Martin is in a hurry.

He is late to work again.

Martin's boss doesn't like it when he is late. Martin was late last week. His boss told him not to be late again. He really wasn’t joking either. He was serious. “I mean it,” Martin remembers him saying.

Martin thinks he might lose his job if he is late again.

The time is now 7:15 am. Martin needs to be at work by 7:30. It takes him 22 minutes to drive to work.

“Things don’t look good,” he says to himself.

Martin runs out of the house. He jumps in his car. He puts the car in reverse. He backs up without looking.

BOOM!

There is a sound like someone hitting a drum. Martin’s car jerks to a stop. He has hit the car parked behind him.

“Oh, no!” Martin exclaims. He is angry now.

Martin looks at his watch. It is 7:18. He needs to get to work.

He looks around. There is no one on the street. There is no one nearby.

He looks in the parked car. It is empty.

Martin drives off quickly.

He gets to work 10 minutes late.

Martin’s boss is not around. “Thank goodness,” he says to himself.

He stops worrying. He sits at his desk to work.

During lunch, Martin goes out to the parking lot. He looks at his car. There is a big dent in the back.

Then he thinks about the other car— the car he hit this morning. "I know that car

is damaged too," he thinks.

He feels guilty.

“That was not right,” Martin says to himself.

He will see if the car is still outside his house when he gets off work.