Cold drew many to South Africa and it was gold hut has just restored my faith in this chaotic nation.

As a British living in Cape Town, I recently received the call that my father had passed away. After the funeral in England, my mother gave me a gold ring, worn for decades by Dad and before him, by his own father. I’ve never really been into jewellery, yet when I sipped the ring on my finger it felt somehow right. Consoled (抚慰) in my grief by Dad’s beloved ring, I flew home to South Africa.

All went well until a windy Saturday when I walked on our local beach. As so often in the Cape, it was fiercely windy. When I got home and lit the fire, I looked at my left hand. The ring wasn’t there. Awful emotions washed over me—shock, horror, remorse, anger, powerlessness, guilt—a potential life sentence of guilt. Hoping that it had not been dropped on the beach, I looked everywhere else. Maybe the car? I searched every corner of it but fruitless. Maybe the house? Nothing.

It must have been the beach, an area stretching 200 metres from the car park—the ring, a very small needle in an ocean.

I was out at first light the next day but with no luck, discouraged. My only hope was this—the wind had been so strong that the ring could have been buried. It might just be there, somewhere.

I swore to recover it no matter how much I would pay, so I contacted local metal detector users. Two came to help, one even lending me his gear (设备). “Take as long as you need,” he said. Days of searching passed quickly, we found an old mobile phone, a 50 cent coin and a lot of bottle tops.

With my hopes filing, a third detectionist (探测者), Allan, called to help me.

It was a rainy night in Portland. I was waiting at the airport for my flight to New York. With several long hours before the flight, I hunted for a novel in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies at the checkout counter and comfortably found a place to drop.

Several minutes later, I was absorbed in my book and didn’t notice somebody settled beside me. I continued to read and contented myself with my chocolate-chip cookies, but at this moment, I saw that the man sitting beside me, as bold (胆大的) as he could be, grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between! I was silently shocked and angry: “What?!” He looked decent and nothing like poor. Unbelievable as his rude act was, I tried to ignore it to avoid a scene.

So I munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the cookie thief cut down my stock. I was getting more annoyed as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I weren’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.” With each cookie I took, he took one too. The moment came when there was only one cookie left in the bag, I just glared at him and wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered me half, as he ate the other. I grabbed it from him and thought: “Oh, brother! This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude! He didn’t even show any gratitude!”

I finally sighed with relief when my flight was called. Gathering my belongings and heading to the gate, I couldn’t bear to look at the thief again! After boarding the plane and sinking in my seat, I sought my book, which was almost complete. As I reached in my baggage, I was astonished! There was my almost-full bag of cookies, in front of my eyes!

When I was eight years old, my family moved from Japan to Canada. In Japan, I was a lively girl who enjoyed sharing my dolls and jokes and loved making people laugh with my jokes and creating imaginative games to play with my friends. However, when we settled in Canada, I struggled to adapt. I was born shy and wasn’t good at making new friends. During my first days at school I looked at others who were talking in groups happily. How I wish I were one of them!

We settled in a comfortable house with a nice garden where we grew vegetables—my responsibility. While I enjoyed looking after them, I often daydreamed about having a great garden like my classmate Alice’s, with its roses. Despite living in the same neighborhood, Alice and I hardly talked.

It was a hurricane that brought Alice and I closer.

The hurricane struck on an afternoon. The gentle wind turned into a heavy storm, and the sky became dark with thick gray clouds. Gradually, the hurricane took shape. My entire family gathered in the bathroom, seeking shelter from the storm. Frightened, I sat close to my mom, knees in my chest. After the storm had passed, our worries and fears were replaced by relief that we were unharmed and that our house had remained undamaged.

As I stepped outside, I witnessed (见证) the extent of the damage the hurricane had caused to our neighborhood. Across the street, a tall tree had fallen, crushing (严重破坏) Alice’s garden in front of her yellow house. We hurried over to check on it. Fortunately, none of her family was injured. However, her once-beautiful garden was in ruins, with the fallen tree destroying the roses and debris (碎片) spread everywhere. The roses that Alice used to be proud of were gone.

I was imagining how heartbroken Alice must feel seeing this when she appeared in the garden.

Looking at the restored garden, we could imagine attractive roses next spring.