I am sorry to hear that you have decided to

Looking forward to your reply.

Yours,

Li Hua

The day of my big solo (独唱表演) had finally arrived. Everyone was there: my mom and dad and my little brother. It was a big event: the Spring Fling Choir Concert. My name was on the cover of the program. “Cindy Hamond … Soloist.” I couldn’t believe it. Not that it was my name, but that it wasn’t Renee Swanson’s.

Renee and I had been friends since kindergarten. She was always wherever I was and she was always ahead of me. Dance-class recital needs a big finish? Renee was picked. Softball? She played first base. And the school plays? Renee would have the leads. The only time I ever came in ahead of Renee was at roll call (点名). Hamond comes before Swanson. I count that as a victory.

The choir concert tryout was stressful for me. We waited while Ms. Jenkins called us one at a time into the choir room. When Ms. Jenkins got to the H’s, my heart sped up and my whole body was shaking. When I came back, Renee smiled at me. Ms. Jenkins called her name and Renee calmly followed her. She was still calm and smiling when her tryout was over.

When Ms. Jenkins announced who had made the special choir group, I wasn’t surprised when Renee’s name was on her list and mine wasn’t. “So,” I said under my breath, “what else is new?”

Sudden clapping came. Everyone was looking at me. I’ve missed something here, I thought. Ms. Jenkins looked at me, “Cindy, you will have to start practicing with me. The solos take extra preparation.” Solo? I got the solo? I could hardly believe my ears. I glanced over at Renee. She smiled and gave me the thumbs-up sign.

Now the day had come. we filed onto the stage and took our places. I was front and center. Ms. Jenkins raised her baton (指挥棒) and we began to sing. I could see my parents were smiling at me.

The spotlight circled me in its bright light. Ms. Jenkins nodded and pointed her baton at me, but I froze right there on the spot.

I couldn’t breathe, neither could I think, and worse still, I couldn’t sing.

The rest of the solo went well.

Eric was a very honest and hardworking student. He had entered a new school recently, so he had no friends yet. One Monday morning, he was nearly late for school because his family attended a wedding and reached home late the night before. Hurriedly, he even had no time for breakfast.

At school, Eric was starving to death and could not concentrate on anything but wanted the bell to ring so that he could buy something to eat. After a few hours, when the bell rang, Eric quickly opened his schoolbag to find his money, only to find that he had forgotten to take money since he was in such a hurry in the morning. He looked under his books, hoping to find some money but in vain.

Not knowing what to do, he walked out of the classroom and sat on the grassland in front of the canteen. He saw a few of his classmates there, among whom was Henry. He was one of the richest kids in his class, but he was a very rude boy who regarded everyone else as a failure. But Eric was a newcomer, he didn’t know much about Henry.

When he approached Henry and asked whether he could borrow some money for his lunch, Henry laughed at once and said, “I didn’t know you were a loser, maybe a beggar?” Henry laughed out so loud that other kids also made fun of Eric. Embarrassed and angry, Eric said nothing and slowly walked back towards an empty bench.

When he reached the bench, he saw something lying under it. It was a wallet. He picked it up and recognized it belonged to Henry, as he remembered Henry showing it to his friends and telling them that his uncle had bought it for him from the UK. There was quite a lot of money inside for a kid.

An idea appeared in his mind at this moment.

Then Henry said, “Why are you giving it back?”

There are a number of volunteer organizations out there that deal in things like clothing donation and the sale of remaining books. Retired schoolteacher Cathy McAllister has been a member of such an organization, VNSA, since 2012.Her duties in this regard involve working throughout the year to help prepare the books for their February sale and acting as personnel chair for the sale itself. This means that she helps coordinate(协调)all the other volunteers that help out before, during, and after the event.

It was before the 2019 book sale and Cathy once again found herself sitting among a towering pile of books and sorting through them to ensure that they would be in go0d enough condition to resell. As she was sorting, she came upon a book. The slightly broken book was in fair condition but it was one of four copies she had already found, and she a saved three of those already. The others had been much more gently used as well. Though she didn't like doing it, she had done this long enough to know that the only remaining choice was to throw it into the pile for repurposing.

A greedy book lover herself, Cathy felt guilty about throwing away a perfectly good book. Before she threw it away, she decided to check for more serious damage inside that might justify her giving it up. She opened the cover and moved to fan through the pages when she noticed something unusual.

When she opened the cover, Cathy was surprised to see that a part had been hollowed out inside the book. It looked as though someone had taken an X-Acto knife and rather expertly hollowed out a significant space. What's more, the book's previous owner had chosen to hide something in that space. She looked down and saw that someone had hidden four packages in the space, each containing ten$100 bills. Cathy's first thought was that the bills were toy money that perhaps a kid had hidden inside as part of some childish game or something.

But Cathy soon realized that these were real $100 bills.

Luckily for Cathy, the book also contained the name of the book owner.