A funny thing happened to Arthur when he was on the way to work one day. As he walked along Park Avenue near the First National Bank, he heard the sound of someone trying to start a car. He tried again and again but couldn’t get the car moving. Arthur turned and looked inside at the face of a young man who looked worried.

Arthur stopped and said, “It looks like you’ve got a problem.”

“I’m afraid so. I’m in a big hurry but I can’t start my car.”

“Is there something I can do to help?” Arthur asked. The young man looked at the two suitcases in the back seat and then said, “Thanks. If you’re sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble, you could help me get these suitcases into a taxi.”

“No trouble at all. I’d be glad to help.”

The young man got out and took one of the suitcases from the back seat. After placing it on the ground, he turned to get the other one. Just as Arthur picked up the first suitcase and started walking, he heard the long loud noise of an alarm.

It was from the bank. There had been a robbery (抢劫)!

Park Avenue had been quiet a moment before. Now the air was filled with the sound of the alarm and the shouts of people running from all directions. Cars stopped and the passengers joined the crowd in front of the bank. People asked each other, “What happened?” But everyone had a different answer.

Arthur still carrying the suitcase, turned to look at the bank and walked right into a young woman in front of him.

She looked at the suitcase and then at him. Arthur was surprised. “Why is she looking at me like that?” he thought. “The suitcase! She thinks I’m the bank thief!”

Arthur looked around at the crowd of people. He became frightened, and without another thought, he started to run.

As he was running, Arthur heard the young man shouting behind, “Stop! Stop!” _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The taxi stopped in front of the police station. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jeremy Hampden has a large circle of friends and is very popular at parties. Everybody admires him for his great sense of humor — everybody, that is, except his six-year-old daughter, Jenny. Recently, one of Jeremy’s closest friends asked him to make a speech at a wedding reception. This is the sort of thing that Jeremy loves. He prepared the speech carefully and went to the wedding with Jenny. He had included a large number of funny stories in the speech and, of course, it was a great success. But as soon as he had finished, Jenny said to him, “Daddy, I don’t want to stay here any longer, even one more minute! Daddy, let’s go home.” Jeremy was a little disappointed by this but he did as his daughter asked.

On the way home, there was a long silence between them.

3 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写一段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Last weekend, I went to Mark’s new house near a forest for a little get-together. After lunch when I was chatting with him and his wife Cody, he asked me, “Hey, Thora, have you ever been to a secret spot?” Before I could even finish saying no, Cody and Mark were already at the door with their jackets on. And the next moment we were heading out into the forest with a camera, a fishing net and a plastic bucket (桶).

We walked through the forest along a path by a small river. Breathing the fresh air, we three talked and laughed all the way.

“Hey! What are you guys doing ?” someone suddenly shouted from behind. Mark and Cody’s eyes immediately widened, and without a word they started running. I had no choice but to follow them, getting my shoes wet and dirty with mud. We probably ran for about 10 minutes before Mark and Cody slowed down. I stopped to catch my breath and asked, “Who was that?”

Mark replied, “The most annoying neighbor ever. There’s no telling what could happen if he caught up with us. He is always making fun of us. I dislike him.” We kept walking on for a few more minutes. Then a beautiful lake appeared before our eyes. “Wow! Amazing!” I shouted and could hardly hold back my excitement. The lake was large and the water was deep and blue, looking so peaceful with tall trees around it.

注意：（1）所续写短文的词数应为l50左右；

（2）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；

Paragraph1:

Looking around, we saw a boat floating by the shore.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Paragraph 2:

“Help! Help! Help!” I was so frightened and cried for help.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A friend of mine whose name was John Smith had a bad memory, which made him famous. He was so forgetful that he sometimes forgot what he was talking about in the middle of a sentence. His wife had to constantly remind him about his meetings, his classes — even his meals! Once he forgot he had eaten breakfast twice, at home and at school. His wife liked to remind her neighbours, “If John didn’t have his head tied on, he would forget that too!” Since Smith was a professor at a well-known university, his forgetfulness was often an embarrassment to him. It wasn’t that he was not clever, as some critical people tended to say, but just very absent-minded.

One hot summer day, Professor Smith decided to take his children to a seaside town about a three-hour train ride away. To make the trip more interesting for his young children, he kept the name of the town a secret. However, by the time they arrived at the station, Smith forgot the name of the town he was planning to visit. Luckily, a friend of his happened to be in the station. He offered to take care of the children while Smith hurried back home to find out where he was going.

The professor’s wife was surprised to see him again so soon.

“Oh, my dear, I forget the name of the town.”

“What? You forget the name? Maybe one day you will forget my name! Now I’ll write the name of that town on a piece of paper, and you put it in your pocket and please, please don’t forget where you put it.”

Satisfied that she had solved the problem, she sent her husband off again. Ten minutes later she was astonished to see him outside the house for the third time.

As a young boy, I was innocent. Every vacation I looked forward to two things-seeing my grandpa and hearing his wonderful stories. My grandpa was a very good storyteller. He had worked various jobs when he was young and wove ( 编 织)his adventures and misadventures into fantastic tales. These wonderful tales colored my childhood.

As I grew up, I had to admit that Grandpa's stories went on a little long, even a little boring and gradually lost their magic. However, not wanting to upset him, my brother and I would sometimes take turns sitting in the living room, listening to grandpa tell his stories.

When my grandpa was approaching 91, he suffered from serious memory-loss.It was kind of what doctors called dementia (痴呆),probably the earliest stage of Alzheimer's disease. Following the doctor's directions, we moved him into a Sunrise Assisted Living Community, where he could get a better care. After that,grandpa hardly came to our house.

One weekend before my grandpa's birthday, I came to visit him. Seeing grandpa sitting in his armchair, dull-looking, I was filled with mixed feelings. I wheeled grandpa to the sunshine in the courtyard, talking to him. He couldn't express himself clearly and spoke in short bursts, but I listened to him patiently and carefully just as I used to be a little boy.

It was then that I noticed a shadow box with some old and yellowish photos in it. I picked one up, in which my brother, several boys in our neighborhood, and I were playing basketball, wearing basketball jerseys (球衣), with grandpa cheering us on ten years before.

My mind flashed back to those beautiful memories.

A bright idea for grandpa's birthday came to my mind.

Freddie woke up to see it was snowing-again. The world outside was white. Snow covered the roads, the cars, the houses, and even the driveway Freddie had just shoveled（铲）the day before.

“Ugh,” said Freddie. “No more snow!” He got out of bed and headed to the bathroom for his regular morning shower. As he reached for the taps, his mother appeared in the doorway.

“I’ve got news,” she said. “There’s been so much snow overnight that the roads are slippery and dangerous. I just heard on the radio that they canceled the school buses for the day.”

Freddie groaned（抱怨）. “Then how am I supposed to get to school?”

His mom grinned（咧着嘴笑）. “I guess you don’t. It’s a snow day!”

Freddie’s eyes lit up. He’d never had a snow day off from school before. What would he do first?

“I’m going back to bed!” Freddie headed back to his room and climbed under the covers. After a few minutes, he realized that it was too late. He was already wide awake. He headed down to the kitchen and then sat at the table, watching his father fry the eggs over in the pan and his mother pour juice and coffee. It was relaxing, thought Freddie.

After breakfast his mother suggested he go out and build a snowman. Freddie wasn’t too sure. He didn’t really like the cold and the snow. He’d rather stay inside and play video games.

“You can play afterward, but how about going outside for a little bit? It’s good to get some fresh air, and who knows, you might even enjoy yourself.” Freddie unwillingly put on the warm clothes and headed outside.

Standing alone in the front yard, with the cold wind blowing, was not Freddie’s idea of a good time. Knowing his mom meant what she said, the boy sighed, thinking the quicker he completed his snowman, the faster he could go back inside to his video games. He set to work packing up some snow into a large ball.

Moments later, he saw one of his friends appearing from his house up the street. Dion waddled（蹒跚行走）out in his big snow trousers and heavy overcoat. He waved to Freddie.

“Hey there! I saw you out here and thought you might want company. Snow days are awesome!” Dion laughed.

Freddie was surprised but happy to see his classmate.

Delighted at the idea, Freddie excitedly ran into his house.

An 80-year-old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45-year-old son. Suddenly a crow (乌鸦) landed on their window.

The father asked his son, “What is this?” The son replied, “This is a crow.”

After a few minutes, the father asked his son for the second time, “What is this?” The son said, “Father, I told you just now. It’s a crow.”

After a little while, the father asked his son the same question for third time, “What is this?” This time, the son was irritated (生气) and said to his father in a low and cold tone, “It’s a crow, a crow.”

After a moment, the father yet again asked his son for the fourth time, “What is this?” This time his son shouted in his father, “Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again? I have told you already, ‘It’s a crow’. Are you not able to understand this?”

A minute later the father went to his room and came back with an old tattered(破旧的) diary, which he had kept since his son was born. On opening a page, he asked his son to read that page. When the read it, the following words were written in the diary:

“Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa when a crow suddenly landed on the window edge. My son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied him 23 times that it was a crow. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question. I didn’t at all feel annoyed, but instead felt a deep affection for my innocent son.”

After reading the diary,the son was in tears and began to reflect on the days when he used to sit together with his father.

Feeling ashamed, the son got down on his knees before his father.

Yoghurt

It was a rough week. The price of oil skyrocketed as the temperature dropped sharply in Maine. We were looking at a high of eight degrees that week, and I had missed three days of work so my paycheck was going to be lower than normal. I was stressed, to say the least. I shopped strategically, looking for every possible way to cut pennies so I could buy groceries and keep the house warm.

My eight-year-old son didn't understand when I told him we were struggling that week. He wanted a special kind of yoghurt, but I didn't have the extra three dollars to buy it for him. It was the kind of yoghurt with a cartoon kid riding a skateboard on the front of the box, and a mere two spoonfuls in each cup. It was the kind of product that wastes a parent's money and makes me hate advertising.

I felt guilty as a parent when those big eyes looked at me with confusion, as if to say, “It's just yoghurt. What's the big deal?” So I found a way. I put something back as single mothers often do. He got his yoghurt.

On the way driving back from the grocery store, I noticed a homeless man holding a sign by the side of the road. My heart hurt, and I tried not to look at him. I watched people stay away from him on the street and walk by without even meeting his eyes. My son didn't seem to care much, either. I looked at the man closely then — bare hands grasping a piece of cardboard, snot frozen to his face, a worn-out jacket. And there I was struggling because I had to buy oil and groceries. But I decided to help. I pulled over to the man and handed him a five-dollar bill.

Seeing this, my son became confused and surprised.

On that day, my son performed an act that most adults wouldn’t have done.