It’s funny that you can always tell when somebody’s laughing behind your back. Jodie hadn’t really heard anything, maybe a whisper, but when she turned around, the girls in the back row of the class were looking at her, trying to hide smiles and laughs. She looked back at her teacher. Mr Swales was talking about what people do all day. He also wanted to find out what his students wanted to be when they grew up.
He called on Billy Miter first. “My daddy works in a bank,” Billy Miter said. “I guess I want to work in a bank too. There’s lots of money in the bank.” My parents have a grocery store,” Emmy Disal said. “Papa’s behind the counter and Mama keeps the cash register. But I want to be an airline pilot.”
Jodie liked it when Mr Swales asked them questions like this. He was about to call on Jodie when the girls in the back row burst out laughing.
Shirley Danes yelled, “Jodie’s daddy is a garbage man!”
Everybody in the class laughed out loud. Everybody except Jodie, that is. She felt her face turn bright red. She looked around the whole classroom. Everyone was laughing. Some kids were even holding their noses.
Jodie looked at Mr Swales. He was angry. He almost never raised his voice, but now he did.
“Silence! I want everybody to quiet down this instant.”
The laughter stopped immediately. The sound of cars and people going by out on the street came through the windows.” You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Mr Swales said. “Being a garbage man… I mean, is a difficult and enormously useful job. We should all be grateful to Mr Harris. Where would we be without him? Up to our cars in garbage, that’s where. How would you like that?”
“It’s not funny,” Mr Swales went on. “Garbage is a serious matter. I think you all owe Jodie an apology. And after that, you’re all going to write Jodie’s father, Mr Harris, a nice letter to tell him how much you appreciate what he does for all of us. In other words, keeping our city clear.”
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Everyone said “Sorry, Jodie”, but Jodie could tell they didn’t really mean it.
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Jodie’s father came to walk her home from school as usual.
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