Jeremy Hampden has a large circle of friends and is very popular at parties. Everybody admires him for his great sense of humor — everybody, that is, except his six-year-old daughter, Jenny. Recently, one of Jeremy’s closest friends asked him to make a speech at a wedding reception. This is the sort of thing that Jeremy loves. He prepared the speech carefully and went to the wedding with Jenny. He had included a large number of funny stories in the speech and, of course, it was a great success. But as soon as he had finished, Jenny said to him, “Daddy, I don’t want to stay here any longer, even one more minute! Daddy, let’s go home.” Jeremy was a little disappointed by this but he did as his daughter asked.

On the way home, there was a long silence between them.

A Different Kind of Perfect

Ellie loved the family gathering at Lola’s house on Fourth of July. She loved Lola’s chicken adobo — chicken in a delicious sauce (酱汁). It was perfect. But this year, Lola asked Ellie to make the adobo by herself because she must visit a sick friend.

“But I don’t know how!” Ellie said.

“That’s why you should be in charge. ” Lola smiled.

Lola pulled out the ingredients (原料): chicken, onion and lemon juice. She explained how to make the dish and then left.

Ellie got started immediately. When the dish was cooked, she tasted it and added a little more of this and a little more of that until it tasted right.

“Now it’s like soup! I need more chicken.” Ellie said to herself, “But I have no time to go to the store. What else can I use?”

The doorbell rang as relatives started to arrive. Ellie wanted to cry.

Ellie opened the fridge (冰箱).

One Thursday in April, I was awakened by the noise of my parents talking and making breakfast. My old brother and sister were running around, trying to put their things together for school.

I put on the new skirt I had bought over the weekend while thinking about how I was going to make my day perfect. Then my mom offered to walk me to school instead of my dad driving me. She said she wanted to walk for exercise, so I thought it would be fine. Although my dad said he wanted to drive me, my mom and I both agreed to walk.

As we were walking down the hill to my school, we chatted about interesting things in my wonderful school life, our family’s next vacation, and so on. We felt so relaxed and excited. Holding hands, we crossed the crosswalk to get to my school, and that was when a bad thing happened. A car lost control and came fast towards us. Just at that moment, my mom tried to save me using all of her strength. She made it. She pushed me out of the way.

But when I turned around, I saw my mom flying through the air. For me, everything was in slow motion. Finally , my mom hit her head , and it started to bleed. I shouted and cried uncontrollably while some people called my dad and the police. Soon, I saw my dad rushing down the street in his car with the most scared look on his face.

He and I followed the ambulance to the hospital. While we waited in the waiting room, I was clear that my happy family suddenly had a terrible change. I felt like this couldn’t be happening to me. I was shocked, frightened, hopeless and helpless. I was so worried about my mom. I just hoped she could survive the accident. When the nurse finally came to us, I was scared of what I was going to see.

But I ran and hugged my mom.

Several weeks later, the doctor said my mom could go home.