Every Sunday, June, a six-year-old girl, tied her sports shoes and walked to Grandpa’s house. Grandpa lived around the block(街区), and June was allowed to walk there by herself. Grandpa often told her stories. They also ate ice cream together while they talked. Sunday was June’s favorite day.

This Sunday, June got dressed. She put on one sports shoe, but she could not find the other shoe. “Mommy, where’s my shoe?”

“I’m sure it’s in your room. Look carefully until you find it. You can’t go until you have both shoes on,” June’s mother said.

June sat on her bed and looked around. Her room was quite messy. There were clothes on the floor and papers on the desk. She wasn’t sure where to start.

Then June remembered a story Grandpa told her. When he was little, he lost a coin that he planned to use to buy his mother a candy. He walked back over every place he had been to that day until he found it. He had to go in order so he wouldn’t miss anything.

June stood up. “I’ll start in the corner and go around the room in order,” she thought. “That way I won’t miss anything.”

June began in the corner where her desk was.

June quickly put on her shoe and ran out of the door to Grandpa’s house.

There was a girl called Cary, who was a new student in Esmarth Vil, a primary school in a small town.

She was the most hardworking girl at her school. Her marks were higher than the others. She was the best, but nobody wanted to be her friend. Her classmates didn’t want to play with her and some even laughed at her. Cary’s teacher Jared didn’t know that.

One day, Jared set an exam and Robert, a boy who was the king of all the students, signed his exam paper using Cary’s name, and changed Cary’s name for Robert’s quickly after Cary handed in her paper. It wasn’t noticed by anybody. When Jared returned all the exam Papers, everybody was shocked. Cary failed the exam, but the others seemed to be happy with that.

The next day, when Cary arrived at school, all the children wanted to be with her and invited her to play with them. Although Cary was surprised, she was happy to play with the other children. During their fun time, Jared suddenly appeared to inform Cary that there had been a mistake, and she hadn’t failed.

Jared explained to the students what had happened and punished Robert. After that, they all   stopped playing with Cary again.

Cary couldn’t stop crying this time and ran to ask her teacher why she couldn’t make friends with good school performance.

Jared was sorry to know what had happened to Cary.

After hearing Jared’s story, all the children decided to change themselves.

One morning in spring four students were walking to school.

There had been a rain, and the ground was very soft. Water was dropping from the trees, and the grass was wet.

The four students walked along, one behind another, because the pathway was narrow (狭窄的) and the mud (泥) on either side of it was deep. They walked, talked and laughed.

As they were passing through some small trees, they heard a great fluttering (拍翅膀) over their heads and a weak chirping (鸣叫) in the grass by the roadside.

“Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!” came from the leafy branches above them.“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!” came from the wet grass.

“What is the matter here? ” asked the first student, whose name was Speed. “Oh, there are two young birds. Maybe the storm has blown two of the little ones out of the nest. They are too young to fly, ” said the second student, whose name was Hardin.

“What a pity! They'll die down there in the grass,” said the third student Martin.

“Oh, well! We still need to hurry to school. We're going to be late,” said Speed. “Why should we bother? ” After Speed's words, the first three students walked on, talking and laughing as before.

But the fourth student, whose name was David, stopped.

All were surprised to find that David was not with them when the roll call (点名) was made.

When I was 14 years old, I was a straight A student in the middle school of our small town. I didn’t try particularly hard, I just went to all my classes and paid attention. I could get good grades with minimal effort. I had a great group of friends too: kids I grew up with, that I had known nearly all my life. We hung out together on weekends very often. It seemed there was nothing to be worried about. I think it was the happiest time in my teenage years.

Then my family moved to the UK just before I went to high school because my father changed his job, and everything changed. I was the only Asian in my class. Overnight, I had no friends, and was in a new country where everyone was different. While trying to adapt to the new surroundings and cultures, it turned out that going to public school in a big city like London was much harder than the tiny classroom in my home country that I was used to. Teachers barely knew my name, and all the other kids thought I was strange because of my accent.

It was so hard to fit in. I went to school alone, ate in the canteen alone, and studied in the library alone. No one even wanted to be in the same group with me in class as I always couldn’t understand what other students were talking about. I would cry all night when I went back home. The only thing I dreamed of was going back to the place I once belonged to!

The class and subjects in the UK were so much different to me. Although I had taken English classes before we moved here, the teachers spoke English so fast that I couldn’t catch up at all! Just as I expected, I started underperforming: I tried so hard, but it just wasn’t working. I studied a lot, but then I’d go to the exam, and would get so nervous. Sweating and trembling, I felt like my mind would go blank. All that effort, and I failed anyway. I started to lose my self-confidence. Maybe I wasn’t good enough.

An English teacher, Kate, noticed that I was struggling.                         

The after-school class really helped.