Grandma is ninety this Christmas. I remember once visiting her, crying when my big sister told me “There is no Santa Claus!”, because I knew she always told the ________.

“No Santa Claus?” she snorted (哼着说). “Ridiculous! Don’t ________ it. That rumor has been going around for years. Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.”

“Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked.

“Where” ________ to be Kerby’s General Store. As we walked in, Grandma handed me twenty dollars. “Take the money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you outdoors.”

I was only eight years old, and had never ________ for anything alone. For a few moments I just stood there, ________, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

Suddenly I ________ Bobbie, a kid sitting behind me in the classroom. He didn’t have a coat; he never ________ during the winter. I held the bill excitedly. I would buy Bobbie a coat. I saw a red one with a hat to it. It looked really ________. He would like that.

That ________, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and write, “To Bobbie, From Santa Claus” on it. Then she drove me to Bobbie’s house. Grandma ________ down the street, and we hid in the bushes by his front walkway. Then Grandma pushed me ________. “All right, Santa Claus, get going!” she whispered.

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, ________ the present down, rang his doorbell and flew back. Together we waited ________ in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobbie.

Forty years haven’t ________ the excitement of those moments. That night, I realized those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said: they were ________. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

Last month, Koch went to make breakfast and found a(n) ______ guest using his pool. A large moose(驼鹿) was swimming in the deep end, ______ in the solar cover(太阳能覆盖膜).

“I looked out in the backyard and there’s the moose absolutely panicked and ______,” Koch told The Dodo. “She stepped on the solar cover and put her ______ through it and she was ______ trying to get free.”

Koch has noticed more wildlife around his home in Ottawa, ______ he had never seen an animal______impressive before. He rushed outside and pulled the solar cover off the ______ moose, who continued paddling ______ the pool, proving to be a surprisingly skilled swimmer.

The wild moose seemed to be having trouble finding her way out of the pool, so Koch called the police and wildlife services to see if they could ______ a hand. “She looked so pitifully sad out there that my wife said, ‘I want to give her a ______.’”

Workers from wildlife services intended that they would get her to a safer spot, but they couldn’t ______ it until she was out of the water. “The best thing that happened was that after 3.5 hours she climbed out of the shallow end and ______ the fence,” Koch said.

The moose ______ unscratched, but the same can’t be said for Koch’s pool — which now has two hoof-sized holes in the ______.

My brother Ethan and I are twins (双胞胎). We were dressed in matching clothes. We looked the same. As we ________, Ethan and I were eager to build ________ identities (身份). We made different friends, wore different clothes. In high school we often ________ talking to each other. Then we chose different ________ and were living separately for the first time in our lives.

This was ________ to me: life without a twin, without people mixing me up with Ethan. But the change also ________ me. Alone at college, I felt like I had lost something.

In some ways, living separately brought Ethan and me closer together. Once we were at colleges in different states, we began ________ each other. We never talked about any ________ topic. We’d just give little updates, “I haven’t slept in 24 hours.” “I just ate a huge hamburger.” At the end of my long-distance chats with Ethan, he’d hang up and I’d be ________ again in my room.

The ________ allowed us to figure out what we actually like about each other. So we really gained something by crossing the miles.