It’s important to make your big brother angry. As far as Sandy was concerned, that wasn’t just her job, but her calling. Greg was 15 years old, a skinny kid who seemed to get an inch taller every month. What else are little sisters for? She hid his schoolbooks. She flicked rubber bands at him while he was talking on the phone. When his friends came over, she was extremely nice to them, so they always asked her to hang out and play video games. This drove Greg crazier than anything else.

But now that Greg was almost 16. More than anything else, Greg wanted to learn to drive a car. He wanted his driver’s license so badly that the tips of his fingers sometimes hurt from thinking about holding it. Sandy knew how important it was to him, but she worried about Greg never hanging out with her. She was going to make sure he never got it.   

He’d just finished Driver’s Ed and got a learner’s permit, but Dad insisted Greg practice driving with him a few times. “Driving with an instructor is one thing,” Dad said, “but until you’re comfortable driving with a few people, I’m never letting you touch my car alone. We’re going to your aunt’s for dinner. Why don’t you drive the whole family?” “Sure thing,” said Greg, his eyes shimmering with anticipation. This would be Sandy’s big chance. She hid Greg’s permit in Greg’s shoe in his bedroom as she knew Greg couldn’t drive without a permit.

After the family climbed into the car, Greg took a few minutes to get ready. He adjusted his seat, fiddled with his mirrors, and familiarized himself with the air-conditioner and windshield wipers, even though it wasn’t hot outside or raining. For all of his confidence, he was starting to look nervous. He was about to turn on the car when Sandy made her attack.

Eva spent the first week of high school trying to keep her head above water. One of the major headaches for her was finding her way in the huge school building. It was a six-story building. On each floor, hallways stretched in four directions, leading to classrooms, laboratories, and teachers’ offices. Somewhere in the building, there was also a library, a cafeteria, and a gym.

Having a poor sense of direction, Eva found it impossible to get around in such a huge building. All the different hallways and rooms were too much to think about, let alone commit to memory. She decided that she would memorize where her classes were and then pretend that the rest of the place didn’t exist.

In her first PE class, Eva was shocked when Coach Pitt announced that everyone had to run one mile around the track outside. She searched the faces of her classmates for signs of panic. There was nothing she feared more than having to run a whole mile. To Eva, “a mile” was used to describe long distances. It was ten miles from her home to her grandfather’s, and that always seemed like a long way, even in a car!

When Coach Pitt blew his whistle (哨子), Eva figured she would be left in the dust. However, while some of her classmates edged ahead, others actually fell behind. ” It’s just the beginning, “she thought.” I’ll come in last for sure. “

Soon Eva began to breathe hard, with her heart pounding and legs shaking. Feeling desperate, Eva started using a mind trick on herself. She stopped thinking about the word” mile. “Instead, she focused on reaching the shadow cast on the track by an oak tree up ahead. Then she concentrated on jogging to the spot where the track curved (拐弯). After that, she tried to see if she could complete her first lap. One lap turned into two, then three, then four.

When Coach Pitt said “Nice work!” to her at the finish line, Eva was surprised.

Eva decided to use the same trick to deal with the school building.

I had a trip to New Mexico last year, a trip I still remember very well to this day. I went to a place called Philmont and attended a summer camp. There were thirteen people including me. The entire 10-day hike we took through those mountains went well, except for the second day, because of the terrible weather.

It had been a nice sunny day up until we were halfway to the camp we were staying at that night. Then without a word it started raining gently. There was nothing too bad and certainly nothing we couldn’t handle. We put our raincoats on and continued on our way. It stayed raining slightly for a while, so I decided it would be a good idea to say, “Well, it can’t be much worse than this, right?” And in less than five seconds the thunder crashed around us. It almost sounded like a laugh, as if it was laughing at us. Then the rain started to come down harder, and then, the hail (冰雹) came.

Getting hit with balls of ice in the middle of the New Mexico mountains was not something I had ever thought would happen to us, but here we were. All thirteen of us were wishing at that moment that we could go home. But we quickly abandoned the idea. It was freezing, and my feet felt like they might fall off. Wet, cold, and carrying 40 pounds on our backs, we hiked on.

But soon enough we got lost for about a mile because of a mistake that our “Navi-guesser” made on getting us to our destination. At the same time, one of our boys got a minor case of hypothermia (低温症). We decided to stop for a while, unpacking our tents to get into a nice warm sleeping bag. I don’t know if you know this, but unpacking camping gear (装备) in the rain was not very fun, especially setting up a tent.

We came up with a solution.

The rain stopped just as we were about to start.