My dad got a new job. We had to pack up and move away from everything we were familiar with. There were so many changes. We came from the north, and now we were almost as far south as possible. We landed in South Florida, and we were total strangers. We moved over during the summer vacation, so I didn’t have to deal with school right away. Summer passed by while we unpacked, arranged furniture, found stores we liked, and adapted to the Sunshine State.

School was coming, and I was afraid of it. I was not an adventurous person. Being shy and quiet, I read a lot and did not make friends easily. My head was filled with fears and worries. Would I make friends? Would If it in? Would I survive in this strange new world? Anyway, there I was, attending a new school full of people I didn’t know.

I had a difficult time adapting to the new school. However, I still loved learning and reading. I even loved homework, and I was good at doing my homework. Loving books and reading helped me to get good grades. Teachers loved that about me. Other kids, though, did not. Although I always answered questions in class, I seldom talked with my classmates. I was unpopular. I felt like a total failure and nobody would like me.

The none day, at all boy walked over to me after an English class. He introduced himself and told me he was in the school basketball team. I knew him—he was the star player! “Hey,” he said. “You do really well in English class. And you know, my teammates and I spend much time competing and practicing. The subjects, especially English, really bother us. Do you think you could help us?” “Yes. Oh, definitely yes. I could, and I would,” I replied with surprise. We made the deal with an exchange of smiles.

Something gradually changed after that.

Meanwhile, the basketball players taught me how to play basketball.

When I was 10, I was always made fun of by my fellow Co-Curricular Activities(CCA) mates, including John. Words like, “Dick is the best player in the CCA! He only knows how to play ’Mary had a Little Lamb’ on the trumpet!” John’s fellows sang along, laughing at me.

“Don’t worry, Dick! I know you will be the best musician around and maybe perform 10 times in a year!” Tom encouraged me. “Thanks for the encouragement even though John is a better player since he has started playing the trumpet since primary school. Meanwhile, I just started, I replied with determination in my eyes to beat John.” Tom, seeing this, decided to give me more support.

After a long day of practice, the band was dismissed. I would have asked Tom to follow me back home but I was in a rush, so I left him. The moment I left the school, I took out my earpiece, listening to recordings like a broken recorder. I got so lost at the point that I did not sec the wall in front and fell on the ground with a loud hit. Luckily for me, a passer-by saw what had happened and immediately called the ambulance while stopping the blood.

“Ugh, where am I?” When I came to myself, I saw my parents and classmates. The passer-by must have informed my school or called using my phone! He then came up and explained to me what had happened. This made me embarrassed.

I could not even show my face to my parents! I wished the ground would swallow me whole, but that did not stop me from trying to be the best player. The nurse told me that I couldn’t practise as my body needed time to heal and that would take up a lot of energy. “I want to be the best. One leg injury would not stop me; it would only make me feel more motivated, I replied to the nurse.” When the nurse heard my words, she brought in the trumpet that I had wanted to practice with.

My parents motivated me every day by bringing my favourite food or drinks to the hospital.

On the selection day itself, John laughed at me by saying that I would not make it.

It was the Easter holidays, and school was closed for two weeks. For me, the Easter holidays were so boring that it was impossible to find something fun to do. My mom had suggested that I do some studies since the promotion test was coming up. However, I didn’t follow my mother’s suggestion. Instead, I went outside to seek out my friends to play with. When I had successfully contacted some of my friends, none of them seemed to be much in a playful mood, but one friend Jimmy agreed to play with me. He suggested we go down to the river and just relax there. The river was not far from my home, and we arrived there quickly.

Just relaxing on the river bank with nothing but some waste logs, it wasn’t fun for us at first. Clearly what was on our minds was to jump into the river and just take a swim in the clear cool water. So we took off our clothes down to our underwear and walked into the shallow part of the water. The water was truly cool and refreshing and we were starting to have fun then, playing and laughing, as we splashed the cool water onto each other’s faces.

Then we started to chase each other around on the river bank and then we ran straight into the river. We were having so much fun that we didn’t notice danger was around the corner. Before Jimmy could know it, and before he could do anything to keep his balance, he lost his footing on a tree branch, which was in the shallow part of the water, and slipped, bringing his whole entire body into the deep water. He tried to resurface from the water but found it extremely hard to keep his head above the water.

I was scared to see him struggling in the water but I knew I must rescue him.

After a while, Jimmy recovered from panic and thanked my mom and the neighbors.

I live in a small but lovely neighborhood. Our house is neither large nor luxurious, but it has a fairly big garden. My father loves his garden. He planted some seeds in it and took good care of the plants, watering them, applying fertilizer, weeding and getting rid of bugs. He was never tired of doing all that stuff. But at that time, I didn’t understand why working in the dirt excited him so much.

Unfortunately, in the summer vacation before senior high school, my father was seriously injured in an accident. He had to stay in bed for a while. My mother had several business trips, so she couldn’t take care of the garden. I didn’t want my father to worry. I said that I would take care of his garden until he recovered. I assumed that the little plants would continue to grow as long as they had water, and luckily it rained fairly often, so I didn’t think much about the garden.

One Saturday morning, my father said to me, “Christine, the vegetables should be about ready to be picked. Let’s have a salad today!” I went out to the garden and was upset to see that many of the lettuce (生菜) leaves and carrots had been half eaten by bugs. There were hundreds of bugs all over them!

I panicked for a moment but then I quietly went to the nearest supermarket to buy some vegetables. When I was making the salad, my mother came home and saw the bag from the supermarket in the kitchen. I was embarrassed and admitted, “Dad would like a salad, but the garden is a disaster. I don’t want to disappoint him, so I went to the store and bought some vegetables.” My mother smiled, saying, “Honey, you know what is the right thing to do.”

My father seemed very pleased when I took the salad to him.

Feeling guilty, I decided to do the right thing.