A Move to Safety

    The Turners sat at the kitchen table. The sun was shining and filled the kitchen with a warm light. It was a perfect day for having a picnic or going surfing. But in the Turners' kitchen, no one seemed to be paying attention to the 1 .

    "Okay, girls," said Mrs. Turner. "I can tell by the expressions on your faces that you have a pretty good idea of why we need to have this family 2 ." Linda and Kala exchanged looks and slowly nodded.

    "Your mom and I have had many talks lately about the possibility of 3 ," said Mr. Turner. "We were hoping that it wouldn't come to this, 4 we don't have other choices."

    "But Dad," said Kala, "Kilauea has been an active volcano（火山）since 1983! Nothing has happened to us or to our house yet. I think we'll be 5 here."

    "But your dad and I care about all the recent warnings giving by the government. Even though we've been safe up to now, there is no way to guarantee（保证）that a larger eruption（喷发）isn't coming up," said Mrs. Turner.

    "Mom, this is our   6 . I can't even remember living anywhere else!" Linda said, fighting back tears.

    Mrs. Turner put an arm around her daughter's shoulder. "This won't go 7 for any of us," she said. "Dad and I love this house, too. We have so many happy memories here. But we're tired of living with such uncertainty. The most 8 thing in the world to us is that our family stays safe."

    Mr. Turner 9 . "Girls, there are other places in Hawaii where we'll feel safer. We'll have to 10 our house, but you know home is wherever we go as a family. We'll make new 11 , and we'll find things to love about our new home."

    The girls were quiet for a moment as they considered 12 it would mean to move. "There are so many things I'll 13 here," said Kala quietly.

    "We all will," said Mrs. Turner. "But one of the places that your dad and I have looked at is only a few minutes' walk to the beach."

    Kala and Linda couldn't help 14 when they heard that. They both spent every spare minute they had surfing. If their parents told them that they could actually live in the water, they would have been perfectly happy.

    Mr. Turner walked around to the other side of the table. He put one large hand on each of his daughter's shoulders. "I'm proud of you two," he said. "Thank you for trying to 15 why this is so important to your mom and me."

    Linda and Kala smiled. Dad was right: home was wherever the family was.

    Molly spent her summer vacation in China with her parents last year. They visited a lot of famous1, such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. She 2 Beijing for a week. She 3 the Palace Museum, the Great Wall, Tian'an Men Square 4 the Summer Palace. They 5 went to the zoos and the parks.6 was cloudy, but not rainy, so it 7 not too hot. They 8 great fun playing in the zoos and the parks. Molly learnt a lot 9 Chinese history. She said, "It is interesting to visit China. I 10 China very much."

    It was Day 1 of our vacation on Cortes, a beautiful quiet island. "iPhone, iPhone, iPhone," my son kept moaning (呻吟). In front of him was a big window of facing the blue ocean. And a Coo gentle wind was coming in from the door. Clearly, he saw and felt none of it.

    Back at home, I'd soon give up and hand the phone over to him after five minutes of listening to this kind of moaning

    But not here. Before we left, I had told my, 10-year-old son the rule-no e-mails, no Facebook, no video games, and no iPhone. We came here to get away from them all' Here we were on our first day and already, he couldn't stand it.

    ____________I walked down the grass road to the beach and looked out to the sea. My 6-year-old daughter and my husband were drawing on pieces of wood. They were doing just fine.

    On Day 2, we spent the whole morning digging for shells(贝壳). This time, my son joined us. He collected .shellfish and other sea treasures. When we got back to our little wood house, I gave my son a book, and put him on the lovely garden chair. It was almost dinner when he looked up.

    The next few days passed in peace.

    On Day 6, my son was lying beside me on the beach, watching the sun going down. He was playing with the sand. And there was somethingshining.in his eyes, I realized how time slowed down for both of us. It was exactly what I wanted. Finally, we were able to sit quietly, without thinking about screens, phone calls and e-mails.

    A week away from all the electronics and life is good.

This is a story about a storm in Moscow. It happened several years ago. It was my first time that I had seen such a 1 storm.

It was a sunny day in July, and I was at home watching TV. The window was open 2 the weather was so hot. Suddenly, I felt a strong wind from outside. I looked out of the window and saw a black sky and trees 3 over because of the strong wind. I tried to 4 the window, but the wind made me fall down. I was afraid that the glass might break. I stood up and tried to close the window again. 5 , I made it.

Then I looked outside. I found that the big tree in front of my house was going to fall to the ground and its 6 had broken off. There was frequent（频繁的）thunder and lightning. I started to 7 all the appliances as quickly as possible.

After a while, the wind stopped, but it began to hail （下冰雹）. After about ten minutes, everything stopped, and the Sun came out again. How 8 the weather was! A few minutes later, the phone began to ring. It was my friend. We asked each other how it was and how we felt after the storm.

In the streets, many trees died because of the 9 . For a few days, people helped clean parks and gardens. Some people's cars were damaged by trees' falling branches on them. The 10 tells me that in the face of natural disasters, human beings are insignificant（微不足道的）. We can't stop them, but we must protect ourselves from them.

露西和莉莉是双胞胎姐妹，她们看起来长得一模一样，不过露西学习更努力。她是全班最认真学习的学生；妹妹莉莉学习没有露西努力，但她是个乐于助人的人。同学们都很喜欢她们，她们也都是老师最喜欢的学生。

她们在家里常帮助父母做家务，不过现在还做不了最繁重的工作，但是爸爸妈妈说只要尽力了就是好孩子。

Lucy and Lily are twin sisters.