Mama's bank account
Every Saturday night Mama would sit down by the kitchen table and count out the money Papa had brought home.
“ For the rent.” Mama would count out the big silver pieces.
“ For the groceries.” Another group of coins.
“I'll need a notebook.” That would be my sister Christine, my brother Nels or me.
Mama would put one or two coins to the side. We would watch with anxious interest. At last, Papa would ask, “Is that al!" And when Mama nodded, we could relax a little. Mama would look up and smile, “Good. We do not have to go to the Bank.” We were all so proud of Mama's Bank Account. It gave us such a warm, secure feeling.
When Nels graduated from grammar school, he wanted to go on to high school. “It will cost a little money,” he said.
Eagerly we gathered around the table. I took down a box and laid it carefully in front of Mama. This was the “Little Bank”. It was used for sudden emergencies, such as the time when Christine broke her arm and had to be taken to a doctor.
Nels listed the costs of the things he would need. Mama counted out the money in the Little bank. There was not enough. “We do not want to go to the Bank,” she reminded. We all shook our heads.
“I will work in Dilon's grocery after school,” Nels volunteered.
Mama gave him a bright smile and wrote down a number. “That's not enough,” Papa said. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at it for a long time. “I will give up smoking,” he said suddenly.
Mama reached across the table and touched Papa's arm. Then she wrote down another figure.
“I will look after the Elvington children every Friday night,” I said. “Christine can help me.”
Now there was enough money. We all felt very good because we did not have to go downtown and draw money out of Mama's Bank Account. I often dreamed of adding some money to the Bank Account someday. And that was twenty years ago.
注意：
1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好。
Paragraph 1:
Last year I sold my first story and got some money.
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Paragraph 2:
Mama looked at me and said, “There is no account.”
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Carter enjoyed riding the school bus home. The ride home gave him some time to relax after a busy day of fifth grade. He usually sat alone, and he enjoyed that too. With four siblings（兄弟姐妹）he didn't get much alone time.
The bus stopped and the tallest boy in his class, Dexter Fisher, stepped off followed by his younger brother, Billy. Their house was the last stop before Carter's house. As the bus pulled away, Carter looked back over his shoulder to watch the boys. Dexter was yelling and waving his hands at his little brother. Billy said something Carter could not hear. Dexter yelled something and gave his younger brother a hard shove （猛推）and knocked him to the ground.
Carter leaned toward the window to get a better view. Billy was still on the ground and Dexter was walking away. Carter watched as Billy wiped at his eyes. The poor kid was crying.
Carter turned in his seat. He felt nauseous （恶心的）.He hated seeing little kids get picked on. It just wasn't right. The sight of Billy on the ground crying was burned into his memory. He tried to think of something else.
He thought of the model car he was working on at home, a 1967 Corvette. He started building it over a week ago and just finished putting it together last night. Tonight, as soon as he finished his homework, he could start painting the car. That was his favorite part. He already had the perfect color of blue picked out.
He hurried off the bus, ran through his yard, and breezed through the kitchen with a quick hello to his mom. She was making spaghetti. His favorite. It smelled delicious.
He ran up the stairs two at a time and rushed into his room.
“Surprise!” his brother Jackson said, throwing his arms into the air.
Carter looked down at his desk in horror. His Corvette! Jackson had painted it red. An awful dull shade of red that didn't look good on a car at all. Like the color of Dad's tractor!
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
Carter's heart started to beat faster while his breath was coming faster too.
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After hearing what Jackson explained, Carter felt really guilty.
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It was a rainy November morning. Overcome with anger I knew if I didn’t leave the house soon I would lose my temper with my husband, Joe. As rain came down in sheets, Joe offered to take me to work. I struggled into my jacket, seized my bag and teaching plans and ignored him.
He insisted and reached for his boots. I looked at the piles of newspapers and the dirty dishes sill on the table. “Don’t you have enough to do? I can take care of myself. ” I stormed out, not even kissing him good-bye. Joe shouted after me not to take the shortcut.
Joe and I had been eagerly looking forward to our retirement when a heart attack that past spring forced him to leave his job earlier than we had planned. As the medical bills mounted we realized I would have to continue working full-time while Joe stayed home and took over the housework.
The new arrangement was a disaster. Exhausted after a day of full work, all I wanted was a hot home-cooked meal and a good night’s sleep. However, what greeted me at the table was a microwave package. Sometimes he would serve oatmeal（燕麦）for several nights in a row. One night when I dragged myself to bed, I was terrified to discover Joe had turned our white sheets blue. He told me he had found out how to save on water, soap and electricity. He patted his blue trousers and announced proudly washing everything together was just the secret.
Ten minutes later, ignoring Joe s warning, I turned off the main route. I thought it hadn’t rained enough to flood the road, but as I rounded the corner water rushed across my path. After a few feet, the car got stuck. I opened the door and water poured in. I hurriedly closed the door. I couldn’t risk walking in this. Almost 20 minutes passed. The car began to shake. I got frightened to death when I heard three long honks（喇叭声）.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Looking over my shoulder, I stared into the flashing lights of a truck.
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I screamed at Joe that I couldn’t make it.
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When the employees at the Domino’s pizza place in Salem, Oregon, hadn’t received any order from Kirk Alexander for more than 2 weeks, they knew something wasn’t right. Kirk was a loyal customer and the staff all knew him. So it was natural that they got worried when they had no news about him. Their concern saved his life.
Sarah Fuller, the general manager at the Domino’s branch, said that Kirk, who was 48 years old, had been a loyal customer since 2009. “He orders every day, or every other day,” Sarah said.
Normally, his order came up on the screen because he ordered online. So we saw it came across the screen and we were thinking, “Oh, Kirk’s order.” After a few days without a single order, Sarah and the staff started to worry.
A few Domino’s drivers had mentioned that they hadn’t seen his order come across their screen in a while. Sarah checked the system and saw that no order had come in 11 days. So they decided to investigate.
Sarah decided to send Tracy Hamblen, a deliver driver, to Kirk’s place. When he got there, he immediately knew something was wrong. While the lights and TV were on, Kirk did not come to the door. Additionally, his phone went directly to voicemail. So Tracy immediately called 911.
Para.1:
When the police arrived at the place,
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Para.2:
A few days later, Kirk was released from the hospital.
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“Want to go to the pool tomorrow?” Rosa asked Stephanie during recess. The pool at the YMCA was one of their favorite places, where they learnt and practiced swimming.
Rosa and Stephanie did everything together. They rode the school bus together. They sat together during lunch. They took dance lessons together and they even went to the same summer camp. Their classmates called them “twins”. They were best friends. Most of the time.
Sometimes, though, when Stephanie was with other friends, she ignored Rosa or treated her like a little kid, even though they were the same age. Rosa and Stephanie had played together since they were babies, but sometimes Stephanie didn't act like a friend.
Today was one of those times.
“Sorry. I’m already going to the pool,” Stephanie said. “Toni and Vanessa and I are going.” She gave a broad smile, but in Rosa’s eyes, it wasn’t her nice smile. Saying nothing more, she walked straight away to join Toni and Vanessa, and Rosa was left standing alone, with her face burned and an angry tension coming into her limbs.
After school, at dance class, Stephanie talked and giggled with the other dancers as they stretched in front of the mirror. When Rosa came in, Stephanie didn’t say hello to her, but just another smile. Rosa hesitated for a while about whether she should join them, but she still felt too upset.
Then she noticed Kiara, the new girl. Rosa joined her and began stretching, too. Kiara smiled and Rosa smiled back. The two girls began to talk. Rosa discovered that Kiara was not the quiet girl she had thought she was. Kiara talked a lot — about her little brother, about the tree house her uncle had built and even about swimming. “I love swimming,” Kiara said. “I will hold a pool party at the YMCA. Would you like to come?” “Yes. It’s awesome.” Rosa responded. She tried not to check the mirror to see if Stephanie had noticed. She hoped Stephanie felt left out.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
After the dance class, when Rosa boarded the bus, Stephanie was waiting in their usual seat.
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When Rosa saw Stephanie in low spirits, her heart sank.
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6 . It was 1939, and the Great Depression had made all our lives much harder. But we didn’t know how poor we were until our father sat my brother and me down on the couch in our living room to have a talk.
I will always remember the sad look in Father’s eyes as he stared down at his hands, rubbing them back and forth, while he searched for the words to tell us that our family wasn’t going to be celebrating Christmas this year.
A month later, on Christmas Eve, I lay awake in bed late into the night, trying to talk myself out of sneaking into our living room to see if Santa had come. I gathered my courage, then tiptoed down the hallway, hoping I would see the bright sparkling lights of our Christmas tree standing proudly in the corner of our living room, like it did every year.
Instead, I was greeted by my seventeen-year-old brother, Frank, who slept on our living room couch. “Hey, little one, what are you doing up?” he whispered.
I started to cry. “There’s no Christmas tree.”
There would be no presents, no singing, no Christmas dinner. It felt like we were the saddest family in the world. My disappointment overwhelmed me. I looked forward to Christmas each year. It wasn’t only the presents. It was that special feeling I got from seeing my family happy. We hadn’t been happy in such a long time.
On Christmas morning, the sun shone into our chilly bedroom, waking me up. “Maybe Santa came! Maybe he came!” I suddenly insisted. My eyes searched the living room, but there was no Christmas tree. I broke into uncontrollable tears.
I ran to Father in tears and threw my arms around him. “ We aren’t going to have Christmas this year.”
“Now, now, now, calm down. Go on in and see your mother. She will comfort you.” Dad slowly pushed the bedroom door open, leading me into the room.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something different in the bedroom.
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With my question answered, everything dawned on me.
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Every year on my birthday, from the time I turned 12, a white gardenia was delivered to my house in Bethesda, Maryland. No card or note came with it. Calls to the florist were always in vain- -it was a cash purchase. After a while I stopped trying to discover the sender's identity and was just delighted in the beauty and fragrance of that magical, perfect white flower placed in soft pink tissue paper.
However, I never stopped imagining who the anonymous giver might be. My mother contributed to these imaginings. And at that time, she'd ask me if there was someone for whom I had done a special kindness showing appreciation. As a teenager, I had more fun imagining that it might be a boy I fell in love or one who had noticed me even though I didn't know him.
When I was 17, a boy broke my heart. The night he called for the last time, I cried myself to sleep. When I awoke in the morning, there was a line of words on my mirror in red lipstick. I thought about that quotation from Emerson for a long time, and until my heart healed and went to get the glass cleaned, my mother knew everything was all right again. One month before my high school graduation, my father died of a heart attack. My feelings ranged from grief to abandonment, fear and overwhelming anger; my dad was missing some of the most important events in my life. I became completely uninterested in my coming graduation, the play and the prom. But my mother, in the midst of her own grief, would not hear of my skipping any of those things.
The day before my father died, my mother and I had gone shopping for a prom dress. We'd found a spectacular, and impressive one, with yards and yards of dotted Swiss in red, white and blue.
注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右：
2. 续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
It made me feel like a film star, but it was the wrong size.
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She always loved her children all the way.
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After 21 years of marriage, I discovered a new way of keeping alive the spark of love. I started to go out with another woman. It was really my wife’s idea.
“I know that you love her.” she said one day, taking me by surprise. “But I love YOU,” I protested. “I know, but you also love her.”
The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my mother, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally. That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie.
“What’s wrong? Are you well?” she asked. My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.
“I thought that it would be pleasant to pass some time with you,” I responded. “Just the two of us.” She thought about it for a moment, then said, “I would like that very much.”
That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she, too, seemed to be nervous about our date. She waited in the door with her coat on. She was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary. She smiled from a face that was as beautiful as an angel’s.
“I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed,” she said, as she got into the car. “They can’t wait to hear about our meeting.”
We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady. After we sat down, I had to read the menu. Her eyes could only read large print. Half way through the entries, I lifted my eyes and saw Mom sitting there staring at me with a smile on her lips.
注意：续写词数应为150左右。
Paragraph 1:
During the dinner we had an agreeable conversation.
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Paragraph 2:
“How was your dinner date?” asked my wife when I got home.
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COVID-19 made "social distancing” a big problem for 2020 and forced us to adapt in new and often creative ways. My super-social teenage daughters adapted by meeting with their friends on video chat； school campuses closed but adapted with online classes.
However, social distancing with my parents added an extra challenge. We'd recently moved them(very old) into the house across the street from us. It was wonderful to have them so close, but once COVID-19 arrived, everything changed.
How could we care for and interact with my parents but keep social distance at the same time? I could buy their groceries, and leave them on their doorstep-that would be easy. Meeting their social needs was another matter. They did not use computers or smartphones, so there had to be another way to connect. After much thought, my daughters decided we could reach out with beautiful cards, letters and pictures... and one of our dogs could deliver them!
We'd read in the news that although animals could be carriers of the virus, the likelihood was low, so we felt excited about the prospect of our new delivery method. The question was, which dog was best suited for the job? We considered each one carefully ： Tootsie, Stevie or Stuffy.
We decided to give Tootsie the first shot at it. We tied a small package loosely over her head and sent her toward my parents ' door. Holding our breath, we watched as she approached the house. Suddenly, she turned left, made a beeline for a largedirtpatch (土堆),shook the package from her neck, and started to bury it, but stopped by our shouts of dismay.
Little Stevie was up next. He had more focus ； surely he could do the job. With the package affixed to his back, we set him on course. Stevie looked strong going in. He ran toward the door and nearly made it, but then a lizard (壁虎)ran in front of him. Chasing lizards is Stevie's favorite pastime, so we knew all bets were off. Sure enough, Stevie chased that lizard all over the yard and then went running down the street. I watched with disappointment as my daughters disappeared after him.
Paragraph 1： Later, we were ready for a final go--Stuffy.
Paragraph 2： Stuffy received treats (healthy carrots) and seemed truly proud of himself.
注意：
1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好。
My best friend's mother was a social worker in Detroit, Michigan. Because of that, my friend Victoria and I were introduced early to the world of volunteering.
We did plenty of charity(慈善) work. We always had a good time, and continued to volunteer whenever we had time, often even when we didn't. It became second nature. Hairstyles came and went, but Victoria and I found places to donate our time because that's how we were raised.
One particular morning we signed up for "Paint the Town",an organization in Detroit to help lowincome homeowners clean their houses. We were assigned(分配) a dilapidated(破烂的) house in one of the worst communities of the city. I was afraid as we got near to the front door, not knowing who we would find on the other side. We knocked three times quickly and stepped back, waiting to be let in.
When the door opened, my mouth did, too. Standing there was a little old lady with wisps(一束) of white hair and a purple apron(围裙) tied around her waist.
"Hello" she said, "I'm Amelia. Please come in and I will show you where to start."Her smile shone brightly. “I am just baking some cookies for you girls to eat.”
As she led us to the parts of her house that needed painting, my heart softened. Here was one of the scariest looking houses in the city, but behind its doors was a sweet old lady with a cane and a big smile.
Here we were coming to help her, and instead she was doing something for us—baking homemade cookies and serving us tea!
注意:(1)续写词数应为150左右；
(2)请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
There was no age barrier that day as we worked on Amelia's house.
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“Nonsense！” she criticized(批评).
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