It was the middle of the day on a bright sunny Saturday, and Jay and his friends Mike and Tony were riding their dirt bikes on one of their favorite off-road trails. The trail twisted and turned through some incredible small woods. Occasionally they would stop to climb a tree and find a comfortable branch to sit on so they could take a break from riding in the heat.

On this particular day, the three kids were settled in one of their preferred trees when Jay spotted something shiny on the ground. “What could that be?” he asked Mike and Tony as he pointed out the object reflecting the sun.

They all hopped down from their individual branches and went to take a closer look. What they found was unbelievable. It was a gold money clip ( 夹子) holding five hundred dollars.

Mike immediately cried out, “Awesome! We can split up the money, and we will each be much closer to being able to buy the new bikes we want.”

“Not so fast,” said Tony. “Jay was the one who spotted the cash. To be fair, he should get more.”

“Are you guys crazy?” asked Jay. “We can’t keep the money. It isn’t ours. Aren’t we more mature than to play finders keepers like we did when we were kids?”

“Stop being such an advocate for honesty,” complained Mike and Tony.

“Let’s all go home and think about this,” said Jay, knowing that he could have made the call because he was the one who spotted the money clip in the first place.

Mike and Tony agreed to Jay’s suggestion. Jay kept the money and they all rode their bikes home. They decided to meet up after dinner at the head of the off-road trail.

Mike and Tony lived on the same street so they rode home most of the way together. They were able to talk a bit more without Jay’s input. The more they talked, the more they came to see Jay’s point.

Reflecting on the experience of being trapped in a yacht（帆船）and saved later, Tony told reporters, ". . . Now that Fm getting a bit older, there is one thing that I don't mind telling the world: In these last six days, I'm a different person. I won't be so rude to people, not that I was, but I’ll be much more of a gentleman and I’ll listen to people a lot more. And as a dear old friend of mine, David, once told me when he got over the heart attack and smelt the fresh air again, he said, 'God, it was like being born all over again; life was great! "Well, that's how I feel now, like being born all over again. "

In January 1997 British yachtsman Tony was sailing solo deep in the Southern Ocean. A gale（大风）was raging. The waves, reaching the height of a five-story building, rushed on him with a sound like roaring thunder. As his yacht fell down the face of a wave, it hit something in the water and turned upside down.

Tony, who had been sheltering in the two-meter by three-meter cockpit（驾驶舱）, found it had become his prison. As giant waves buffeted the boat, water poured in and out a broken window, knee high at one end, waist high at the other. The air temperature was down to 2 degrees Celsius, and it was pitch black-the sun couldn't go through the upturned yacht.

Twelve times Tony left the cockpit in a vain attempt to release his life raft. Then he had to take refuge in his little cabin. Sitting inside the cold inky darkness, Tony only had some chocolate and a device for making fresh water from the salty sea. With his fingers becoming frostbitten, Tony thought that he v/as going to die. The odds of being rescued seemed impossibly small.

However, Tony didn't give up hope.

It had been the fifth day when a RAF plane located him and dropped an electronic probe next to his yacht.

After 20 years as a full-time wife and mother, I decided to be a school bus driver for I loved kids. When I think about my years of bus driving, many things crowd in, but mostly, I remember Charlie.

Charlie, eight years old, with blond hair and crystalline gray eyes, began riding my bus in September of my fourth year driving. They all had stories to tell me about their summers. Charlie, though, ignored me. He didn’t even answer when I asked his name.

From that day on, Charlie was a trial. If a fight broke out, I didn’t have to turn my head to know who had started it. If a girl was crying, chances were Charlie had pulled her hair. No matter how I spoke to him, gently or firmly, he wouldn’t say a word. He’d just stare at me with those big gray eyes of his.

I later found out Charlie’s father was dead and he didn’t live with his mother. He deserves my patience, I thought. To my cheery “Good Morning”, he was silent. When I wished him a happy Halloween, he sneered (冷笑). Still I was sure that this child needed to feel some warmth from me. So, when he’d pass by, I’d pat him on the arm or sometimes gave him a hug.

Toward the end of that year, the kids on my bus gave me a small trophy inscribed (刻) “To the Best Bus Driver Ever”. I propped it up on the dashboard (仪表盘). On top I hung a small tin heart that a little girl had given me. In red paint she had written, “I love Polly and Polly loves me.”

The next day, I was delayed a few minutes talking to the principal. When I got on the bus I realized that the tin heart was gone. “Does anyone know what happened to the little heart that was up here?” I asked. For once with 39 children, there was silence.

One boy piped up, “Charlie was the first one on the bus. I bet he took it.” Other children joined the chorus, “Yeah! Charlie did it! Search him!”

I asked Charlie to come forward, stuck my hand into his pocket and immediately I felt it—the small tin heart. Charlie stared at me and seemed to be waiting for what he’d come to expect from the world. I was about to pull out the tin heart when I stopped myself. Let him keep it, a voice seemed to whisper.

“It must have fallen off before I got here,” I said to the kids. “I’ll probably find it back at the depot.” Without a word, Charlie returned to his seat. When he got off at his stop, he didn’t glance at me as usual.

That summer Charlie moved away.