In the quiet town, the John family lived a seemingly peaceful life. John, a hardworking architect, and Sarah, a dedicated teacher, had always struggled to provide the best for their son, Ethan.

As Ethan entered high school, the issue began to change their once harmonious home. School grades were the first battleground. While John believed in traditional hard work, Ethan, a creative soul, found himself passionate to the arts. Every time he painted, his mother Sarah would praise him wholeheartedly, but John only blamed it a waste of time. So Ethan often argued with his father.

One stormy night, the conflict came to a head. John, reviewing Ethan’s report card, furrowed his brow at the grades. “Ethan, you need to focus more on your studies. These grades won’t help you become an engineer. Stop drawing!”

Ethan couldn’t bear the disappointment in his father’s eyes. “Dad, I want to be a painter, not an engineer.” he argued back. Sarah, trying to stop the argument becoming more serious, quickly interrupted, “John, maybe we should let Ethan try. It could be his true calling.” However, he stuck to his beliefs, “Art won’t put food on the table or pay the bills. You need a stable job.” The debate echoed through the house.

Sarah, torn between the two, tried to settle it.

As the storm outside gradually became calmer, a newfound understanding blossomed within their family.

On a sunny day, three teenagers were walking along a city street planning a robbery. Their names were Harry, Tom, and Jack. They were on their way to a bar. But suddenly, Tom saw a bank with fake security cameras. Harry thought it was a good bank to rob, so they caught a bus back home and thought of a plan.

Harry wrote a note to hold up to the bank employee: “Give me all the money or I will kill you. I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Tom got some fake guns, and Jack took his mother’s car keys so they could have a getaway car.

The next day, Harry, Tom, and Jack set off for the bank. Harry gave the note to a clerk at the bank while Tom put one gun in each of his hands and pointed them at the clerk. Jack waited around the back of the bank with their getaway car.

The clerk said, “Fine,” and gave the teenagers the money. But suddenly, an alarm went off because the clerk pressed a red button under the desk. Many police officers came inside from every direction. Tom got his guns and pointed them at the police. Harry ran past a policeman and went around back where Jack was. Then Tom threw his guns up in the air, all the police officers looked up at the guns, and Tom ran around back just as Harry had.

When Harry and Tom got to Jack, they all jumped in the car and raced away.

Harry, Tom, and Jack spent half a year in Fiji with three million dollars. They bought ice cream sundaes and surfboards and lived happily.

But that was not the end of the story. The police were looking into the robbery.

After a while, the three teenagers had to get up their courage to open the door. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sometimes when you are a kid, it is easy to feel pretty helpless. Indeed, if you stop and think about it, there are so many things that you can’t do. You can’t play sports as well as your football or basketball heroes. You can’t do some of the stunts (特技动作) that other kids do at the skate park. Sometimes it is hard to see that you even have the potential to develop any of these abilities. What you want to achieve may seem such a long way in the future that it feels you will never reach it.

Well, I once beard an inspiring story—a true story, I believe—about a boy named Trevor. It shows there are little things kids can do that make a big difference. One night Trevor was doing what a lot of other 13-year-old kids would be doing: He was watching TV. On the news he saw a story about some homeless people sleeping out in the cold on the streets, in a downtown area of Philadelphia where he lived. Trevor had never really stopped to think how fortunate he was to live in a fairly well-to-do suburb(郊区) of the same city. The story of the homeless people touched his heart and he began to wonder what he could do to help these people.

It might have been easy for Trevor to forget about it. There are so many sad stories that you see on TV at times. This could have been just another that he ignored.

Trevor also might have thought, “Well, what can I do about it? I’m just a kid’‘, but he didn’t. Instead he began to wonder how he might help and that led him to remember there were some spare, unused blankets in their garage.