Henry is a firefighter in Seattle. Seattle had a big fire about 100 years ago. Most of the city was burnt down to the ground then. Henry says he doesn’t want that to happen     16    , so he works very hard. Henry works eight hours a day. When he is on duty (值班), he has to     17     answer an alarm at any time. Most of the alarms are for small fires. Firefighters can     18     the fires in a few minutes. There are also a few false (假的) alarms. When the firefighters     19     there, they find that there isn’t any fire at all. Big fires are very     20    . Sometimes, Henry has to go into burning buildings to save other people.

We moved away from my grandmother when I was eight years old. I missed her a lot. I was her favorite granddaughter and she was my favorite grandma.

Two years later my mother and father separated and soon divorced. I felt as if my world was falling apart. I lived with my mother for a time, next door to my grandma and grandpa in an apartment while my father was away during World War Ⅱ.

Grandma never had much in the way of money or material things. But it was the little things she gave me that let me feel warm, like letting me dip my fingers in the sugar bowl, letting me sip the coffee from her cup or allowing me to sit on the table as I had meals.

Though she didn’t have much, she did something for my brother and me. I will always remember she saved her coins in a glass jar. I thought my grandma could have used these coins herself, but she saved them to give us when we came to visit her.

I don’t remember how much we collected on our visits, nor was the amount(数目)important. It was the idea that she remembered us, and cared about us when we were away from her.

When I was a little girl, my mother enjoyed reading books. She would ask my father to bring many books from the library. My mother liked finishing a story without any ________. So she would finish up all her housework quickly and then she kept plenty of time to read.

One Sunday my father borrowed a very popular novel (小说) from the library. On the way home he bought some hot snacks because he thought that it would be happy for us to ________ the snacks when having some family talks. But after he gave the book to my mother, she was completely lost in it. She then read books without talking to any of us.

Then something changed in our family. It was Christmas season and some ________ visited us at our home. My sister and I had a(n) ________ time playing with our cousins and we enjoyed the delicious food, but something made my father a little angry. My mother kept herself in her own room all the time, reading her new novel. My aunt noticed my mother’s problem and decided to solve it in her own way.

My aunt took my mother’s novel away and didn’t give it to her until she ________ that she would never get crazy about reading again. Since then, my fimily has enjoyed a ________ life. Now my mother still prefers reading books, but only when she is alone.

Michael Jackson was born in Indiana, America, on August 29, 1958. He was the seventh of the nine children in his family.

His father Joe Jackson had bis own band (乐队). They would practice after work in the living room of their house. Joe soon noticed the talent (才能) of his sons and set up the family band “The Jacksons”. They later became “The Jackson 5”. Little Michael always watched his brothers practice singing. When he was about 5 years old, he joined the group and became the lead singer (领唱) of “The Jackson 5”.

Michael gave his first show in a school program in 1963. Wearing black pants and a white shirt, he sang Climb EV’ry Mountain. Michael said, “When I finished that song. Everybody applauded (鼓掌) and people were smiling, and some of them were standing. My teachers were crying and I just couldn’t believe that I had made them all happy and excited. It was such a great feeling. I felt a little surprised too because I didn’t think I had done anything special. I was just singing the way I sang at home every night. When you’re performing, you don’t realize what you sound like or you’re coming across. You just open your mouth and sing,”

Soon his father made the band take part in talent contests. He was very strict with young Michael and bis brothers. Michael said, “If we didn’t do well, he would beat us, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a stick. My father was really strict with us—really strict.”

Under their father’s control, at the age of 6, Michael and “The Jackson 5” started being popular with their acts at talent shows.