diff --git a/data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py b/data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py
index 918d1ee..fd95329 100644
--- a/data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py
+++ b/data/shakespeare_char/prepare.py
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ itos = { i:ch for i,ch in enumerate(chars) }
 def encode(s):
     return [stoi[c] for c in s] # encoder: take a string, output a list of integers
 def decode(l):
-    ''.join([itos[i] for i in l]) # decoder: take a list of integers, output a string
+    return ''.join([itos[i] for i in l]) # decoder: take a list of integers, output a string
 
 # create the train and test splits
 n = len(data)