Peter woke up early in the morning. He went downstairs in a hurry and started to have his breakfast as quickly as possible.

“Why are you in such a hurry, early bird?” Mum asked him. “We will have an English spelling test today, Mum,” Peter said. “Mr. White promised to offer prizes to those who get 100 scores. I’ve been studying the word list since last week. Although the words are difficult, I am well prepared for them.”

Peter reviewed the spelling of each word once more carefully when Dad drove him to school. At last, it was time for the students to have a test. “Responsibility,” Mr. White started. Peter wrote it on his test paper quickly and confidently.

“The second word: contribution,” Mr. White said.

“So easy,” Peter thought. He quickly wrote the word down.

Thirty words later, the test papers were collected by Mr. White. “I am to mark your papers now,” he told the class. After marking the test papers, Mr. White said, “Three of you won a prize today for excellent test scores. Peter, David and Mary got full marks on the spelling test!”

Mr. White praised them. Meanwhile, he gave the three students each a dictionary. Peter’s was an English-Chinese dictionary—the one he liked best. Peter was so excited that he held it high when his classmates cheered. “This is my happiest moment,” Peter thought.

After Mr. White gave the test paper back, Peter had a look at the words, feeling proud of his spelling. All of a sudden, the word “contribusion” confused him. It didn’t seem right. Peter began to compare them after taking out the word list. “C-O-N-T-R-I-B-U-S-I-O-N,” he whispered. He spelled it wrong.

“What am I to do?” Peter said to himself. “I expect my classmates to think I’m a master at spelling. If I tell Mr. White one of my spelling words is wrong, I’ll have to give my prize back, or I will become an example for telling a lie.”

Staring at the full marks written on his test paper, Peter was lost in thought. After a while, he remembered a lesson Mum used to teach him, “We ought to be an honest person.”

Slowly,Peter raised his hand.

Peter looked around.

It was a Sunday morning. Betty woke up earlier than usual. She couldn’t sleep any longer because she was so excited that her uncle Mark was taking her to the beach. She had always loved going surfing with her uncle. She put her swimming suit on and took her bag quickly that she had prepared the night before and went outside to wait. She jumped up and down with joy when she saw her uncle’s red jeep turn the corner down her street.

Uncle Mark got out of the car and helped Betty get in. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Yes!” replied Betty. Uncle Mark could see the excitement in her face. Suddenly he said seriously, “well, before we go, I have to let you know that a shark appeared recently where we’re going to surf today.” Scared and shocked, Betty couldn’t say a word. “Haha! I’m kidding you, “Uncle Mark burst out laughing. Betty laughed too. She knew Uncle Mark liked teasing others. “Let’s go and have some breakfast, I know just the place,” Uncle Mark said. They went to a breakfast shop and ate some tacos (炸玉米饼).

After breakfast the two of them went down to Pacific Beach and got their surfboards ready. “First you have to wax (打蜡) the bottom,” explained Uncle Mark. “I know. I’ve watched you do it before!” Betty said as she took the wax from Uncle Mark’s hand. It took about 15 minutes to wax the bottom of their boards. When Betty finished, Uncle Mark looked it over to make sure it was done well. “Nice job, Betty, you wax your board like a true surfer.”

Finally, they were ready to get into the water. They carried their boards down to the beach and went out into the water. Betty was overly excited and tried to rush to catch a wave. Predictably, she crashed and had to start over. Next was her uncle’s turn. He stood up on his first try and smoothly surfed the wave before jumping into the water. Betty cheered for her uncle’s perfect run.

All of a sudden, Betty felt something touching the bottom of her foot.

“Help! Help!” Betty screamed in horror.

When Jackie came to his first piano lesson in his mother’s car, he was already 11 years old.I preferred that students began at an earlier age, but owing to his insistence, I took him as a student. As much as Jackie tried, he lacked the sense of basic rhythm (节奏). At the end of each lesson, he’d say, “My mom’s going to hear me play someday.” But it seemed hopeless. I only knew his mother from a distance as she waited in her aged car, but never stepped in.

Then one day Jackie stopped coming to our lessons. I thought about calling him but assumed (认为), because of his lack of ability, that he had decided to quit. I also was glad that he stopped coming—he was a bad advertisement for my teaching!

Several weeks later I mailed a letter on the upcoming concert to the students’ homes. Surprisingly, Jackie received and asked me if he could be in the concert. I told him that the concert was not for dropouts (辍学者), but for current pupils. He said that his mom had been sick and unable to take him to piano lessons but he was still practicing. I didn’t know what led me to agree eventually.

The night for the concert came. The high school gymnasium was packed with parents and friends. I put up Jackie last in the program. I thought that any damage he would do would come at the end of the program and the negative effect would be reduced to the minimum (最小值).

The concert went off smoothly. Then Jackie came up on stage. His clothes were wrinkled (皱巴巴的) and his hair looked messy (凌乱的). “Why didn’t his mother at least make him comb his hair for this special night?” I thought.

Unexpectedly, Jackie chose Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 in C Major.

Immediately I ran up on stage and held Jackie firmly in great joy, asking “How did you do it?”

On a hot September afternoon, Peter and his friend Isabel were on their way to the library. When they passed by Tubman park, Isabel suggested cutting through it to get to the library. As they entered the park, the sight of the swings and the merry-go-round brought back a flood of memories of their childhood spent there. But now everything looked so old, sad, and dirty. Litter lay on the ground next to an overflowing trash bin. There were still young schoolchildren playing there but they had to avoid the trash that littered the playground. A little boy told them that the city took the other trash cans away and the remaining one never got emptied often.

As they headed toward the library, the two high school students wrinkled their forehead. In the library, they met Mrs. Evans, their kind­hearted fifth-grade teacher, retired yet still passionate. Mrs. Evans listened as Isabel and Peter eagerly explained what they’d seen. Finally, she recommended them to go to the Go Green, a non­profit organization whose goal is to protect the environment, for help. “This group is good at raising money for projects just like yours,” said Mrs. Evans. She promised to present their ideas to Go Green. Hearing this, their face lit up.

Two main tasks remained ahead: researching ways to clean up the park and preparing a convincing speech. As Isabel was good at researching while Peter always had a talent for speaking, they worked together quite well. Isabel learned from a science magazine that a new type of trash bin can squeeze the trash down without being emptied often, which saves time, money, and energy. Based on this, Peter practiced his speech over and over again.

A week later, Peter stood nervously at the back of the hall where Go Green was meeting.

After the meeting, Isabel excitedly told Peter the good news.

The cheerful girl, Jenny, with golden hair was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw a necklace of shining white pearls in a pink metal box. Quickly the mother checked the back of the little metal box and then looked back into the begging blue eyes of her little girl’s upturned face. “A dollar and ninety­five cents. That’s almost $2. If you really want it, I’ll think of some extra housework for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy it for yourself. Besides, you might get another dollar bill from Grandma on your birthday a week away.”

After dinner back home, she did more housework and even she asked the neighbor for housework for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at least she had enough money to buy the cheap necklace from the dime store (廉价商店).

Jenny loved her pearl necklace. She wore it everywhere. The only time she took it off was when swimming.

Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night when he finished the story, he asked Jenny, “Do you love me?”

“Oh, daddy. You know that I love you.”

“Then give me your necklace.”

“Oh, daddy, not my pearl necklace. But you can have my Barbie doll — the one you gave me. She’s my favorite.”

“That’s okay, Honey. Daddy loves you. Good night.” And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.

Daddy repeated the same request about a week after the story time. However, Jenny refused and wouldn’t give up her necklace to her daddy.

A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed, waiting for her father.

With tears in his own eyes, Jenny’s kind daddy reached out one hand to take the cheap necklace.

It was somewhere between spring and summer, and my mom and I were driving through the countryside. Back then, I was 13 years old, and always felt unhappy with Mom. But I didn’t know that this trip was going to be a special one.

A pot of flowers sat in the back seat, whose heavenly fragrance(香味)filled the car. Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, my mom stopped the car. “What are you doing?” I shouted, fearing that the car had broken down and we’d be trapped there, so far from home. But that wasn’t the case. My mom jumped out of the car, grabbing(抓)the flowers from the back seat. “It’ll just be a minute,” she called back through the open windows.

I impatiently looked at the side of the road before finding a little sign showing that it was a nursing home. I looked back to the building, a little annoyed, as my mom reappeared ——empty- handed.

Before she started the car, curiosity drove me to ask, “Do you know someone there?” She shook her head. “Then what did you do with the flowers?” She smiled slightly, “I gave them to the receptionist (前台接待员).” “What?” She laughed at my confusion. “I told the receptionist to give the flowers to whoever needed them, especially those who haven’t gotten any in a while.”

I kept silent for a moment. Not long after we continued our driving, I spoke again, “Did you leave your name?” To this, she answered instantly, “No. Leaving flowers there for someone who will appreciate them makes me feel good, which is enough of a thank for me.”

Suddenly, still thinking about Mom’s deeds, I heard something burst loudly. It was our car that broke down! Nothing could be worse, because neither my mom nor I understood how to repair it, and we didn’t know where the garage was. It also seemed impossible to wait for any passer-by, since we had seen so few people along the way.

We were worrying about what could be done.

As we drove along, a flower shop came into sight on the road.

Robert and Henry were two friends in the same class. They always played together and went home together. One day Robert and Henry were going home from school. When they turned around a corner, Robert cried out, “A fight! Let’s go and see!”

“No,” said Henry. “Let us go quietly home and not meddle in (插手) this quarrel. We have nothing to do with (与……没有关系) it and may get into trouble.

“You are a coward (胆小鬼), and afraid to go,” said Robert, and off he ran. Henry went straight home, and in the afternoon went to school as usual.

Late, Robert told all the boys that Henry was a coward, and they laughed at him. From then on, they looked down upon (瞧不起) Henry and didn’t want to play with him together.

Henry was sad but he wasn’t angry with Robert. He just ignored (不理睬) the other boys’ laughter and continued to go to school and study as well. However, Robert didn’t invite Henry to go home with him any more. He had some other boys and they also said Henry was a coward. Every day after school, they didn’t go home directly but went to the river or somewhere to play games and had a lot of fun.

A few days later, Robert was bathing with his new friends in a river, and got out of his depth (深度). He struggled, and screamed (尖叫) for help, but all in vain (徒劳). The other boys got out of the water as fast as they could, and they did not even try to help him.

Robert was fast sinking (下沉).

Thus, Robert’s life was saved (救).

A few years ago, the company I worked for sent my wife and me to live in New York for a year. I’ve always loved running, so I was really happy when I found out I lived next to Central Park. This meant that every morning I could go for a run before I went to work.

Because a lot of people had told me to be careful of robbers in the park, so usually I didn’t take anything with me. How could they rob me if I didn’t have anything? But one morning, my wife gave me a S 10 bill and asked me to buy some bread on the way.

It was a beautiful morning and the park was quiet with very few people walking or jogging (慢跑) around. While I was running through the park, another jogger knocked into me. He apologized and continued running. For a while, I didn’t think too much of it. However, when I noticed the wide path where I was running, I thought was kind of strange. The warning of robbers in the park occurred to me. ”It could have been a robber!” I suddenly became alarmed, so I checked my pocket and found that the money was missing. Without thinking twice, I ran after that jogger. I finally caught up and held him by the arm. I shouted, “Give me the $10 bill! Now!” I am not usually a hot-headed (性急的) person, but I got really angry this time. I couldn’t believe the robbery was actually happening to me. Filled with anger, I shook my fist at him. This seemed to frighten him. He quickly put his hand in his pocket and gave me the money. Then he ran away as fast as he could.

I bought the bread and went home. As soon as I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my wife my story. “You won’t believe what happened to me,” I started with pride. She immediately stopped me, “I know, you left the money for the bread on the kitchen table.”

Looking at the money on the table, I stood there, shocked.

Growing up, I wanted to be just like my mom. She was kind and caring, and always made people comfortable in her presence. For years she was a volunteer in our community. I love going to the local nursing home to help with her when I was a child. However, once I became a teenager, I was too caught up in my adolescent world to worry about helping others.

One particular summer day when I was 12, Mom came into my room and told me to get up and meet her at the car. But I had planned to spend the day at the lake with friends. Why did she have to ruin everything? At last, I made my way outside with my mother. Angry and annoyed, I climbed into the car and shoot the door loudly. I sat in silence, too upset to talk. “Tasha, do you know where we are going?” Mom asked calmly. I remained silent. “Sweetheart, we’re going to the children’s shelter. I have been there before and I think it would benefit you,” she explained.

I feel a pain slowly form in my stomach. How was I supposed to help there?

When we reached the shelter, I was rather surprised. As we approached the front door, wind bells played a calming tune while trees and flowers welcomed us. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so.

Mom rang the doorbell. We were led to the front room, where all of the children were playing. Toys were spread out across the floor. I noticed a baby whose body was seriously wounded. Most of the children had noticeable physical scars such as cuts, burns and scratches. What a terrible life they must had had before they moved here! My heart sank. As I was looking around, I felt a gentle pull on my shirt.