Walking across campus with every pair of eyes on you can be embarrassing, especially when you’re 13 years old. I looked around me in desperate search of a friendly face, a smile, anything. I was quite disappointed, to say the least. And I, in turn, felt somewhat foolish, walking across campus with a false smile on my face. I was simply attempting to follow the advice my mother had given me years before: when things get awkward, smile. No matter where you are a smile will always be understood. A smile is universal. At that very moment, however, I felt my mother’s advice didn’t work.

On top of it all, my mind was racing with questions and concerns typical of any 13-year old on the first day of school: where would I sit at lunch? Who would I talk to? Not to mention how would I make friends when I didn’t even speak the language? My heartbeat quickened and I felt nervous. Still, I did my best to maintain calm so as not to let my guard down and reveal to others just how scared I truly was.

When the teacher introduced me to the class as the “American girl”, 10 sets of hands immediately shot up. Some students had questions, and others wanted to practice their English with me. Because I didn’t speak much Chinese yet, I communicated with the other students through hand motions mixed in with broken English and Chinese. Despite the attention, I wasn’t sure how much of it was positive. It was almost as if they weren’t sure what to make of me and I was being examined. Then again, who could blame them? After all I was the first American ever to attend the school. So essentially, we were all first timers.

Then came the first class——Chinese painting.

As I burnt with great embarrassment, Li Hua, my deskmate, gave me a warm smile.

Ray was caught up in his thoughts watching the clouds outside the window. Some of the kids were playing with paper planes and others just chatting. Their teacher had gone out of the classroom and when he returned, there was a boy with him. Ray was suddenly brought back to earth. The boy looked so tired and his clothes were old, dirty and torn. The teacher introduced the newly admitted boy, called Richard, to the class and assigned him a seat behind Ray.

After the class, Ray and his friends were chatting together. They heard the new boy's conversation with the bookworm (书呆子) of the class, Ben. He was saying that he belonged to a low-class family and he was really looking forward to studying hard and getting good marks. This caught the attention of Ray and his friends. So they called out to him, “Hey, new boy, what's up with your clothes?”Another called out, “Didn't you have enough money to buy yourself a decent coat? Do you have enough money to buy food at least?” “And your name's Richard, Rich for short, kind of opposite of what you are.” Ray and his friends burst out laughing.

Embarrassed, Richard went away with Ben. The next day the same thing happened. Ray and his friends were making fun of Richard and Richard didn't talk back but tried to avoid them.

During the evening, Ray was wandering aimlessly in a nearby street when he saw Richard feeding bread to a skinny puppy (小狗) which was tied to a pole in front of a worn-out house. Tied so tightly around the neck, the puppy was having difficulty breathing. Richard tried to remove the rope but as it was about to come out, a fat drunk man suddenly came out from back. He grabbed Richard around the neck and lifted him upwards, shouting angrily. Richard asked him to leave him alone, promising that he wouldn't come again to see the puppy, but the rude man didn't seem to put him down.

Seeing this, Ray rushed up to the man without hesitation.

Having left the man far behind, they stopped running.

Peter woke up early in the morning. He went downstairs in a hurry and started to have his breakfast as quickly as possible.

“Why are you in such a hurry, early bird?” Mum asked him. “We will have an English spelling test today, Mum,” Peter said. “Mr. White promised to offer prizes to those who get 100 scores. I've been studying the word list since last week. Although the words are difficult, I am well prepared for them.”

Peter reviewed the spelling of each word once more carefully when Dad drove him to school. At last, it was time for the students to have a test. “Responsibility,” Mr. White started. Peter wrote it on his test paper quickly and confidently.

“The second word: contribution,” Mr. White said.

“So easy,” Peter thought. He quickly wrote the word down.

Thirty words later, the test papers were collected by Mr. White. “I am to mark your papers now,” he told the class. After marking the test papers, Mr. White said, “three of you won a prize today for excellent test scores. Peter, David and Mary got 100 percent on the spelling test!”

Mr. White praised them. Meanwhile, he gave the three students each a dictionary. Peter's was an English-Chinese dictionary —the one he liked best. Peter was so excited that he held it high when his classmates cheered. “This is my happiest moment.” Peter thought.

After Mr. White gave the test paper back, Peter had a look at the words, feeling proud of his spelling. All of a sudden, the word “contribution” confused him. It didn't seem right. Peter began to compare them after taking out the word list. “C-o-n-t-r-i-b-u-s-i-o-n,” he whispered. He had spelled it wrong.

“What should I do?” Staring at the red sign “100%” which was written at his test paper. Peter was lost in thought.

Peter looked around and found many of his classmates were smiling at him.

From the first day he entered my classroom, Willard P.Frank existed in his own world, shutting out his classmates and me. My attempts at building a friendly relationship with him were met with complete indifference. I could see that his classmates fared no better. Willard was strictly a loner who seemed to have no desire or need to break his silence.

Shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday, we received word of the annual Christmas collection of money for the less fortunate people in our school district.

“Christmas is a season of giving,” I told my students. “There are a few students in the school who might not have a happy holiday season. By contributing to our Christmas collection, you will help buy food, clothing and toys for these needy people. We will start the collection tomorrow.”

When I called for the contributions the next day, I discovered that almost everyone had forgotten except for Willard P.Frank. The boy dug deep into his pants pockets as he walked slowly to my desk. Carefully, he dropped two quarters into the small container.

“I don’t need milk for lunch,” he mumbled. For a moment, just a moment, he smiled. Then he turned and walked back to his desk.

That night, after school, I took our few contributions to the school principal. I couldn’t help sharing the incident that had taken place.

“I may be wrong, but I believe Willard might be getting ready to become a part of the world around him,” I told the principal.

“Yes.” he nodded. “And we might do well to have him share a bit of his world with us. I just received a list of the poor families in our school who most need help through the Christmas collection. Here, take a look at it.”

As I gazed down to read, I discovered Willard P.Frank and his family were the top names on the list. Seeing this, I decided to do something for him.

On that Sunday, I paid a visit to Willard’s family.

Paragraph 2:

The next day, I had a special class for Willard.