The heaviest snow in a hundred years hit the south of China. It snowed_________for half a month. Many people were_________in railway stations, bus stations and airports. People did everything they could to fight the_________ ; nobody was killed from cold and_________ . Gradually, the trapped people all went back home_________. While fighting the snow, people_________their animal friends until a moving story of a swallow couple appeared on the Internet.

The couple hadn’t eaten anything for several days_________the snow. They tried to fly into people’s home to warm themselves, but every house was_________tightly. They got to a side of a balcony (阳台)where wind couldn’t reach. They jumped and flapped (拍打)their wings to_________the attention of the people inside the house, who were__________their own things. The wife’s body was__________. She couldn’t move any longer. The husband came near and__________her with his wings. The husband lost his heat soon because of his opened wings.

The next morning, the housemaster went to the balcony to__________his flowers and saw a dead swallow outside. __________ it, he found they were two embracing (拥抱) together. Thinking of the__________the snow had brought to people, he was moved to tears. He took them in for giving them some warmness they couldn’t feel any longer. He found a small box, filled it with some hay (干草) and lay the couple in. He buried them in the garden of the community.

One day when I was 12, my mother gave me an order: walk to the public library, and borrow at least one book for the summer. This was one more weapon for her to ___my strange problem—____to read.

In the library, I sat down on the floor and ___a few books off the shelf ____. The cover of a book caught my eye. It ___a picture of a beagle. I had recently had a beagle, the first and only animal ___I ever had as a child. ___, one morning, he was gone, ___to someone who had the space and the money to care for him. I never forgot my beagle.

There on the book’s cover was a beagle which looked ___to my dog. I ___my fingers over the picture of the dog on the cover. My eyes ran across the title, Amos, the Beagle with a Plan. ____, I read the title. Without opening the book, I borrowed it.

I started to read about Amos very slowly with ____. Though pages were ___slowly, I got the main idea of the story. At the end of the story, the final scene of ___lingered on my mind until my own lost dog and I were running together.

My mother’s call ___me to the real world. I never told her about my “ ____” experience, but she saw a slow, yet remarkable ___in my school performance. Years later, she was ___that her son had read thousands of books, was awarded a PhD in literature, and authored his own books, articles, poetry and fiction. Books could be ___wonderful and the ___of the words has held.

Setting off on a solo trip, I soon realized I was never really alone.

After traveling to the UK to visit my _________ who studied there, I decided to return to America. I didn’t sleep well the night before I _________. In fact, although I had really _________ every minute of my pleasant stay, I was once again _________ about traveling alone. Directions were not my strong suit. _________, I was faced with a new _________: I had to change planes in Frankfurt, Germany. “You made it here, Mom. _________ yourself. You’ll also go back home _________,” Whitney said when she saw me off at the train station.

The first ride was _________ enough, but after getting off the __________, I had no idea where to find the bus to Gatwick Airport. I was swept up in a sea of people. Filled with __________, I asked help from a man beside me. “I’m going that way,” he said. “__________ me.” He never slowed down but kept an eye on me while we went across the bus station. “There it is,” he said, pointing as we reached the bus.

I arrived at Gatwick with plenty of time to spare, and I __________ my plane without any difficulty. I was never so happy to get on a plane. I sat down in my seat with a sigh of __________. I’d been worried about traveling alone, but the __________ I’d received made me feel I was never really alone.