It was exam time at Marc’s school. Every day, their teachers gave them loads of homework and told them the test was very important and that they ought to spare no effort to perform well in it. Everyone followed the teachers’ instructions and made preparations for it, except Marc. He just turned a deaf ear to it. He thought he would rather play football than study.

His mum and dad repeated the importance of revision for exams over and over again. They told him that he should be working hard preparing for the test. But the weather was sunny and he thought he had better things to do.

“Shall we go to the park?” he said to his friend Huck one afternoon. “It’s a nice day. We could play football and kick around.” Huck shook his head. “I’m supposed to review my lessons,” he said. “I’m going home to do some math.”

Marc was amazed. “You’d rather do math than play football?”

“Math is important. Besides, my mum says she will buy me a mountain bike if I do well in the math exam.”

“That’s crazy,” said Marc. Huck shrugged (耸肩) and replied, “Wait until I beat you in the test and you will watch me riding past on my mountain bike!”

“You won’t beat me,” said Marc.

“Oh yes, I will.”

“Oh no, you won’t! That will never happen. Just wait and see!”

For the first time ever, Marc wanted to perform well. He couldn’t bear it if his friend came top and he did badly. So when he got home, he opened his math book. But there was so much to do. All of a sudden, he felt like he’d forgotten everything he had learned that year! He didn’t know where to start. When his sister Lily came in, he was sitting expressionlessly by the desk, just staring out of the window.

“You don’t look happy, Marc. What’s wrong?” she said.

On the day of the exam, Marc went to school with great confidence.

On my seventh birthday, I got a gift from my father, which was a book titled Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians. It was my favorite. I kept it under my pillow and read every page over and over every night enjoying the pictures of colorful animals. Some of the snakes were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen.

Little did I know that my book would end up saving a life.

Years ago, my family moved into a new house near the woods. My father built a sandbox in our yard. The cat sometimes used the sandbox for a litter box, so my father had to put a plastic cover over it .When I wanted to build sand castles, I had to pull the cover off.

One day before dinner, I ran to the sandbox to build a miniature city. I pulled off the plastic cover, and there in the sandbox was a snake. It was lying very sill, all coiled up, and it was beautiful. The snake had rings of color around it. I had seen a picture just like it in my guidebook, and I remembered that it was one of the prettiest snakes in it. It said in the book that the poisonous coral snake looked very much like the harmless king snake, the only difference was in the order of the colors. 1 ran inside to get the guidebook.

“Mom! Mom! There’s a snake in the sandbox!” I yelled. “I have to find out what kind it is!”

Mom came running. “Don’t touch it, Chris! It might be poisonous!”

Dad was at work, so my mother went to get our neighbor, Mr. Cook.

“Mr. Cook!” my mother yelled across the fence, “We have a snake in the sandbox, and it might be poisonous!”

Mr. Cook was retired and lived with his wife in the house on the other side of our back fence. He came running toward the gale with a shovel and tried to kill the snake.

“Wait!” I shouted, waving the guidebook in my hand.

“So what to do now?” Mr. Cook put down the shovel.

When I was a child, we lived next door to the Schonfield Home. People who got too old to take care of themselves lived there. I was a regular visitor and volunteer there. I enjoyed spending time with the caring and responsible workers and the old people who always seemed happy to see me.

One day, a very old lady named Mrs. Kurtz moved to the Schonfield Home. She seemed sad all the time. For days, I had never seen her smile or laugh like the other old people. And no one ever came to visit her. My parents learned that she had no family or friends.

Weeks after Mrs. Kurtz moved into the Schonfield Home, I was visiting the home again. And I saw her sitting alone, looking unusually upset. I asked one of the other old people, Mrs. Smith, why Mrs. Kurtz was more depressed than usual. Mrs. Smith explained to me that Mrs. Kurtz had turned eighty-nine, and that she was upset to be celebrating another birthday all alone without any cards or gifts. She truly believed there was no one in the world who loved her.

This moved me deeply, and I started to create a plan in my mind. I ran home and raced to my room. I took out my piggy bank that I always valued. And I poured out all the money that I had received on birthdays and other special occasions. I had been saving money for a new bike. Although the money wasn’t enough to buy a bike, it was enough for what I wanted to do then.

I raced down the stairs. My mother was cleaning the house. I walked to her and explained what I was about to do, and she smiled at me proudly. She planted a kiss on my cheek and said, “I must be the luckiest mother in the world to have such a caring daughter.” My mother stopped what she was doing.

And we went to a gift shop together.

We approached Mrs. Kurtz and gave her our gifts.