“Lion hair! Lion hair! Hahahaha!”

It wasn’t the first time she’d been called Lion hair. Rani’s cheeks burned and tears stung her eyes. She hurriedly jumped off the school bus and landed in a ditch (沟) of muddy rainwater.

As she got back into her house, Rani’s cousins, Amit and Sumit, came over, mocked (嘲笑) her hair as a bird’s nest and talked about how many bird eggs there were in it. Ignoring it, her mother was cooking dinner in the kitchen.

Before she could think, Rani had fled out of the house and made her way down a narrow path into a clearing. “I hate my hair!” She screamed as tears of rage and shame streamed down her cheeks.

Before long, she fell asleep because of tiredness.

Rani woke up to Mama’s anxious calls, but she hugged herself close and promised herself not to go home in that Mama let Amit and Sumit make fun of her.

Alone, she felt very hungry and frightened as dusk fell. Suddenly, someone or something was making its way into the clearing. Rani froze. Frightened a lot, she even opened her mouth to scream.

It was Papa. Relief and joy flooded through Rani. She threw her arms around Papa and clung to him.

With an obvious relief, Papa told her that everyone had been looking all over the place for her and urged her to go home. Rani shook her head and cried, telling Papa everything about her damning hair and that she decided to quit the inter-school speech competition on Monday. Scanning Rani’s face, Papa replied that he promised to give those boys and cousins a heavy lesson but fleeing (逃避) was not how they solved problems. Meanwhile, he added that Rani was never one to shy away from a challenge.

With these comforting words and in Papa’s warm arms, she entered home. It’s time for dinner, and Mama’s waiting for them. Rani’s favorite dish! Yummy! The delicious food cooked by mom satisfied and pleased her a lot. After dinner, Rani rested herself next to Papa and began to sleep.

Suddenly Papa woke Rani up to watch a TV program in which Madame Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

With the Monday morning’s bright and clear dawn, Rani welcomed her big day. ________

I grew up in a small town in Mississippi, where everyone knew each other and family was everything. My big brother, Jake, and I had always been close. We shared the same hobbies, friends and dreams except that I wanted to go to college, travel the world and make a difference.

However, everything changed when our father passed away. He was the glue that held our family together and without him things fell apart. Jake took over the family business, and continued to run our father’s auto shop, which was struggling to survive in the competitive market. I tried to help Jake, but also wanted to achieve my own goals. I applied to several universities across the country, hoping to get a scholarship. I was thrilled when I got accepted to Stanford in California, one of the best universities in the nation.

But Jake was not happy for that. He felt abandoned by my decision. He criticized me for being self ish and ungrateful, turning my back on our family and roots. He said I was wasting my time and money on a fancy education that would not help me in the real world. He said I should stay at home and help him run the shop, as our father would have wanted.

I tried to reason with him that I loved him and our family. I said I would come back after graduation, or maybe even sooner if he needed me. And I was proud of him for taking care of the business. I promised we could still be close, even if I was miles apart.

He was angry and refused to accept my choice. He said he did not want to see me or talk to me ever again. He even mentioned I was no longer his brother, but his enemy.

Despite that, I packed up and left for Stanford.

“When I grow up, I’m going to travel on my own,” said my little daughter, Sophia, reading her favorite picture book in the sunshine. Her blue eyes sparkled as she looked at the beautiful pictures. “Well, I think you can!” I said, believing in her ambitions.

Being a hard-working and reliable child, she could help do the housework skillfully. She had the potential to make her dreams come true. However, we were poor farmers, and all profit had to go back into the farm to keep it going.

When Sophia was ten, a tornado (龙卷风) struck Texas, destroying our farm. We were forced to deal with everything that we faced. This disaster completely changed our lives. My husband, Steve, was disabled by the tornado. After trying and failing at several methods of earning income, finally he decided to become a baker (面包师).

We purchased a small bakeshop, fully equipped, and moved it onto our farmland. In fact, our bakeshop business did very well. Regrettably, Steve did not. His disability was so severe that after several months of trying he simply could not continue. The bakeshop closed.

While our family was going through difficult times, the dream and spirit of Sophia was not lost. She was doing well in school, and I smiled the day I read Sophia’s essay entitled, “Things I would like to do.” Topping the list were these words: I want to travel someday. Again I whispered, “Maybe you can someday.”

A few years later, Sophia started high school and enrolled in a foreign language class in her second year. This class occasionally organized a trip abroad. One day, she came home from school, hardly able to control her excitement, and said, “Mum, our class will arrange for us to travel abroad.”

“Fantastic!” I said. “You can achieve your dream!”

“But it would probably cost a lot of money to go,” she said.

She was right. My salary paid the bills, and nothing was left. Steve was still unable to work. Our hearts sank deeply.

Sophia’s face lit up the moment she thought of her father’s bakeshop.

Orders came flooding in.

There’s a special boy in my son’s class. Everyone thinks he is a bad kid. I’ve heard that he talks loudly, disrupts（扰乱）the class with bursts of negative comments, and doesn’t participate in groups. He also stands out as the tallest. Other parents tell his mother they’re scared of him. Yet he has never been physically aggressive. Sometimes he even shows kindness to others in need of help.

I’ll call him Joe. Most parents and kids don’t know Joe has Asperger syndrome. People with the disease must learn about socially proper behavior. It’s very hard for Joe to control his social behavior. He has worked hard since second grade. However, he has few friends who support him with positive comments.

Joe is in the highest-level math and reading classes. He wanted to join an activity club in school, but parent volunteers refused him. They didn’t acknowledge that he had been working hard to fit into the school’s social networks. I wish those parents had seen Joe walking home from school one cold winter day in January and how he had offered his help warmly.

Driving by, I saw him run and kneel down by a little girl lying on the ground. Joe brushed the hair from her eyes and smiled. She smiled back through tears, having slipped and fallen on the ice. Joe took off his coat and spread it out, and then he helped her move to sit on it. He also gathered her belongings and put them on his coat. He wiped the snow from her knees and hands, moving her arms to check for injury. Then Joe helped her up, took her hand and walked her home. He carried her pack and then rang her doorbell. When her sister rushed her inside, the little girl smiled back at Joe. Then he set her pack down by the door and walked home happily.

I stopped by Joe’s house later.

His mother expressed gratitude to me as she showed me to the door.