On my first summer vacation as a junior high school student, I climbed my first mountain — a fairly gentle 3,900-foot peak near where I live in Surrey, British Columbia. I was overweight at the time and out of breath when I reached the summit. But I loved the challenge of conquering something bigger than myself. Soon I climbed nearly 100 peaks. My parents were happy I’d finally found a hobby. I often went climbing with my friend Mel Olsen, whom I’d met in a Facebook group.

Last December, I, together with Mel, came to Oregon to tackle 11,240-foot Mount Hood. It’s safer to start winter climbs at night when there’s less risk of the sun melting the snowpack. That day we started at 3 am, following the paths alongside the ski runs. The temperature was about 14°F, and we wore layers we could easily remove, knowing the sports would make us warm. Along the way, we met two other climbers, and the four of us continued on together.

After about five hours, we reached Devil’s Kitchen, a plateau (高原) at about 10,000 feet. By this point, the wind was howling. My exposed skin felt as though it were burning. The other climbers decided to turn back, but Mel and I went ahead. We had ice axes, helmets, and crampons (攀登钉鞋). We were in high spirits and prepared for the climb.

The trail we followed grew narrower and steeper. At around 9 am, we reached a flight of ice step. It was about three or four feet tall and sloped at a 75-degree angle. I volunteered to go first. I placed my left foot on the ice step. Confident I was safe, I put my full weight on it. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and a whole slab of ice broke off the step, right under my foot.

In an instant, I fell backward before I made any response. I could hear Mel calling my name in a trembling voice as I tumbled down, bouncing off the rock face, and rolling down the mountain as if I were a character in a video game. I remember thinking: This is it. You’re done.

I stuck out my arms and legs hopelessly, grabbing at anything.

As Mel made her way down, I yelled for help, and other climbers came to my rescue.

The paper on my desk was yellow, with straight blue lines stretching across it. The lines repeated themselves all the way down the page. I counted them. Twenty-six straight lines ran across the paper. The yellow color reminded me of sunshine. In summer, the sun is bright yellow like that, and sky is blue like those lines. I loved blue-blue is for getting lost in…

“You haven’t written a word yet, have you?” Miss Perry had found me out. I hung my head, as in past years, and gave her the lines I had given to previous teachers.

“I don’t feel like it.”

The truth was that I wanted to write about something different. “Write about Your Best Friend,” demanded the assignment on the board. I didn’t have a best friend. I had a few friends, but I didn’t want to claim any of them as my “best”, because I was afraid they might pick someone else. What if I picked a “best” friend and then someone different, who thought I was their best friend, heard my paragraph read aloud and never spoke to me again? It was a stupid topic. I was disappointed in Miss Perry for choosing it.

I knew Miss Perry must have heard about me from my other teachers. I had already prepared myself for another year of listening to teachers scold me. I was only nine years old, but my ears had been full to the voices of my elders. My teachers, my parents and the school principal had all given me the speech “What are we supposed to do with you?”. That was probably what Miss Perry was about to say, too.

However, there was something different about Miss Perry.

I bet I was touched.

Alice sat in the car while palm trees seemed to speed by the car window. Eight-year-old Alice began to get nervous, the way she always did in new surroundings. She felt a thin shine of sweat above her lip in spite of the car’s cool air. “The aquarium (水族馆) won’t be crowded, I bet, and people are going to notice me. I hate wearing this prosthesis leg (假肢).” She felt tears coming from behind her eyes. “Not being normal is the worst,” she thought to herself.

Entering the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, around a corner of a tank, she noticed an animal that looked unusual. “Is that a dolphin with a a prosthetic tail instead of a real tail?” she asked an aquarium staff member. He nodded and replied, “Yes, that’s Betty. She’s a very special dolphin.” “What happened to her?” “This girl dolphin was found off the coast of Florida, caught in a crab trap. The ropes from the trap cut off the blood circulation to her tail. So she lost her tail,” Alice caught her breath. “She’s just like me.” “But she struggled to survive. Now she wears a prosthetic tail to help her swim like a dolphin’s supposed to swim,” the staff member continued. “Every day, Betty shows us anything is possible if we believe.”

Alice felt her heart was touched. She waved at Betty. Looking at Alice, Betty raised her flippers(鰭), came to her and lifted her head. “She’s swimming right into my arms,” Alice said tearfully. They made eye contact. She seemed to be speaking to Alice: We’re the same.

Back home, all Alice talked about was Betty. For two weeks, she cried and begged her mother to take her back to Clearwater.

Unfortunately, another blow hit Alice. She fell on the hardwood floor at home and broke her other leg. Alice suffered the pain in her leg. After a through examination, the doctor explained bad news to them that she would need some surgery on her leg. Years of a living hell (地狱) came back to her.

She started fearing surgery again and refused to go to hospital for treatment.

“How can I persuade Alice to undergo the surgery?” Alice’s mom said to herself.

Encouraged by Betty, Alice changed her mind and did what her mother and doctor had told her to.

Taimur and Daniyal were twins and had been my next door neighbors since I was five years old. Not only did we go to the same school, but our evenings and weekends were spent together too. It was like we were inseparable. I never felt that I needed any friends other than them. Unexpectedly, one evening their parents shared the news of them moving to another country-Australia.

I was shocked to realize that we would never be together, started recalling all the good times we had spent together, such as playing in the school breaks, the play dates, and all the fun things we did. Was it all going to end?

When we had been through so many highs and lows together, shared secrets and supported each other through thick and thin, their moving away felt like my heart was being taken away. The news of their departure left me feeling empty and lost.

I was thinking about the biggest change that I was going to face in a few days, it was a difficult pill to swallow, but I knew I must move on. Though it wasn’t easy at first, I was trying my level best to beat the mental pain I was in.

After hearing the news, every day felt like a struggle. The school didn’t feel the same; the lunchbreaks had no purpose. Soon there would be no one to compare the test marks with, homework remarks would not excite me like before, and so on. I couldn’t help but feel lost and alone already.

Seeing my condition, my family advised me to make the most of the time that was left before they moved.

Saying goodbye wasn’t easy, but it set my heart at ease to realize that we could still be the closest friends.

Vicky was a first-grade student in a primary school, but she did not feel happy there. Her parents wanted to cheer her up, so they sent her to start her second grade in a primary school nearby. She felt quite happy and wanted to make some new friends. However, she made a mistake. She wanted to become so popular that she ioined a group of students at school, but not in the right way.

Jenny, who was very nice at the beginning, became Vicky’s best friend. But Vicky did not realize that by joining up with her, she would suffer a lot later.

Jenny always acted in a proud and unpleasant wav. showing little thought for others. She did not want Vicky to have other friends. Jenny also enjoyed talking about others’ private lives. Vicky started to change as soon as she met Jenny. Her personality was not as sweet as before any more.

Time went by slowly. Vicky’s marks began to go down. Things got even worse. She hardly had any friends and she didn’t care about her friends at all. either. She always talked to her classmates in an impolite way instead of being nice.

After all that suffering, the day at last arrived when one of her classmates told her that Jenny was not going to be in the school next year as she was moving. Vicky said nothing but in fact did not believe it.

However, on the last day at school Jenny told Vicky that she was leaving. Instead of having a happy parting(分手) , Jenny told her that she never felt that Vicky was her true friend.

Vicky was quite surprised when she heard the news and started crying. When holiday was over, Vicky went back to school. telling herself that all the bad times she had suffered last year with Jenny were over, too. But she found out that her classmates had not forgotten her bad acts.

Vicky couldn’t change this until Lily came to her.

Finally, Vicky was accepted as a member of the class.