There once was a little village situated in the rich area of New Delhi, Just beyond the village lay a pond, which was a deep dark blue in the middle. Beautiful plants grew all over it. All the children in the village loved the pond. They frequently came to swim and play with water in it. During the summers, the cool water would refresh them from all the dust and heat, and even prevent them from getting immersed (沉溺于) in social networking apps like We Chat or Whats App.“It’s so nice and beautiful,” they would all say.

Then, one day, the villagers began to send the water from the pond into small channels leading to the nearby fields. These channels looked like tiny streams, and they called them irrigation (灌溉) channels, saying that it would help the growth of the plants in their fields to become taller and greener. After some time, the plants did grow taller and stronger. However, the pond was no longer as deep as before; it became shallow.

Sometime later, a factory appeared near the village, letting out a lot of thick black smelly smoke and released (排放) many chemicals into the pond. As these chemicals traveled from the pond through the channels to the fields, many plants died. The pond turned black and produced an awful smell, causing the children to lose their desire to get close to it anymore. They couldn’t even think of splashing water and playing in it as they used to. “It is so dirty.How can we play in it?” they said. Then came the burning hot summer. The pond dried up entirely, without a single drop of water remaining. The beautiful plants surrounding it died too. The once lively village now looked ugly, its beauty lost forever, leaving only memories of what once was.

The children decided to do something to make a difference.

Over time, their efforts, especially what they did through the apps, took effect.

My father’s T-shirt

As a teenager, I am not mature enough. I got angry quite easily and was not good at communicating with others. I had quarrels with my friends, and I was not polite to elders. Because of my bad behavior, I was sometimes punished by my father. However, it took me a long time to learn to control my temper and take the responsibility to make up for my mistakes.

I still remember it was an early autumn. Some leaves started to turn yellow and the weather became cool. One day, as I was getting ready for school, my mother carelessly handed me my father’s T-shirt instead of mine. At that time, I was getting to have a larger size than my father, so when I put on the T-shirt, I felt as if I wasn’t able to breathe! Soon, I realized that it was a small mistake which was made by my mother, but somehow the breathless feeling was so strong that it made me very angry. I could feel my anger growing, bubbling up inside myself. I shouted at her, “Why did you give me the wrong T-shirt?” My mother said sorry with a smile, but I continued to shout at her without thinking much. I got it off my body so wildly, making a hole in it and threw it on the floor. Then I put on my own T-shirt and rushed out of the house before my mother could stop me.

At that time, I didn’t consider how my mother was feeling. I just thought about myself. So after school, when I got home, I felt so regretful but I didn’t say a word to my mom. Feeling so frustrated, my mother shared her bad feeling with my father who was just after work from office, “See what your son has done.” I was so scared that maybe my father would punish me. But unexpectedly, instead of saying he would scold or beat me, my father quietly asked my mother to mend the T-shirt.

Seeing my father’s response, I felt more ashamed-of my bad behavior.

No amount of begging (乞求) would change my father’s mind about getting a pet. No matter how desperately I begged, his answer was "No! " Finally, I accepted that he was not going to change his mind. I did the only thing that I could. I spent as much time as possible around other people’s pets and I often spent time at a place called Best Friends, an animal shelter near my house. Animals ended up there when their owners could no longer care for them.

Whenever I visited the shelter (收容所), I dreamed about taking one of the dogs home with me. One day after school, I stopped off at Best Friends like I usually did. Suddenly, I saw a large, shaggy, yellow dog standing in the corner, and when he saw me, he wagged his tail and began whining (哀鸣).

“That’s Fenway,” Renee, the woman at the desk, said. “He whines continuously. His owners brought him here when they moved overseas.”

“He must be lonely,” I suggested.

“Your parents won’t let you have a dog?” Renee asked. I didn’t answer, but my look must have said everything, because then she said, “That’s too bad. These dogs need good homes and good people to take care of them.” On my way home, I had an idea to assist shelter pets like Fenway. I wrote a touching story as if Fenway were writing it. I told all about his family and why he had no home, shedding light on (解释) his longing for a loving family. With the shelter director’s approval, I proposed sharing more stories in newspapers and online to attract potential adopters.

The next weekend, the shelter was flooded with families who wanted pets. They were all drawn by the heartfelt stories of animals like Fenway. Fenway’s tail wagged so fast that I was afraid it might fall off. I stood with Fenway as people admired him. His playful nature and hopeful eyes won over many visitors` hearts, leading to a rise in adoptions.

Suddenly, I saw my parents walking into the shelter towards Fenway.

I was confused why my father changed his mind.

“I’m going to drive for Uber!” my mom said. Her smile was practically wrapped around her head.

“Oh… you mean to be a driver?”

I was confused. My mother was great at making sales and packing snacks. But driving competently and using technology are different.

I was half-expecting her to abandon this idea before it fully spread its wings. But then she asked me to help her download the app. Mom had sworn me to secrecy because she thought my dad and sister would judge her. She was probably right. Under the cover of midday, while the rest of the family worked, we downloaded the app and watched the training videos.

We practised driving on Tuesday morning. I ordered the ride to our house while we sat in the car one block away. It did not go smoothly. The navigation system was too quiet. The screen was distracting. The GPS didn’t know the best route. It was confusing. It was stressful. The ride ended in tears. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We can try again tomorrow.”

One hour later, Mom decided that she alone was ready for the road.

On her way home from grocery shopping, she turned on the app, which matched her quickly with the first passenger named Matthew. As she made her way toward him, the panic from the morning appeared. The silent navigation. The screen confusion. It was just too much.

Naturally, she turned off her phone. She did not cancel the ride service. She did not contact him to explain. A few minutes later, Mom turned on her phone to check if it worked well. She had several missed calls from Matthew, who had been watching her on his screen and seen her drive in the opposite direction for the past five minutes.

Matthew called again.

As Matthew took the ride, he offered to help.

After getting up late on a sleepy Sunday, I saw my dad at the kitchen table reading the Sunday edition of the local newspaper. I made a sandwich and sat down next to him, asking him what was new. He turned sadly to me and said that the municipal council (市政委员会) was planning to introduce a measure to pull down the community garden nearby. He mentioned that he used to work on it with his dad, so the place had some fond childhood memories for him.

He then put down the paper, walked over to the closet and-after a bit of searching-pulled out a thick, black binder (活页夹). Inside, there was a whole bunch of old photographs. After thumbing through a few pages, my dad found the one of him and his dad together at the community garden, just like he’d said. “Wow, your cheeks were super rosy back then!” I said, surprised.

With nothing planned for the afternoon, my dad and I decided to take a trip over to the community garden to see how it was doing these days. Not great, as it turned out. Crumpled (皱巴巴的) soda cans, cigarette butts (烟头) and other trash were everywhere. Pots of soil were still there, but what few plants remained were either dead or dying.

We looked at each other and knew what we had to do. After gathering some tools and garbage bags, we went straight to work cleaning up the place. I phoned up some of my school friends and, soon enough, a half-dozen people were collecting trash bags and sweeping paths. Someone had even brought bags of fresh seeds and soil along with new flowers, so we uprooted the old dead plants and flowers and planted anew.

After only a few hours, the community garden looked totally changed. Despite our hard work, there was still the matter of the upcoming council vote. We created a plan: take photos of the garden and spread the news about the vote. Using the photographs, we would then collect signatures (签名) to show continued local interest and then present these to the council.

After two weeks of photo-taking and signature-collecting, it was time to present at the local council meeting.

In the end, our efforts paid off.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing from my 13-year-old granddaughter, Noe Why won’t she return my text messages? I wondered.

Noe was my grandchild. For years, Noe and her family lived close by and she and I spent a lot of time together. It made my day to see Noe’s face light up whenever I arrived. Then my husband and I moved to a different part. Actually it wasn’t an impossible distance. But with traffic it now took up to two hours to drive to Noe’s house. So, my regular visits with Noe came to a sudden end. The last time I saw her, she was excited about the latest addition to her life: Golden, a puppy (小狗). Golden was just like her name, a fluffy (毛茸茸的) ball of bright yellow down. For a while, Noe and I kept in touch via text messages and phone cells. Gradually, her text replies took longer to arrive. Phone calls became brief.

“How’s school going?”

“Okay.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Dunno.”

Nothing I tried seemed to break through Noe’s sudden wall of indifference (漠不关心), Was she okay? Did she even miss me? I asked about Golden every time we talked. But caring for Golden seemed more interesting to her than talking to me. She was often busy with him and didn’t come to the phone when I called.

Was I being replaced by the puppy? My cell phone rang. Noe! But there were no words in the text. Just photos. Noe on her bike with Golden on her lap. Noe and Golden walking on the street with a shining leash(狗绳) in hand. Obviously, it was carefully selected. I don’t want to be jealous (嫉妒的) of a puppy. Months passed with seldom a word from Noe. At last, I couldn’t wait. I decided to pay a visit to Noe’s house.

Upon my arrival, I said to Noe, “show me your puppy.” She was stunned (惊呆) but quickly led me to the backyard and introduced me to her fluffy friend, giving detailed descriptions of his preferences. It was more words than we’d exchanged in a year,

Then, Noe asked me whether we could walk Golden together.

We understood each other better after much conversation and now it’s time to say goodbye.