1 . Trinidad State Beach, Northern California. About 50 feet from shore, two brothers were fighting for their ______. They had been swept out to sea in a rapid current, their mouths ______ able to stay above the water.

______, four surfers in wet suits were nearby. Weibel, Stratton, and York, all 16, along with Ortiz-Beck, 15, were on their surfboards when they heard the ______. “We looked at each other and knew these guys were about to ______,” Weibel told The Washington Post. York headed to the ______ to find someone to call 911 while the others paddled their boards toward the ______ swimmers.

As the surfers drew close, the brothers were struggling. “It was pretty ______, but there wasn’t any time to think about it,” Ortiz-Beck says. He ______ alongside the younger brother. Grabbing him under his arms, he ______ him up onto his board. Stratton and Weibel, ______, were trying hard to help the older brother. He was large, 250 to 300 pounds, and he was ______. “We told him, ‘Calm down — we got you!’” says Weibel. “He feared he was going to die.” However, York arrived ______ to help get the older brother on the second board.

“When we come across a(n) ______ like this one, it’s usually too late by the time we get there,” says Dillon Cleavenger, a rescue worker. “The four boys were willing and prepared to ______ their lives. I can’t say enough about what they did. ”

I had been    1     (dream) of taking an expedition to the Antarctic. At the age of 19, I saw an advertisement about the Antarctic expedition and     2     (apply) to join it immediately, but I was turned     3     by the captain—Sir Ernest Shackleton. I managed to hide in a small cupboard and aboard the ship     4    (secret).

The journey was very hard and about one year later, one of the five    5    (ship), Endurance, got crushed by the ice. We had to throw away all our belongings except some basic necessities. But a banjo was kept,     6     helped us keep up spirits.

While we stayed on Elephant Island, things became worse     7     worse. Soon Shackleton left us to find help on a distant island. The voyage was too     8    (danger) and difficult for all of us to make it in our small boats. Some people became     9    (patient) and bad-tempered, but Frank Wild remained optimistic all the time. He hunted penguins and sometimes seals for us     10    (eat). Without Frank and Ernest, we’d all be dead by now. Their genuine concern for others, their perseverance, and their resolve filled us with hope.