D

    I remember the green coat in my fifth and sixth grades.

    When I needed a new jacket, my mother asked what kind I wanted. I described something like bikers wear. She listened long. I thought she understood for sure the kind I wanted.

    The next day when I got home from school, I discovered, on my bed, a jacket which was not what I had expected. I went close to the jacket slowly, as if it were a stranger.

    From the kitchen mother shouted that my jacket was in the closet. I rushed and pulled at the clothes in the closet, hoping the jacket on the bed wasn't for me but my brother. No luck, I wanted to cry because it was so ugly and so big. But I knew I'd have to wear it a long time before I'd have a new one. I looked at the jacket, like an enemy, thinking bad things before I took off my old and small jacket.

    I put the big jacket on. I stood in front of the mirror（镜子）, turning right and left. I looked ugly.

    I threw it on my brother's bed and looked at it for a long time before I put it on and went out, smiling a "thank you" to my mom.

    The next day I wore it to school. At the morning break, my best friend, Steve, looked at me for a long time. The girls turned away to whisper. The teachers looked my way and talked about how foolish I looked in my new jacket. When it was time for the whole school to get together on the playground,   ▲  . Although they didn't say out loud, "Man, that's ugly!" I heard their talk and even laughter.

    And so I went, in my jacket. So embarrassed, so hurt, I couldn't even do my lessons the rest of the day. I received Cs on tests.

    I wore that thing for three years. All in those years no love came to me.

    I blamed（指责）that jacket for those bad years. I blamed my mother for her bad taste and her cheap ways. It was a sad time for the heart. Anyway, I spent my sixth-grade year, looking forward to something good to happen to me.

    And it was about that time I began to grow, still in that green ugly jacket, which had become my brother who went along wherever I went.

    Night after night, a wolf walks around a group of sheep, looking for one of them to eat, but the shepherd (牧羊人) and his dogs always make him go away.

    But one day, the wolf finds the skin (皮)of a sheep. He puts the skin carefully over him. Then he walks into the group of sheep.

    The shepherd thinks that the wolf is one of his sheep, and makes the wolf eat the grass with the sheep, and even lets him sleep with the sheep.

    For many days and nights, the wolf eats and sleeps very well. The wolf enjoys himself very much. But one day, the shepherd wants to sell one of his sheep at the market. He finds the biggest and fattest sheep and brings him into town. Can you guess who it is? It is the wolf!

    We spent a day in the country and picked a lot of flowers. Our car was full of flowers inside! On the way home we had to stop at traffic lights, and there my wife saw the bookshelf.

    It stood outside a furniture shop. "Buy it," she said at once. "We'll carry it home on the roof-rack(车顶架). I've always wanted one like that."

    What could I do? Ten minutes later I was twenty dollars poorer, and the bookshelf was tied onto the roof-rock. It was tall and narrow, quite heavy, too.

    As it was getting darker, I drove slowly. Other drivers seemed more polite than usual that evening. The police even stopped traffic to let us through. Carrying furniture was a good idea.

    After a time my wife said, "There's a long line of cars behind. Why don't they overtake(超车)?"

    Just at that time a police car did overtake. The two officers inside looked at us seriously when they went past. But then, with a kind smile, they asked us to follow their car through the busy traffic. The police car stopped at our village church. One of the officers came to me. "Right, Sir," he said. "Do you need any more help now?"

    I didn't quite understand. "Thanks, officer," I said. "You've been very kind. I lived just down the road."

    He was looking at our things: first at the flowers, then at the bookshelf. "Well, well," he said and laughed. "It's a bookshelf you've got there! We thought it was something else. "My wife began to laugh. Suddenly I understood why the police drove here.

    I smiled at the officer. "Yes, it's a bookshelf, but thanks again." I drove home as fast as I could.