Boom! A clap of thunder (一声霹雳) made the old house shake. Ramon stayed under his bed. A flash of lightning (一道闪电) lit up the room."I hate this house,"Ramon thought. It was his first night in his new home.

    The house had belonged to his grandma. It was very, very old. It looked really scary at night. The trees outside his windows looked like monsters (怪物) in the dark. Their branches (树枝) looked like long arms. They waved when the wind blew. The storm made everything even scarier. Ramon hated storms, and it seemed worse in the old house.

    Later the thunder became quieter. Ramon climbed into bed and fell asleep. When he woke up, the sun was shining through his windows. Ramon climbed out of bed.

    The trees outside didn't look like monsters anymore. The branches had nice green leaves growing on them. Ramon could see a bird sitting on one of the branches. It was singing a happy song. The yard looked pretty nice in the daylight. A stream (溪) ran across the yard. A swing hung from one of the trees. Many flowers grew next to the  tree.  Butterflies  flew  around  the flowers.

    "Maybe living here won't be so bad after all," Ramon thought.

My name is Helen. Anna is my s{#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Look! This is {#blank#}2{#/blank#}（we） room. It's very {#blank#}3{#/blank#}/'taɪdɪ/. You can see two {#blank#}4{#/blank#}（bed）in the room. The red bed is Anna's. The blue bed is {#blank#}5{#/blank#}（my）. U{#blank#}6{#/blank#}my bed, you can see a box. My old books {#blank#}7{#/blank#}in it. A desk is between（在……之间）the two beds. On {#blank#}8{#/blank#} desk you can see a telephone, a radio and two clocks. The radio is black. I found {#blank#}9{#/blank#}in the school library. Do you k{#blank#}10{#/blank#}whose（谁的）it is?

One night, my family was driving back from visiting my uncle in the middle of a very bad snowstorm.

The road was normally two lanes (车道) going in each direction, but there was so much snow that it was down to one lane. We were scared, but we felt safe because my father used to work as a truck driver. He's a very safe driver.

We were all alone on the highway until three cars pulled up right behind us. They used their lights of the car and beeped their horns (按喇叭), wanting to get by us, but there was no place for us to pull over.

After a while, we stopped at a restaurant to wait for the storm to calm down.

The three cars behind us drove in too. They were full of young men. They were talking about how slow we were driving. One of them said loudly enough for us to hear, "If you don't know how to drive, you shouldn't be on the highway."

Soon after, the young men left even though the storm was getting worse. My father decided that we should wait inside, hoping the storm would stop.

After it cleared a little, we headed down the road. Finally, we came around a turning. We could not believe our eyes—the three cars were all in the ditch (沟渠)!

Dad ran to the cars. The young men were all okay, but they were freezing and very frightened. A police officer arrived and took some of the young men to the next gas station. We gave two of them a ride.

It was a very quiet drive. My dad turned to the young driver and said with a little smile, "You know, if you don't know how to drive, you should stay off the road."

The man was very upset. My dad smiled and said, "I was a truck driver for fifteen years and we had a saying: There are old drivers and there are bold (大胆的) drivers, but there aren't any old bold drivers."

The young man understood and hung his head in shame.

It was late afternoon. The shade(阴凉处) came around to the front of the house,1 it was not too hot. My brother Tommy and I decided to do some drawing there.

Tommy drew a picture2 shade. He said," It helps me feel cool."I looked at my hot sun picture and planned to try to draw 3 in Tommy's way.

Then I saw our friends Mario and Katie walking to us, They stopped and looked at our pictures, Mario 4 at Tommy's picture and asked," What's this?"

" Shade," Tommy answered. Mario looked at the picture for a few 5 , and then picked up the blue chalk(粉笔). When he finished 6 , he told us," Do you know7 it is? It's cool water!" Tommy and I liked his picture. Then, Katie jumped up and took the white chalk.

" Watch this, Joe," she said to 8 and started to draw," It's snow. Now we can dream we' re in winter."

" Good idea! Then we can make some snowballs and 9 snowman,"I said. We looked at each other and laughed. The pictures seemed 10 the weather cool.

Martin got an important lesson from his teacher Mr. Lee. He will never forget it. 

One day, Martin and Mr. Lee went out for a walk. They reached a farm where Martin saw a pair of old shoes. They seemed to belong to (属于) a poor farmer who would return after a whole day of hard work. Martin thought of an idea, "Why don't we hide these shoes and wait? It will be fun to watch his reaction (反应) when he can't find his shoes. " Mr. Lee thought about it for a while and asked Martin to put some coins in his shoes. 

The farmer finished his work. As he put his foot in the shoes, he felt something hard. He was amazed to find coins. He took them out and saw if (是否) someone was looking for them. He didn't see anyone, so he kept them in his pocket. He got moved and tears came out of his eyes. 

The farmer looked at the sky, "Many thanks to that unknown person. You help me at the time of need. 

Because of your kindness and help, now I can buy medicine (药) for my wife and bread for my hungry children. "

Martin's eyes were full of tears. Mr. Lee said, "Now tell me what makes you happier. "

 Martin said, "I understand the joy of giving is much more than taking. "