1 . Some started to run. A woman sobbed beside me, her husband dragging her along by the arm. Families begged for a _______ in vehicles(车辆) with no space, and cried when they were _______ .

Finally _______ it to the slightly higher ground of the evacuation(撤离、疏散) zone, it took me a few minutes to find Lauren among the crowds. Holding me and crying, she told me of her own walk twenty minutes _______ . Somehow, she had _______ to get back inside the airport before it was locked down, throwing our bags onto a trolley(手推车) and pushing it all the way to where we stood.

She was extremely tired, physically and emotionally, _______ finally calmed down enough to ask a simple question: “what happens now?”

I had no idea. Rumors(谣言) were flying around the crowd; _______ being spread far and wide. A six-meter tsunami was _______ our way. We were safe? No, we weren’t. People would be trapped in their hotels for days.

In short, nobody had a clue. The authorities(官方) were doing their best, _______ water-and later, food —to everyone, but they couldn’t provide the one thing people were most ________ for: information.

Finally, an announcement was made that the ________ had passed, and if there were no further quakes, we would be free to go in two hours. The airport would not reopen that ________ and buses would turn up at some point to take us to Phuket Town.

Suddenly, another announcement was made. Four hours after it closed, the airport was going to reopen in half an hour and our flights would ________ at some point after that. Some of the airport staff got into minivans(小型货车) and headed away.

Happy to be alive, we almost ________ back through security and into the terminal(航站楼). We found a slightly comfortable piece of floor, and prepared to wait it out.

Afterword: After I started queuing at 4 am, we were ________ enough to get on the first flight to Chiang Mai the next morning.

3 . I knocked lightly on Mrs. B’s door. “I’m Barbara, a hospice (临终安养院) volunteer.” I said nervously. It was my first week on the job, and my biggest ________ was figuring out how to begin with a patient.

“Please, sit down,” Mrs. B said, indicating the chair beside her bed. We chatted ________ about the ________ on her windowsill — her two daughters, many grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. Then she grew ________.

“What were you thinking about when I walked in?” I asked, sensing she might be waiting to see if I would ________ her to the truest place where this conversation could go.

“I know I’m not going to be around much ________. I’m at peace with that. But my grandson called yesterday. He’s ________ that he can’t make it to see me before I pass.”

“Have you thought about writing him a(n)________?”

Mrs. B seemed to ________ a little. “I can dictate (口述) if you’d write for me,” she said.

I walked down the hall and ________ pens and paper materials. Mrs. B ________ her grandson’s letter and decided to dictate others — for her daughters, the other grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Then she ________ her church community and her bridge club too.

She asked me to put away the letters before I left. “I asked God to send me a(n)________ this morning,” she said. “Now I know it was you.”

At the very moment I came to realize that we all ________ a loving spark. Kissing Mrs. B on her forehead, I knew simply showing up might be a precious ________.

8 . It was the first time Moham went to a restaurant in his new neighborhood. He looked up at the menu board, and ________ how he could understand what all of these strange names meant. Moham decided that he would ________ ask the waitress for ice cream in a cup. She smiled brightly, wrote down his ________ and disappeared behind the big glass display case (陈列柜). A moment later, she came back with a tall paper cup. ________ it was a long straw (吸管) and some kind of drink. Moham, quite ________, took the cup and thanked her, thinking about the possibility that he had used wrong words.

“It’s the soda you ordered,” ________ said, “an ice cream drink in a cup”.

He smiled at the waitress, pointed at one of the ________ in the display case, and said, “That one, please," which seemed to ________ better.

Moham took the cake and his unexpected soda to a table and sat down to eat. Why was it that English had been so ________ for him in his classes in Tunisia, but when it came to ________speaking, he couldn’t even get what he wanted to eat?

Just then, a girl, who sat at the next table and had watched the whole ________, smiled at him and said, “Hey, welcome to our beautiful city! Don’t feel ________ about your English-you’ll get better at it ________ you’ve lived here for a while. I’m from Spain, and the first time I tried to order a salad here, I ________ with a plate of pig’s feet. At least you got a soda!”

Hearing this, Moham felt much better. He wasn’t the only one ________ to communicate, and his new city began to feel just a little more like he could call it home.

9 . The silence of the Reference Library was broken only by the sound of pages being turned over. There were about twenty people in the room, most of them with their__________bent over their books. The assistant librarian sat at a desk in one corner.   She had a look at Phillip as he came in, then went on with her work.

Phillip had not been to this part of the library before. He_________around the room almost on tiptoe, _______of disturbing(打扰)the readers with his heavy shoes. The shelves were filled with thick books: dictionaries in many languages, biography and some others. He found nothing to interest him, _______he came to a small area on photography, which was one of his hobbies. The books in this area were on a high shelf out of his__________, so he had to fetch a small ladder(梯子) in order to get one down. Unluckily, as he was _______down the ladder, the book he had chosen slipped from his hand and fell to the floor with a__________crash. Twenty pairs of eyes looked_________ at him together. Phillip felt himself go red as he ________up his book, which did not seem to have been damaged by its________.

He had just sat down when he found the young lady assistant standing alongside him. “You _____be more careful when you are holding these books,” she said seriously. Satisfied that she had done her duty, she turned to go back to her desk. Then a sudden________struck her. “By the way, how old are you?” she asked Phillip. “Thirteen,” he told her. “You’re not________in here under the age of fourteen, you know,” the assistant said. “Didn’t you see the notice on the door?” Phillip shook his head. He _________the assistant to ask him to leave. Instead, in a more _____tone(语气) , she said: “Well, never mind. But make sure that you don’t disturb the other readers again, or I shall have to ask you to leave. ”

10 . I was watching over Dad that afternoon. He was unable to walk due to his stroke (中风) and had to rely _________ on others for most of his needs. At the moment he was _________ in another world in his wheelchair, with his head hanging down, seeming content and yet somehow _________.

Sometimes he’d get so frustrated because all he saw were his _________. To encourage him to do all that he could still do, including exercising his legs, I had to _________ him of all that he had done. He’d even get angry when I kept requiring him to do that, but I didn’t _________. It was a battle of the _________.

So _________ to motivate him, this time, I quietly said to him, “Hey, Dad, do you remember the day you taught me to cross the big street on my bike?” His _________ suddenly broke, and slurred (含混不清地说话), “Certainly,” raising his head. “You got to the middle of the street and ____________.” His eyes and mouth smiled and his face ____________.

Ahh, there’s my ____________, I thought. “So scared was I that I couldn’t move, I remembered. You walked with me from one side of the street to the other. With your tender voice and ____________ smile, you repeated, ‘It’s okay, you’re doing fine.’ I made it. Dad, you helped me to be all I could be.” Dad nodded and smiled.

And as we ____________ the day, he held his head up higher, and soon he was ____________ to exercise his legs. Wearing a gentle voice and a peaceful smile, I said, “It’s okay, Dad, you’re doing fine.”