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.

    When our son Bradley was ten, the new bicycle he had received earlier that year was stolen. Owning a bicycle was a big deal to our children when they were little. They spent hours and hours, day after day, on their bicycles, riding up and down the footpath, and at the front of the house. We also rode together as a family a lot. Bicycling was a great way to get the kids out of the house and into the fresh air without spending any money.

    Bradley had discovered that his bicycle had been stolen from our backyard in Campbelltown, South Australia, when he and his sister went outside for a morning ride. He couldn't believe that someone would do this.

    He got a large piece of cardboard, painted a sign begging for the bicycle to be returned, and tied the sign to the letterbox. The following morning, when I went out to collect the mail, I found a white envelope with the magical words, "Buy yourself a new bicycle". There was a $100 banknote inside.

    We were very touched that someone had the heart to do this, We've never been able to thank the person but we suspect(猜想) that it may have been one of our wonderful neighbors. Bradley painted a big"______!"on the sign and we left it outside for a couple of weeks afterwards, hoping the kind stranger would drive down our street.

    A delighted Bradley was able to buy a new bicycle. As the years went on, the bicycles became bigger and more expensive but remained just as important for those family bicycle rides. Now Bradley is 25. Sometimes I miss the days when receiving a bicycle was the best thing in the world to them.

    All these years later we are still thankful for the stranger's kindness. We were a young family with three little children and it meant a lot to us. We still talk about it and, even now, wonder who the kind stranger was.

Experiencing China

    Bill is a student. He is twelve. The child likes to fly kites and play some other games.

    One Monday afternoon Bill flies kites with his friends after school. But Bill's kite is in the tree and he cannot get it. Bill and his friends do not know what to do. They worry very much and Bill comes to his father, Mr. Green, for help. His father wants to get the kite down from the tree, but he can't. So Bill asks him to make a new one for him. Mr. Green makes a new kite for Bill. When the boy gets the new kite, he is very glad. He thanks his father for the kite and goes out to play with his friends.