A woman remarried a man from Mexico. She already had a 16-year-old daughter named Bethany, while her husband had a 14-year-old daughter named Maria. Maria and Bethany had been in each other’s lives since they were children. Their relationship as stepsisters was good until recently.

The entire family was busy planning Maria’s Quinceanera (成人礼). The woman’s husband and his ex-wife joined forces to get her a beautiful dress to celebrate the occasion. In total, the dress cost $3,000.

Bethany made it clear that she was jealous (嫉妒的) of the party. Her mom had to make her understand that in Mexican culture, a Quinceanera was a great deal, just like how she had a sweet sixteen party. However, Bethany kept comparing her party to that of Maria’s. It was a massive issue for her, and it reflected in the way she behaved around everyone at home.

Knowing how it made Bethany feel, the mom tried to spend more time with her daughter to assure her that she wasn’t being disregarded. They even got her a lovely dress for the Quinceanera, but much cheaper than Maria’s dress.

Two weeks before the big day, Maria and Bethany got into an argument regarding the TV. Bethany retaliated (报复) against her stepsister by tearing off the back part of her Quinceanera dress. After finding out what Bethany did, everyone was angry. The mom couldn’t believe what her daughter did and quickly gave her husband and his ex-wife money to get a new dress.

The mom told Bethany that she needed to get a job to pay back the total price of the dress. It was her punishment for such an unreasonable act against her stepsister. However, Bethany claimed her mom was unfair by choosing Maria over her. This made the mom question whether she was in the wrong for giving her daughter no choice but to find a job. She wrote about the story online, hoping to get opinions from others on whether what she did was wrong.

To her surprise, she got everybody’s support.

Finally, the mom was determined to teach her 16-year-old a lesson.

One day, a boy transferred to my class. He walked to the front of the class and introduced himself. “I am Brady, from California. I like basketball and dance.” “Dance!?” Steven yelled. “That’s for girls.” The whole class laughed. Brady’s face turned bright red. At lunch, Brady walked to an empty seat at my table. He was about to sit down when Steven put his foot on the chair. “This seat is taken,” he said. “Sit with the girls.” The others laughed loudly. Brady lowered his head and walked away.

After school, Brady sat alone on the school bus. I felt sorry for him. I thought about sitting with him, but I didn’t want to be made fun of. I remembered how everyone laughed at me when I, a boy, knitted a scarf for my favourite teacher. I didn’t like being laughed at, so I gave up knitting.

But what would have happened if I’d stood up for myself? An overwhelming sense of regret and guilt was lingering in my mind all night. So, I was determined to stand by Brady.

The next day, we had gym class. The coach announced that we would have a basketball game and Steven and I were the captains of the two sides. When I picked teammates, I looked around and noticed Brady. I had butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t want to get laughed at again. But soon I knew what I should do.

Paul’s old clock was supposed to wake him up at six in the morning of August tenth, but, unfortunately, the hour hand stopped in the early hours again. Instead, Paul was awoken by the noisy breakfast-table talk of the Stephen brothers next door.

“Now. I’ve won the National Poetry Creative Award!” the older brother shouted loudly.

“You have to do the housework for the coming whole week!”

“Okay,” the younger responded unwillingly.

Paul rushed down the stairs of his apartment to the news kiosk (报刊亭) by the street in his pajamas. Among the crowd of the seven o’clock Los Angeles, he was unique, in a funny manner, like a clown escaped from a circus group. Despite that, he caught the eyes of nobody. He threw a few coins into the glass jar and then grabbed the newspaper from the old kiosk owner. His behavior didn’t frighten the old woman-he was the most loyal customer of her store for the past few years.

Paul liked to invent something, and he was fond of literature and had been dreaming of becoming an editor. He skimmed through the annual nomination (提名) on the front page of the newspaper, the brightness in his eyes turned less bright as he moved down the list of names, which eventually faded when he reached the end. He lifted his sight from the newspaper and started staring at the kiosk owner dully (无精打采地), an expression similar to that when he arrived. The old woman sighed-she was so accustomed to this lifeless look on his face but had prayed to see something new every August.

“Bad luck”, with this, Paul slid away rapidly. When approaching the corner of the street, he narrowly knocked down an old gentleman, the kiosk owner’s husband, Arthur, who once was a chief editor of a local famous magazine and now he was retired.

After hearing what his wife said about Paul, Arthur decided to give him a hand.

One morning of next year’s August, with the magazine he had edited in hand, Paul stood beside the news kiosk nervously to sell it.

It was a busy morning and I had to go out to deliver something before the day became too hot to be outside the house. As I was walking by the side of a busy road I saw an old lady, maybe in her 80s standing dangerously close to the traffic. Although my mind was preoccupied, I thought to myself that I should warn her not to stand so close to the busy traffic rushing by.

When I reached the spot where the old lady was standing, I noticed that she was trying to get attention of passersby who of course were too busy to take note of her. She kept pointing to the middle of the road. When I tried to gently move her back further away from the edge of the busy road, she said that she was standing there because she had dropped her house key in the middle of the road and was unable to open her house without the key. I looked around and no one seemed to be interested in the two of us. I knew I was getting delayed but decided to help.

The traffic was busy on the road with commuters on two-wheelers and office goers in cars as well as school buses rushing with school children. It was the worst time of the day to cross a busy road without a traffic light. I asked the old lady to stay at a safe distance, took a deep breath, and carefully stepped onto the road waving my hands wildly almost expecting to be hit by an oncoming vehicle. At first one lane (车道) stopped and then I moved further on to the middle of the road continuing to wave my hand. Just then a school bus was approaching me and I carefully stepped in front of it to stop it. My experience has been that school bus drivers are always considerate of reckless (莽撞的) pedestrians like me.

The school bus stopped exactly opposite the spot where the key had fallen.

Suddenly, the elderly lady gently pulled me by the hand.

When I was 11, I quite wanted a bicycle-not any bicycle, but a blue bicycle from Jihnston’s store on the Hill, a smal   shopping area that was six blocks away from the our house.

The Monday before Christmas, my 9-yea r old Steve and I ran to the Hill to do our Christmas shopping. Past the ice- cream shop and the pet store, we entered the five-and dime store. My brother had his savings (65cents) held in his hand, and I had four dollars, some of which I had got by cleaning the neighbor’s yard. At the store, I picked out writing paper for our sister, a pair of earrings for our mom, and   notebook for our 45-year-old since he would be going to college to get a Ph, D. I had enough money left to buy basball cards for Steve.

We went home by way of the bike store, so I could look at my bike. It wasn’t my bike actually, but I was saving money to buy it. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. It was a blue Italian model; I had never seen another one like it. I planned to ride it to school. However, to my shock, the blue bike had been sold. It seemed like my heart stopped and time stood still. For three months,ever since the first day I saw it, I had been saving money to buy it. I ran from the store,fighting back tears.

On the way home, I thought I no longer needed the 12 dollars I had saved. I started to think what I should buy with it.

Back home, when I put my package presents under the tree, I noticed other packages which had been palced by Steve, my sister and my parents.

After dinner, Dad told us that he would go to college and that our family would have a tight (紧的) budget. And he felt sorry for that. Suddenly, I knwe what I would use my 12 dollars for. I ran to my room, and wrote on a card, “Dear Dad, this is for your education.”

And I put the paper and the money into a shoesbox.

When I thought about that blue bike, Mom suddenly said, “Terry, could you go to the kitchen to see if the coffee is ready?”