阅读理解
I found out one time that doing a favor for someone could get you into a lot
of trouble. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and we were having a final test.
During the test, the girl sitting next to me whispered something, but I didn't understand.
So I leaned over her way and found out that she was trying to ask me if I had an
extra pen. She showed me that hers was out of ink and would not write. I happened
to have an extra one, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on her desk.
Later, after the test papers had
been turned in, the teacher asked me to stay in the room when all the other students
were dismissed. As soon as we were alone she began to talk to me about what it meant
to grow up; she talked about how important it was to stand on your own two feet
and be responsible (负责任) for your own acts. For a long time, she talked about honesty and emphasized
the fact that when people do something dishonest, they are really cheating themselves.
She made me promise that I would think seriously about all the things she had said,
and then she told me I could leave. I walked out of the room wondering why she had
chosen to talk to me about all those things.
Later on, I found out that she thought
I had cheated on the test. When she saw me lean over to talk to the girl next to
me, it looked as if I was copying answers from the girl's test paper. I tried to
explain about the pen, but all she could say was it seemed very very strange to
her that I hadn't talked of anything about the pen the day she talked to me right
after the test. Even if I tried to explain that I was just doing the girl a favor
by letting her use my pen, I am sure she continued to believe that I had cheated
on the test.
