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.

    It was Saturday again. Grace and Karen disliked Saturdays. That was another thing the twins had in common. They shared the same clothes and tied their hair in the same manner. In fact, it was hard for their classmates and teachers to tell them apart sometimes.

    Unlike their classmates, they had to get up early every Saturday to prepare for their lessons. Grace had to attend the art lesson and Karen had to attend her ballet lesson. "How I wish I could do something different today," said the twins with one voice. All at once, an idea came to Grace and Karen at the same time. "How would you like to be me for a day?" they asked each other. It seemed like a wonderful plan to them. After giving each other a description of their own mends. Grace put on Karen's ballet dress while Karen put Grace's brushes and paints into her bag. Then they left for their classes.

    When the art lesson started, Karen was lost. Unlike Grace, Karen was poor at drawing. When the art lesson finally ended, Karen didn't dare to hand in her work.

    Meanwhile, Grace was struggling in the ballet class as well. As she had no idea about the dance steps, she had to follow her classmates blindly. As a result, she kept knocking into them. Their ballet teacher became impatient with her, "Karen, you should remember the basic steps. You can't rely on copying what others are doing."

    When Karen and Grace got home, they were tired out. They decided that they would never try to be someone else they were not. It seemed that the grass was not always greener on the other side.

    Mrs. Liu lives in the countryside, and she doesn't know Guangzhou very well. One day, she goes to Guangzhou, but she can't find her way. Just then, she sees a man near the bus stop. "I can ask him the way." She says to herself. Then she goes over to the man and asks, "Excuse me, will you please tell me the way to Zhongshan Road?" The man smiles with no words. He doesn't know Chinese. He is Japanese. Then he puts his hand into his pocket (衣袋) and takes out a piece of paper and lets Mrs. Liu look at it. On the paper are these words, "Sorry, I can't speak Chinese."

    Hi, I'm Tina. I'm a student in Grade One. I have a twin brother, and his name is Tom. We are in the same class. We go to school together every day and we know each other very well.

    Tom likes music very much, and he likes JJ Lin's songs best. He wants to be a singer like him when he grows up (长大). After dinner, Tom tells me he wants to go to JJ Lin's concert tomorrow, but we have lessons. So he calls our teacher Mrs. Green on the phone.

    "Hello, Mrs. Green," Tom says, "Tom is ill and needs to stay at home tomorrow." "I'm sorry to hear that," says Mrs. Green. "Who is that?"

    "This is my mother, Mrs. Green."