It was a lovely spring afternoon. My classmates and I were playing happily on the playground when I let out a cry, “Ow! Ow! Something in my shoe is biting me.”

Everyone was shocked by the cry. They took me into a classroom and were about to take off my _________“Which foot is it?” one asked. “Let us have a look.”

Suddenly, I remembered the holes in _______ socks. My family was very poor during those years. I wore welfare socks, which cost only a little, but those _______welfare socks didn't last long. Soon there were _______ at the bottom.

I refused to take off my shoe. I _________ stand others seeing the holes in my sock. I tried to hold back my tears. Yet, each time the thing _________my shoe bit me, tears raced down my face.

My teacher, Miss Diane, hurried into the ___________. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Something is biting her right foot, ___________ she doesn't let us take off her shoe,”one of my classmates answered.

Miss Diane lived next door to me. She _________ everything about my family. She put both hands on my shaking shoulders and ____________into my painful and hopeless eyes.

“Oh, yes, it must be a sock-eating ant,” she said, as if she had ________seen the thing inside the shoe. “I had a bite from one of those ants. By the time I got my shoe off, it had ________ almost the whole bottom of my sock. ” My classmates nodded while they were listening to the teacher ________, although they all looked a little puzzled.

Miss Diane took off my right shoe and sock and shook them over the dustbin. Two red ants __________ it.

“Just like what I thought, the ants have eaten part of her sock.”When she stroked an alcohol cotton ball on the bites, she added,“You are such a ________ girl to take so many bites.”

The alcohol felt cool on the bites and a little girl’s pride was saved by the “sock-eating ant” story.

Time passed. There was plenty of food and no work in the Southland, and White Fang lived fat and happy. Except for Collie, all things went well for him. He learned how to laugh, and how to play at fighting with his master without really biting him. When his master rode his horse, White Fang went with him. He never got tired, because he ran like a wolf.

Once, when they were out riding, his master fell from his horse and broke his leg.

“Home! Go home!” said his master, when he understood his injury(受伤).

White Fang didn’t want to leave him.

“Go home and tell them what happened to me.” White Fang knew the meaning of “home”, though not the rest of the message. But he went.

He ran to Scott’s wife and pulled her dress, but it tore and she was afraid and angry. He stood before Scott’s father growling(嗥叫) until he told White Fang to lie down. He looked at all their faces.

“I think he’s trying to speak,” said Scott’s daughter, Beth.

And at that moment he started to bark — something he had never done before.

“Something’s happened to Scott,” said his wife.

They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran out of the house. He looked back at them using his eyes to say: “Follow me”.

After this everyone liked him even more.

It was during White Fang’s second winter in the Santa Clara Valley that he made a strange discovery. Collie’s teeth were no longer sharp. Her bites seemed more like playing than hurting. Soon White Fang started playing with her.

(Adapted from White Fang)