It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The rivers and streams were long gone back into the earth. If we didn’t see some rain soon, we would lose everything. It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and saw the best miracle (奇迹) in my life.

I was making lunch for the family in the kitchen when I saw my six-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He was obviously walking with a great effort trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again toward the house. I went back to make sandwiches, thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed.

Moments later, however, he was once again walking toward the woods. This activity went on for over an hour. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me. I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey.

He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, very careful not to spill (洒出) the water he held. I stepped closer as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much greater purpose, I thought. As I came closer, I saw the most amazing sight. Several large deer stood in front of him. Billy walked right up to them, I almost screamed at him to get away. A huge buck was dangerously close. But the buck neither threatened him nor even moved as Billy knelt down. And I saw a baby deer lying on the ground, obviously suffering from heavy loss of water and heat exhaustion, lifting its head with great effort to drink the water in my boy’s hands.

When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house.

This time I joined him, with a small pot of water from the kitchen.

“You should get a dog.” my therapist (治疗专家) said. A dog? I couldn’t even look after myself. I took a deep breath and carefully considered the idea of welcoming a canine (犬科的) friend into my life. This seemed like too easy a solution to the fact that I couldn’t leave the house without bursting into tears.

Adopting an animal during the height of the pandemic was far from easy. When I found Simba, his adoption profile made him out as the perfect puppy. I filed out the paperwork and had a few weeks to prepare for his arrival.

When he came home, it became increasingly obvious that Simba didn’t understand “no”, “stop it’ or “don’t do that”. He was the worst-behaved dog I’d ever seen. I was beginning to doubt my therapist’s advice.

At home, I found him sitting on my bed comfortably. Jumping from the sofa to the tea table was his favorite game every day. He fought tooth and nail to get a bite of my meals and ate anything that fell on the floor. What was worse, dog waste and urine were seen everywhere, which annoyed me most. But his curiosity and vigor really impressed me. Training him to behave well kept me busier than I’d ever expected.

I decided to start taking him for walks. I could barely leave the house before, but my heart couldn’t say no to Simba. Simba showed me what bravery looked like. He didn’t stop to consider every possible outcome of a situation. He simply went for it. If there was a dog at a park, he would run toward it. He always leapt forward and explored the unknown by sniffing here and there unless I called him. He loved adventure. I found myself mirroring his behavior after a while, jumping out of bed without a second thought. I began to find the motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

Ten minutes later, Simba and I were walking in the nearby park.

As time went by, I found myself totally changed.

Brady was a recently retired search and rescue dog. He was not happy and missed his owner Al because Al had gone out on a rescue mission without him. Al’s nephew Steve took Brady along when he and his friend Zach went on an overnight hike. But suddenly Steve and Zach smelled something burning and they realized that the lightning had set the woods on fire. Wind-blown flame had leaped from the top of one tree to another. The long dry summer had turned the forest into a tinderbox（火绒盒）, and the thunderstorm wasn’t helping much. It had more wind and lightning than rain. Zach pulled Steve’s arm. “Let’s go! We can make it back to the river we crossed today.” Steve snapped Brady’s leash to his collar, and their heads down against the strong fire-wind, they hurried down the trail they had followed earlier. The air was full of smoke, and pine branches snapped from burning trees with a cannon-like sound. Steven kept his eyes fixed on the trail. All they had to do was to make it down to the river.

Brady barked a sharp warning. Ahead of them lay a dense curtain of smoke across the trail. They’d never make it through, so they’d have to find another escape route. The dog was pulling at his leash, trying to draw them away from the smoke. This was what Brady was trained to do, and yet Steve was uneasy. It seemed to him they were moving away from the river.

Brady lifted his head and smelled the smoke-laden wind. Next moment, the dog ran away and disappeared. The boys yelled and shouted for him, but he didn’t come back.

They had no choice but to leave him behind. They went up a slope（斜坡）. They couldn’t blame Brady for panicking and escaping. They themselves wanted to run even though they didn’t have a clue which way. They hadn’t gone far when there was a familiar back, and Brady came running toward them.

2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

参考词汇：急救中心the Medical Emergency

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