“Do you mind if I join you?” A young man’s voice made me look up from my breakfast.

“That’s fine,” I said.

“It’s really crowded in here,” he said, flashing a nice smile.

Looking around, I realized there wasn’t one _________ table. As I watched the guy put hot sauce on his sausage, my mind spun with the _________ of my visit to a doctor the day before. I’d covered _________ through a snowstorm to see him, but he didn’t have answers to my problems.

My breakfast companion noticed me _________. “Traveling far?” he asked.

“Yes.” I hoped he didn’t have any more questions for me. He seemed nice enough, but I was in no _________ for small talk. I dipped my head back toward my plate and _________ my mouth with a bite of toast to signal the _________ of our conversation.

To my _________, the young man reached into his backpack and pulled out a notebook. He wrote as he ate. After a few moments of silence, I started to feel bad about _________ his words.

“Are you a writer?” I asked, __________ my voice.

“No ma’am,” he said. “I’m working on a list for my mom. She’s fighting lung cancer and I’m making her a smile list.” I could feel his __________ in the silence.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, feeling even __________. “What is a smile list?”

“Oh, just little __________ to comfort her.”

“Would it be too __________ to ask you to read me some of your “smiles”?

“No, not at all,” he said. Then, looking down and scanning his notebook, he read:

● Watching the sunrise

● Finding a shiny penny

● Sharing a table at breakfast with a __________ lady

Bus driver Sondra Artis had just picked up the last student on her route. As she headed towards Surry County Schools, the driver _______ a burning smell in the air. When a student asked her what was wrong, she did her best to _______ her growing worry.

“I wiped the window and I said, ‘Is that steam or smoke?’ I said calmly,” Sondra recalled. “As I pressed on the gas, more came out. I just had to get them off that _______ . ” Sondra pulled into a church parking lot and turned to _______ the 20 students on board. She reminded them of the evacuation drills (疏散演习) they _______ at the beginning of the year and directed older _______ to leave by the backdoor and younger students through the _______ .

“I told the kids that,” You know, we _______ in the beginning of the year, but this is going to be _______ , so I need you to be calm,” said Sondra.

The students hurried to the ________ as smoke began to fill the bus. They were ________ , but Sondra remained calm throughout the evacuation. When they were out, she went back onto the bus to make sure everyone escaped ________ .

Seconds after they all disembarked (下车) , the bus ________ fire. Another bus came to the ________ to take the children to school, and Sondra was happy that everything ________ okay.

The True Story of Treasure Island

It was always thought that Treasure Island was the product of Robert Louis Stevenson’s imagination. ______, recent research has found the true story of this exciting work.

Stevenson, a Scotsman, had lived ______ for many years. In 1881 he returned to Scotland for a ______.With him were his American wife Fanny and his son ______.

Each morning Stevenson would take them out for a long ______ over the hills. They had been ______ this for several days before the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse. Kept indoors by the heavy rain, Lloyd felt the days ______.To keep the boy happy, Robert asked the boy to do some ______.

One morning, the boy came to Robert with a beautiful map of an island, Robert ______that the boy had drawn a large cross in the middle of ______. “What’s that?” he asked. “That’s the ______ treasure,” said the boy. Robert suddenly ______ something of an adventure story in the boy’s ______.While the rain was pouring, Robert sat down by the fire to write a story. He would make the ______ a twelve-year-old boy, just like Lloyd. But who would be the pirate (海盗)？

Robert had a good friend named Henley, who walked around with the ______ of a wooden leg. Robert had always wanted to ______ such a man in a story. ______ Long John Silver, the pirate with a wooden leg, was ______.

So, thanks to a ______ September in Scotland, a friend with a wooden leg, and the imagination of a twelve-year-old boy, we have one of the greatest ______ stories in the English language.