He himself vanishes for a few minutes, supposedly in search of a notebook he says he lost; actually he has found the loot from the Baggs robbery, implicating his captives in that crime.
In the woods Bridge and his companions come across a cabin where Giova, a gypsy girl, is digging a grave. Willie also turns up. Bridge and Giova exchange stories. He tells her he tracked her and the thing from the Squibb place; the thing is now revealed as her pet bear Beppo. She tells him the body from the house which she is burying is that of her father, a villainous drunk who died of a fit. Bridge suggests they join forces. His group helps her bury the body, and she disguises them as gypsies. Meanwhile Willie, whom the thief has tried to bribe into silence, steals off and calls Burton.
Burton, Jonas Prim and a posse join Willie and are led to the cabin while the two hobos in Burton's custody are sent to jail. Bridge's party is not found, but the gypsy's body is dug up. Willie testifies on the gypsy's death at the inquest. Later that night, by chance, he spies the fugitives hiding in an old mill and again goes to inform Burton. But the group of hobos of whom Burton's captives were members has also learned their whereabouts, and plots to murder Bridge and the thief for the latter's loot and return the girl, whom they take for Abigail, to Prim for the reward. The gang duly attack them, but chaos ensues when Beppo the bear comes to their defense. Burton's posse arrives and intervenes; the bear is killed and all the combatants taken captive. Bridge and the thief are jailed and endangered by a lynch mob. Burton questions the woman, now identified as Hettie Penning. She tells him how Paynter died at the hands of the Oskaloosa Kid, and that the thief is not the Kid. Her story is confirmed when it is learned that the real Kid has turned up, fatally injured from crashing the car, and has confessed to murdering Paynter and shooting Hettie.
Burton and Prim go to the jail, where they find the mob about to lynch Bridge and the thief, who they believe have robbed and killed Abigail Prim, and Paynter as well. Bridge, who has deduced the truth about his companion, reveals that the "thief" is Abigail, and the possessions she "stole" are her own property. Burton and Prim intervene and free the prisoners, whose secrets are now revealed. Abigail had run away so she would not have to marry Sam Benham. Bridge too is a runaway, having abandoned his own wealthy family to ride the rails. Burton has long been searching for him on commission from his father. In the end all is resolved satisfactorily Hettie takes out Giova as her maid, and Bridge and Abigail realize they have fallen in love with each other, which they seal with a kiss. In light of what Burton has revealed about Bridge, the prospects for their romance appear bright.

SOLUTION:
Who is the thief?