Every year, thousands of people’s lives are affected by disasters. This week, in News Magazine a disaster survivor, Fiona Jones, tell us her stories.

NW: Fiona, you were in a cyclone(飓风). _______ was that?

FJ: In north Australian, in Normanton. That’s where I live.

NW: What did you do when the cyclone arrived?

FJ: We all stayed inside, in the basement, because that’s the safest place. We could hear the   _______ coming closer and closer. The noise was awful. At one point there was a really              loud noise. I thought: ‘That’s it! It’s going to destroy the house!’ I was shaking.

NW: And what happened after the cyclone?

FJ: There were terrible floods. More than 360 millimetres of rain came down in just twenty-four hours. The army had to bring food and water to the whole area by plane and helicopter. The _______ thing was that waves from the coast and rivers flooded the land and carried three crocodiles(鳄鱼) to near my house! One of my neighbours hit a crocodile with his car – it was 1.6 metres long.   

NW: Really? That’s unbelievable! So is everything back to normal again now?

FJ: Not really. The floods have gone, but they destroyed a lot of homes and farms. It’s going to cost at least 110 million dollars to_________this damage.

NW: So is the weather _______ this bad?

FJ: No, but this summer was very hot. If it stays hot , there will probably be another cyclone.

All the experts say that the extreme temperatures and heavy rain will only _______ because of climate change.

A typhoon is a very strong storm. The wind can ________ at 250 kilometres every hour or more. Sometimes there is a lot of rain, too.                                                            

A typhoon starts over a warm sea. The winds become ________.   A typhoon can be about 400 kilometres wide. In ________ the typhoon there is an “eye”. The winds are fastest and strongest around this eye.

After a typhoon there is a lot of damage. The winds can pull up trees or lift up cars and boats and throw them a long way. The winds can also destroy houses.

There is also usually a lot of rain ________ a typhoon. Sometimes the following rain covers the ________, and people cannot go outside. A lot of rain can be very dangerous ________ there may also be floods.

【推荐3】The victims were carried in one by one, their paws and fur burned, suffering from dehydration(脱水) and fear. Their caretakers treated their wounds, and ______ them in baskets with the only thing that was ______— the leaves of eucalyptus(桉树) tree. As terrible fires have ______ more than 2 million acres in Australia, only dozens of koalas have been _____ from the smoky trees and black ground.

Koalas, unlike kangaroos, birds or snakes, do not _____ from fires but instead climb trees to the top, where they can make themselves into a ball for ______ and wait for the danger to ______.

But during big fires, such as those that have burned in recent weeks, the animals are far less likely to ______. Even if the fire itself does not reach the ______ of the trees, the animals may fall to the ground, where they can be burned to death.

We have these special animals not found _____ else on this planet, and we are killing them. This is a big wake-up call.

【推荐1】Friendship, which you think may have lost, will come back amazingly. I had a best friend at the age of 7. Two years _______, her family moved to England. Before she left, she gave a similar bracelet (手镯) to _______. She said it was like our friendship. She also told me to be careful with it and remember our friendship. She _______ that she would be back to visit me one day.

Years passed, _______ I never saw her. I _______ the bracelet, because I thought she might have forgotten me.

Guess what! All these years, our parents _______ kept in touch. One day, they decided to see each other where we lived, without telling us. Later that night, when we met, we were both _______ and of course, very pleased to see each other again. Then we talked about things that _______ to us all these years. She found I wasn’t _______ the bracelet she gave me. I explained the ________. Then she forgave me and said “I promised you that I would come back, so I am here today. I always remember our friendship. I’ll do everything I can to keep my promise.”

【推荐2】I was never very tidy, while my roommate Kate was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but ______ always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Over time, Kate got neater and I got ______. She would push my dirty clothing over, and I would lay my books on her ______ desk. We both got tired of each other.

War broke out one evening. Kate came into the room. Soon, I ______ “Take your shoes away! Why under my bed!” The sound was so loud that it scared me. In no time I saw my shoes ______ at me. I jumped to my feet and started shouting. She shouted back louder.

The room was filled with ______. We didn’t talk to each other for several days until a phone call came in. Kate answered it. From her end of the conversation, I could ______ right away her grandma was seriously ill. When she ______ up, she quickly crawled (爬) under her covers, starting to cry uncontrollably. Obviously, that was something she should not go ______ alone. All of a sudden, a feeling of being sorry rose up in my heart.

______, I collected the pencils, took back the books, made my bed, cleaned the socks and swept the floor, even on her side. I got so into my ______ that I even didn’t notice Kate had sat up. She was watching with an ______ of disbelief. Then, she reached out her hands to grasp mine. I looked up into her eyes. She smiled at me, “Thanks.”

Kate and I stayed roommates ______ the rest of the year. We didn’t always agree, ______ we learned the key to living together: ______, cleaning up and holding on.

【推荐1】It’s an exciting picture. The sun, the moon and seven other planets of our solar system (太阳系) stand side by side as a loving ________.

The picture was taken by Wang Zhipu, at the age of 15. And it helped him ________ the top prize in the Young Competition category at the Astronomy Photographer (天文摄影师) of the Year competition in 2021.

Wang loved looking up at the sky ________ he was a little kid. In Grade 8, he got his first telescope (望远镜). “Astrophotography (天文摄影) needs lots of ________ and effort (精力). You may need to take hundreds or even thousands of photos, then make ________ one picture,” said Wang.

In 2019, Wang started to take pictures of Saturn and Jupiter. He always got up ________ in the morning to get the best places. In 2020, he got pictures of all the planets in the solar system.

“I tried ________ times to take the photos of Mercury. The first two tries were not good because they were not ________ enough,” said Wang. The last time he took more than 10,000 pictures of Mercury and ________ thousands of them to make.

“I didn’t believe that I could win the top prize,” Wang said. “It encourages me to take ________ pictures in the future!”

Once a little boy found a caterpillar(蝴蝶幼虫). After he was allowed to _______ it at home, the little boy got a large box from his mother and put in plants to eat, and a _______ to climb on. One day the caterpillar climbed up the stick and started acting _______. The boy worriedly called his mother. The mother told him that the caterpillar was creating a cocoon(茧) and explained how the caterpillar was going to go through a(n) _______ and become a butterfly.

The little boy watched every day, _______ the coming out of the butterfly. One day it happened. There was a small hole in the cocoon and the butterfly started to struggle(挣扎) to come out. At first, the boy was _______, but soon he became worried. The butterfly was struggling so hard. But it looked like it was making no _______. Hoping to see it out, the boy _______ to help. He cut the cocoon with scissors to make the whole _______ and the butterfly quickly came out.

To his ________, the butterfly had a large body and small wings. He kept watching the butterfly, hoping that the wings would dry out, enlarge to support the huge body. But nothing happened! It never was able to ________.

The boy tried to find out ________ was wrong with the butterfly. To help him, his mother took him to talk to a scientist. He ________ that the butterfly should struggle through the hole. Without the struggle, the butterfly would never fly. The boy’s good wish ________ the butterfly.

As you go through school and life, keep in mind that struggling is an important part of any experience for ________. It is the struggle that causes us to develop our ability to fly.

I looked out at the smiling faces packed into the school gym. The applause (掌声) filled my ears. I had done it. I had really done it! I found a new person inside me, a much more confident, outgoing person who had been hidden all along, just waiting for the ________ to appear.

Just a few months earlier, it was impossible to ________ myself acting in a play in front of two hundred people. But without my teacher, Mrs. Sather, I couldn’t get that chance.

In the first and second grade, I was extremely shy. But Mrs. Sather always ________ me.

One day, she announced, “Our class was going to ________ a play. Anybody, want to try?”

A few excited hands shot up—mine, of course, was not one of them.

After school she stopped me and invited me for a talk. Puzzled, I followed her to her desk. She said, “I think you are ________ for the lead character. But I was surprised you didn’t raise your hand.”

Me, the lead? Was she crazy?

Mrs. Sather gazed into my eyes as if seeing my inner ________ locked away inside. “But I’d like you to give this a try for me,” she continued. “If you reach for the stars, you might at least grab a piece of the moon.”

I realized it was time to throw off ________ and show the world who I really was. I looked Mrs. Sather right in her sparkling blue eyes and said, “OK. I’ll try.”

In the following months, in spite of fears, I did everything I could to prove I could do it in practice.

At the end of the play, when the audience applauded, I knew they were not just cheering for my performance that night, but for the performances they knew would come in later years because of my new-found _________.