1 . “Fire! Fire!” What terrible words to hear when I _______ in a strange house in the middle of the night! It was a large, _______ house —the kind that burns easily — and my room was on the top floor. I jumped out of bed, _______ the door and stepped out into the passage. It was full of _______.

I began to run, but as I was still only half awake, _______going towards the stairs I went in the opposite direction. The smoke grew thicker and I found it hard to _______. The floor became _______ under my feet. I ran into another room and tried to reach the _______ for fresh air. Suddenly, one of my feet got caught in something _______ and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a package of ________, and I picked it up to ________ my face from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor ________ under me and I fell through to the floor below with pieces of burning wood all around me.

________, there was a doorway in front, so I put the package over my face and ________. My feet were terribly burned, ________ I got through. As I reached the cold air outside my package of clothes gave a ________. I nearly dropped it in surprise. Then I saw there were many people in the street. A woman screamed as she saw me and came running ________.

“My baby! My baby!” she cried. Those people ________ loudly as she took the smoke-blackened package out of my arms. I almost ________ to see who she was—my boss’s wife. I had saved her baby, and become a(n) ________!