Back in 2008, I lost my job and lived in my car with my wife and two teenage children. I was desperate for a new job, any job, so when I saw an ad for a position as a gatekeeper at a private home, I applied. The money wasn’t great, but the position came with a small one-bedroom apartment to get my family off the streets. And I had to pay debts with over 40% of my small salary every month. My wife and I agreed that whatever food we could afford to buy would go to the children. And whatever were leftovers were our meal, and sometimes there wasn’t much at all.

My boss was a man in his sixties, who showed his employees apparent haughtiness（傲慢）, never responding when I greeted him when I opened the gates. But I wouldn’t quit the job, though. My job consisted of standing watch, opening and closing the gates, and patrolling（巡逻）the grounds.

One afternoon, my rounds brought me around the back where the leftovers were thrown into the garbage bins, most of which stayed untouched. I was so hungry, so I went looking for leftovers in the bins and took them to my wife. Regardless of desperation and shame, I kept doing that almost every day.

Then one day, my boss watched me look for leftovers from a window. Ignoring the embarrassment, I walked away with the food.

The next morning, we were surprised by a large bag on our doorstep. Inside the bag were vegetables, milk, meat and a selection of fruit. We wondered who could have placed it there. My wife and I wept with gratitude. The next week, another bag of groceries arrived on our doorstep. And it appeared the next two years.

Then a shock hit us. The boss, who’d been in hospital for some kind of operation, was dead. I was frightened I’d lose my job, but everything went on as usual.

Jessica and I wanted a dog more than anything else on Earth. At night, after Mom and Dad had gone to bed, Jessica and I would sneak out our bedroom windows and we’d sit together on the roof and talk about dogs. Sometimes, we had an argument about what our ideal dog would be. But it didn’t really matter — any dog or puppy (小狗崽) would do.

One summer night, as we sat together on the roof, Jessica saw something. “What’s that?” She pointed down toward a dark shadow on our driveway. The moon was up, and everything looked either black or milky. All I saw was darkness. Then the shadow moved. For one astonished second, Jessica and I just stared at each other. Then we scrambled down onto the porch. There in our yard stood a dog. A big, black dog with long hair. Jessica made a little kissing noise and held out her hand. And the dog came to us slowly, taking a few steps forward, then a step back, not sure whether to trust us, I guess.

“She’s a female,” said Jessica.

“Oh,” I said, pulling back and looking. The dog was so skinny and her coat was full of dirt. She must be a homeless dog.

“What can we give her?” I asked. Then I had a thought. “Bread! I’ll get her a big loaf of bread.” So, Jessica waited with the dog, and I sneaked into the kitchen to fetch the bread.

The dog got the bread and ran into the shadows and disappeared. We smiled at each other in the moonlight, our insides full of excitement. “We’re going to have a dog!” I whispered.

On the following nights, the dog, who we named “Shadow”, would come and Jessica and I would prepare food for her. But we never saw her eating anything, and each time she got the food she would run away into the darkness quickly.

“Why didn’t she eat?” I was curious. “And she is still so skinny.”

“We can look into the case,” Jessica said. So, we decided to find out the truth.

One night, we followed Shadow secretly at a distance.

Finally, we had a dog in our home and it was one of the puppies.

One morning, Father was helping Danny pack his bag for a holiday camp. “Do I really have to go, Father?” Danny asked hesitantly. “Son, sometimes the best lessons in life are learnt at camps,” Father encouraged. “But I never have the right words to say when talking to someone new,” Danny complained. “Alright, let’s make a deal. If you learn something good at this camp, this shall be the last holiday camp I sign you up for,” Father responded with a proposal. “Deal,” Danny replied.

Right after dinner on the first day at camp, everyone was busy packing their bags in preparation for the night walk. Danny headed to the canteen to get a bottle of iced tea. Just as Danny was about to secure the bottle cap, he was caught off-guard as someone suddenly brushed past him and hit his arm. The bottle slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor. Light brown liquid flowed out, creating ugly mess on the floor. Danny caught a flash of a boy in a green T-shirt running off into the distance. ”How rude!“ Danny shouted, gritting his teeth. “Not even an apology!”

Just then, Mr Halim, the camp guide, approached Danny. ”What are you doing here inste-“ he asked but stopped midway when he saw the mess on the floor. ”It wasn’t me!“ Danny raised his voice in his defence. ”You’ll fix this mess you created before we head out for the night walk,“ Mr Halim remarked, walking off in a hurry before Danny could explain himself.

“How unfortunate,” Danny thought to himself. “It wasn’t even my fault to begin with.” Getting down on his knees, he started wiping up the mess. Twenty minutes passed and the floor was dry. Danny managed to calm himself down and think clearly. He recalled how Father had given him a second chance when he broke his vase by mistake a week ago. Realizing that what had happened just now might have been an accident, Danny resolved to let the past rest.

As Danny got up to leave, he saw the boy in the green T-shirt approaching him.

The next day when Father came to fetch Danny, he saw a cheerful Danny.