阅读下面短文，从下列各题所给的A、B、C三个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳答案。

My mother's loving hands

      Night after night, she came to help me sleep, even long after my childhood years.

      I don't remember1it first started making me a little angry 一 my mom's hands pushing my hair that way. But it really made me uncomfortable, for they2rough（粗糙的）against my young skin. Finally, one night, I 3 her, "Don't do that any more. Your hands are too rough!" She didn't say anything,4 she never did it again.

      Years later I missed my mother's5and her goodnight kiss on my face. I'm not a little girl any more. My mom is6 her mid-seventies, and her rough hands are still doing things for my family and me.

      Now my own children have7. It was late on Thanksgiving Eve. As I slept in my bedroom, a familiar hand ran across my8to push the hair from my head. Then a kiss, ever so softly, touched my brow（额头).

      Taking my mom's hand, I told her how9 I was for that night I shouted at her. But my mom didn't know what I was talking about. She had forgotten it long ago.

      That night, I10with a new appreciation（感激）for my mother's caring hands. And the guilt（内疚）that I had carried around for so long was nowhere to be found.

The cowboy without a horse

    A cowboy rode into a town and stopped at a cafe for a drink. When he finished his drink, he 1 his horse was stolen(偷窃). He went back into the caf6.held his gun up into the air and fired a shot(开枪)  2 even looking. "Which one of you 3 my horse?" he shouted loudly.

    4 answered. "Alright," the cowboy said, "I'm going to have 5 beer, and if my horse isn't back outside by the time I finish, I'm going to do 6 I did in Texas! And I don't like to have to do it. "

      Some of the people in the town were very 7. After the cowboy had one more beer, he walked outside His horse was back! He   8 his horse and started to ride off.

    The waiter went  9 the café in a hurry and asked, "Tell us, 10 you go, what happened in Texas?" The cowboy turned back and said, "I had to walk home."

    Stealing? Maybe, but in our 1  minds we were just enjoying nature's gift.

    As teenage boys, we were not thinking about whose the strawberries were. We 2knew the Jordan family had the best strawberries in the neighborhood.

    So on a Friday3 , we secretly went into the Jordans' backyard and started picking their sweet strawberries. We thought there was 4 that tasted better than the fresh strawberries. 5 we were enjoying the delicious strawberries, suddenly the Jordans' backyard 6  came on. It was terribly bright, so we hurried to cover our faces with hands. Then we saw 7 ran outside.

    “What are you boys doing out here?” he shouted 8  as my friends ran off in all directions. They were so9  that the older gentleman couldn't catch them. And at once all the boys ran away into the dark, except 10 .

    Mr. Jordan shouted at me as he ran after me all the way to my house, which my mother was in. My mother said11  over and over again. I felt so embarrassed (尴尬的). My friends said they could hear 12  she said to Mr. Jordan from our backyard. My friends laughed at me about it for days later.

    I was down and complained (抱怨) to my father. After hearing that, he said, “I don't think it's unfair at all. You took strawberries without 13 , and you got exactly the punishment you should have.”

    “But what about the other guys?” I asked. “They weren' t 14 at all!”

    “That should not be what you are thinking about,” said Dad. “You can't 15  what happens to other people, but you can do your own job well. You made a bad choice that night, and you were punished for it. ” That sounds completely fair to me.

    Maxime and Lise are a young French couple. They are ready to travel across China from Beijing to Yunnan Province on a tandem bicycle (双人自行车). They have two main purposes and one of them is that they want to encourage green 1 through it.

    Maxime, 26, works helping farmers raise their cows, 2his wife Lise, 26, is a teacher. The two also like sharing their travel stores on Facebook.

    We chose a tandem bicycle because it makes it 3 to communicate with each other about interesting people and things we come across during the journey. 4, bicycling is healthier. And it's a cheaper and more environment-friendly way of traveling than 5 cars, motors and so on, “the couple said.

    As for the other 6of their journey, the two said they wanted to get people's good ideas on topics such as health, econnmy (经济) and politics. When they were asked 7they chose to visit China, they said it was because they often talked about its long history and beauty and how much of the country is competitive (有竞争力的) in the world.

    We know China is a country with a large population and will be the 8 of the economy around the world in the future. We want to get a better understanding of the country and its people. We 9the country,” they said.

    The couple will be on the journey to China soon. We hope they can make more people further 10 China by shairing what they see and hear on the way. Meanwhile. We hope they enjoy their travel in China.

I used to hate scary films. I didn't understand 1 some people wanted to scare 2 on purpose. But now I love them. Sometimes I watch them by myself; sometimes I watch them with my sister. 3, I will have a cushion(靠垫) nearby to 4 my face especially for bad parts, but I still enjoy watching them. As a 5, I have to watch something "happy" afterwards to take my mind off them,

    Watching scary films is 6 going on a roller coaster(过山车). Many people ride it for the 7 that comes from being scared without actually being in 8. As I am truly scared of the roller coaster, watching scary films is my way of 9 this. And it is interesting, especially 10 it is a film you haven't seen before. You can try and 11 what's going to happen.

    12 I saw a film called The Strangers by myself. In the film, a group of people with scary masks(面具) attacked(攻击) a couple's house. 13 some reason I had to keep stopping the video and doing 14 else, like checking e mails or reading a bit of my book. It took me five hours to finish seeing the film. It's hard to believe, isn't it?

    Scary films make me 15 but excited, I know I will continue to scare myself.

    "Can I see my baby?" asked the happy new mother. Unluckily, she found her baby had been1without ears when it was in her arms.

    Time proved that the baby's2was perfect. He got on well with his classmates. But one day, he rushed home and said to his mother3tears in his eyes, "A boy, a big boy4me a freak(怪胎)."

    As the boy5, he developed a talent for art and music.

The boy's father had a meeting with the family doctor. "Could anything6done?" He asked the doctor.

    "I believe I could graft(移植) a pair of outer ears7you could get them," the doctor said.

    However, two years8, nobody wanted to offer the young man ears. Then one day the father said, "Son,9will offer his ears to you. But it's a secret. The operation was a great10.

    Time kept the secret, but the day did come. The young man stood with his father11his mother's body. Slowly, the father held out a hand and raised the thick, brown hair.12, the son found his mother had no outer ears.

    "Mother said she was glad that she13let her long hair cut," the father said gently," and nobody ever thought Mother14beautiful, did they?"

    Real15lies not in what is done and known, but in what is done but not known.