Mrs Flippen’s class sat listening to a talk being given by a local author. Tucker sat absent-minded in one of the library chairs. Most of the students wanted to hear about the writer’s work. Tucker did not.

“Why bother?” Tucker thought to himself. He always received low marks on his writing assignments, no matter how hard he worked on them. He could never think of anything interesting to write about.

“Does anyone have any questions?” Mrs Flippen asked her class.

Tucker raised his hand, “How do you know what to write about?”

“Well, sometimes I don’t,” the author replied. “It takes a lot of hard work to come up with ideas.” She reached down and pulled a worn-looking book from a cloth bag on the floor. “I find making a scrapbook (剪贴簿) helps.”

Tucker sat up a little straighter in his seat. “What’s in the book?” he asked.

“I fill it with pictures, stories, and notes about things that interest me.” The writer opened the scrapbook on her knee. “When I need an idea, I look through the book instead of staring at a blank page.”

Tucker thought about the author’s scrapbook as he walked home. He thought about staring at a blank page each time he tried to write a story. Digging in his bookcase, Tucker found an old binder (活页夹). He filled the binder with notepaper from his desk. After supper, Tucker cut some pictures out of the newspaper. Then he drew some pictures of his own. He cut and pasted (粘贴) stories from his old magazines. Then he looked up the words he did not know and wrote down their meanings.

In the days and weeks that followed, Tucker collected more ideas. He found that the more he collected, the easier it became to find things to collect. Tucker’s book of ideas grew fatter and fatter.

One morning, Mrs Flippen told the class about a story writing competition.

Then came the day when the headmaster announced the result.