1 . As my son entered adolescence, we spent most of our time in separate rooms. I know it’s _______ for teenagers to shut themselves away, but sometimes I find myself trying to think up ways to _______ him out of his bedroom.

_______ by this desire, I booked two tickets to Beijing for the September school holidays. With hurriedly packed luggage and a basic plan built around some last-minute Google searches, we _______ the airport. We landed _______ and excited at 4: 30 am. There is something very freeing about arriving in a place where you have no _______. We just walked for hours every day, _______ when we were hungry, wandering back streets, sharing more _______ than we’d shared since he was very little. Within a day he’d become the _______ , and I was the lost one. He taught me how to ________ shared electric bikes when we arrived at Xiangshan. He showed me how to accelerate and led me speeding up and down hills.

I saw him ________ in China, not the child running late for school or forgetting to eat carrots and peas, but as someone taller than me who understood when to ________ on a train so someone older could take his seat, and how to ________ buying things with his own money.

Travelling meant we were more like ________. And instead of complaining about the ________ version of him, I saw the adult he was becoming.

2 . The elementary school in Minnesota has a great playground. But it wasn’t _______ to children with some kind of physical disabilities. There was no wheelchair merry-go-round or any adaptive _______ in the playground. And the students of Betsy Julien’s fifth grade class felt like that should _______. Wyatt Feucht, one of the students, told CBS News, “It just didn’t seem _______ that some kids were just left out.” So, they asked their teacher if she could buy the equipment for the playground. Julien said yes but _______ the costs to be around $300.

So, the children decided to _______ the money themselves. They _______ bake sales, saved their money and went door to door to ask for   _______. With the _______ of the Glen Lake Parent Teacher Organization, they ________ reached their goal. Julien is ________ of her students. She told the news channel, “My future as an adult is ________ knowing that this generation of students, of changemakers, sees something that needs fixing, and they ________ for it headfirst.” And the students with physical disabilities are really ________, too. John Buettner, who is in a wheelchair, told CBS, “First time I set foot on this playground I’m probably going to start crying from seeing the ________ that all the school has made.”

3 . Martin Henfield talks about some of his experience as a twin: when we were small my mother dressed us _______ the same clothes. That was bad enough and we didn’t like it. But when we went on our first camping trip, it was even _______. We were only ten years old, and while _______ went into their sleeping bags for the _______, we were not happy to snuggle inside a double sleeping bag my mother made for us.

At school our classmates _______ us Henfield One and Henfield Two, so people _______ even see our difference according to our initials because _______ of us were M. O. It was only when I went to _______ and began to have my own friends that I started to feel my own freedom of identity (身份).

Before I went to college, during my secondary school _______, I ________ a job on a building site. My twin brother, Mike Henfield, didn’t work. One day I asked my boss, “Can I have a week ________?” “Certainly,” he said. “But you won’t have the job when you ________ back.” I didn’t want to ________ the job. So on Monday morning, Mike went there in my ________, jacket and hat and he worked for me for one week. ________ of them knew the difference.

4 . Long ago, an old teacher’s last time came near. He called his son and said, “Son, I have spent my whole life educating ______. At the moment I want to tell you something important.”

Listening to this, the son was looking at his father ______. Just then his father said, “But before that, go and bring a piece of coal and a piece of sandalwood (檀香木) to me.” ______ the son found this very strange, he did as his father asked.

He found a big piece of coal and held it in one hand. And then he broke off a piece of sandalwood from the tree with the other hand. After getting both things, he ______ to his father.

His father asked him to drop both things ______ his hands right there. He did as his father asked and then wanted to______ his hands. However, his father stopped him and said, “Wait, son. Show your hands. See, this hand turned______as you held coal in it. Even after you threw it away, soot (煤灰) still remains in your hand. Such is like the company of ______ people. It hurts to be with them and even if they are not there, you still face bad ______.” Then looking at the other hand, the father said,“But being with good people is like holding this sandalwood piece. You get lots of knowledge from them and even _______ they leave, fragrance (芳香) of their good thoughts will always remain with you.”

5 . In the back of my closet, there is a small cardboard chest that has followed me to every one of my new addresses. Until now, the only _________ contents in it are three wrapped _________ marked in my mother’s tidy handwriting: “Engagement”, “Wedding” and “First Baby”.

When I was three, my mother learned that she had advanced breast cancer. When I was seven, she had begun _________ a gift box for me. Inside, she packed presents and letters for the _________ of my life she was going to be missing — driver’s license, graduation, and every birthday until the age of 30.

My mother died ten days before our _________ birthday. That morning, when I turned 12 and she would have turned 49, I woke up early and opened the package _________ “12th Birthday”. A white card curling around the present _________: “I always _________ a birthstone ring when I was a little girl. Your Granny finally bought me one and I loved it more than I can say. I hope you like it, too.” I put on the ring and _________ her writing with my fingertip.

On the morning of my high school graduation, a __________ of pearls appeared as I opened the wrapped present. Her note read: “There seemed to be a __________ in my family that when girls graduated from high school, they received pearls.” I wore the pearls that afternoon as I took the stage to accept my diploma.

Year after year, my mother __________ forward in time to meet me. When I was a child, opening the next package felt like a treasure __________. As I grew older, her message met me like guideposts in a dark forest. If her words couldn’t point the way, at least they offered the __________ of knowing that someone had been there before and that I have been __________, wildly loved.

6 . When I started learning German some time ago, I realized the power of stories and storytelling in my own life.

I was ________ memorizing my first few German words. And I quickly ________ that this time, my native Italian and the other languages I’d learned would not be of much ________ .

While it was quite ________ to memorize words similar to English, like gut, muss, Ende, and Freund, there were many words for which I had no reference to ________ . Among them were Schatz (treasure) and Insel (Island). And yet I learned these two words easily. How? The ________ is simple. Without even ________ it, I had already memorized these words through a story.

One day, when I was a kid, I was with my father at a flea market (跳蚤市场) and we ________ a beautifully illustrated (有插图的) children’ s book. The cover and pictures were so great that I almost ________ to notice that the ________ was not in Italian. “Luca, we can buy it, ________ the book is in German,” said my father. I read the title out loud, with some ________ : “Die Scha... tz... ins ... el.”

Once home, my father explained that it was a German translation of the famous book “Treasure Island” . He________me the Italian edition (版本) and suggested that I ________ it while turning over the pages of the illustrated one. Thanks to the story I read, I passively (被动地)________ two words in German (Schatz and Insel) which are usually quite difficult words to learn, at least for Italian speakers.

7 . As Gwen Erickson approached 97, she began raising one of America’s most popular, yet endangered butterflies—the monarch butterfly (帝王蝶). She managed to _________ 27 butterflies last year and this year the _________ has gone up to 61.

The whole process is a little _________, beginning with collecting eggs from the milkweed leaves that grow in her backyard. Four days after Erickson placed the eggs in jars on her living room table, the caterpillar (毛毛虫) appeared, and then, within several weeks, formed a chrysalis (蛹). Two weeks later the beautiful butterflies _________. Erickson then released the butterflies into the wild, but a couple seemed a little _________ to leave their loving home and _________ the senior by flying around the house.

Erickson remembered her first attempt to raise _________ and said she hoped it could enable her grandchildren to _________ an interest in these beautiful insects. However, it’s she who has found the _________ in raising butterflies in the end.

Erickson doesn’t like to talk about herself and what she does, but she does so this time as she wants to ____________ others to care for this endangered species. Happily, a friend and her son have joined her in her new-found ____________. Hopefully, we will see a(n) ____________ in those decreasing numbers.

This new ____________ is a fine example of people caring for the smaller things in life. It ____________ us that it’s never too late to be ____________ in life.

8 . Tooth-fairy nights were always filled with expectation at our house. One such night, our daughter informed us that her loose tooth had finally __ .

“How exciting,” we told her. “Put it under your pillow____the tooth fairy will visit you tonight.”

“Okay,” our daughter agreed, carefully guarding her newly acquired prized____in a loose fist.

We reminded ourselves to check for her tooth once our____was over. However, when the film was over we ___forgot.

The next mooning, we were awakened by cries of____from our daughter’s room.“Mommty! Daddy! Come and see what the tooth fairy brought me!”

Astonished, my husband and I exchanged____glances. Quickly,   we____our way to our daughter’s room and found her sitting quietly on her bed,___out the window at a___.Her eyes shone with pure___.

As she was absorbed in the rainbow, I____under her pillow to “check for any other____that she may have overlooked.”

“Are you sure you felt all around when____your prize? ”I asked, and we watched as she carefully explored underneath her pillow.

“Wow! Two prizes! ” she said, proudly waving the dollar bill. “She must have overlooked during her first treasure ___ ."

9 . The bell rang. Jacob smiled and he was glad his math class was _______. He grabbed his lunch bag out of his backpack and looked inside. He blinked. Beside his usual lunch, there was an envelope. Jacob opened it and slid out a (n) _______. It was of a suitcase. Jacob _______ what it meant.

The next day at lunchtime Jacob opened his bag. A new envelope peeked out. Inside was a tiny toy _______. Now he was _______! When he got home, he asked his mother, “Are we taking a plane somewhere?” She just _______ at him, her eyes sparkling. “I guess it’s a mystery(谜)” was the only _______ she gave him.

Over the next few days, Jacob _______ more: a small American flag, a leaf from a palm tree and _______ a juicy orange. Then one day, when he finally got to open his lunch bag, there was ________ in it except for his usual lunch. His heart sank. Maybe he had been wrong after all. Maybe there was no trip. He was very ________.

Just before the end of the day, the school secretary handed Jacob a small box. “This is for you and ________ your mother outside.” He opened the box. A smile slid across his face. He ________ and pulled out a small black hat with two round mouse ears.

He hurried down to the main school doors where his mother and father were waiting, with suitcases. “We’re going to Disney World, right?” Jacob couldn’t contain his excitement. “Mystery ________,” laughed his mother. “Come on, we’re headed to the ________!”

10 . I was so excited when Mrs. Burks announced we were going to the skating rink (溜冰场). I’d never been roller-skating and really wanted to learn how to skate.

When we got there, everyone _________inside. Some of us rented our skates and soon began lacing (系好鞋带) them up. Then, everyone but me _________away from the wall and started skating._________ onto the handrail (扶手), I pulled myself along the side as I tried moving my legs back and forth. After a few failed_________, Mrs. Burks skated over to me.

“When you start to_________, relax. If you struggle to keep from falling, you’ll be more _________to hurt yourself,” said Mrs. Burks. Mrs. Burks _________for one of my hands. I took a deep breath and _________her warm hand. As we moved away from the wall, she called out, “Get your_________. Move your foot forward at an angle and then do the __________thing with the other foot.”I tried to follow her __________in every way. “That’s good! You’re moving your feet like you should. But remember to relax when you start to go down. Let’s try again,” Mrs.Burks said.

So I did. When I began losing my balance, I __________crumpled(倒下) to the floor. Mrs. Burks was right! It didn’t __________as much. I was able to get up faster and try again.

Later I began to see how Mrs. Burks’ instructions worked for other__________. As long as I kept trying to do my best, I could learn something even when I__________. I could get back up, try again, and trust God would be there to help me.