I discovered the power of fear when I became stuck to my driveway. As much as I tried, I could not move my feet, _____ they were crazy－glued to the ground. The realization that my daughters were playing in Nancy's house, just one-half block away, paralyzed (麻痹) my _____, making me unable to move when I neared the end of our driveway. Dense, black _____ was rising from behind the Maple trees on the other side of the street and was enveloping three houses,making them barely ______. Nancy's house was one of them.

I tried to _____ for my daughters, hoping to see them run safely to my arms, but my voice was ______ stuck－stuck in my throat with no ______ of coming out. There I stood, ______, paralyzed and silenced by ______, unable to protect the two little girls I loved even ______ I had realized.

Although ______ in a body that couldn't move or speak, I could still hear. I could hear other mothers ______ calling their children. I could hear a ______ silence that covered the neighborhood instead of the usual happy voices of children And, finally, I could hear the alarm of the fire engine. As the alarm ______, "We're on our way, " instantly dissolved the crazy glue that had ______ my feet to the ground and it ______ the soundproof(隔音的) box that had silenced my voice. I was ______ make sure my daughters were safe.

As I continued down the driveway, two little girls, my two little girls, ran toward me from ______ the street. They had come home to tell me about the fire in the garage next to Nancy's house. Not only did my feet and voice ______ now, but my eyes were also in good working order and had no trouble producing ______ of relief,

Some years ago when 1 was in my first year in college, I heard Salome Bey sing for the first time. The moment was exciting. Salome's_______filled the room and brought the theater to life. I was so moved that I decided to write an article about her.I_______Salome Bey, telling her I was from Essence magazine, and that I wanted to meet her to talk about her career. She agreed and told me to come to her studio next Tuesday. When I hung up, I was scared out of my mind.I_______I was lying I was not a writer at all and hadn't even written a grocery list.

I interviewed Salome Bey the next Tuesday. I sat there_______taking notes and asking questions that all began with, "Can you tell m...?"I soon realized that_______Salome Bey was one thing, but writing a story for a national magazine was just impossible. The_______was almost unbearable. I struggled for days and finally I put my manuscript into a large envelope and dropped it into a mailbox.

It didn't take long. My manuscript_______.How stupid of me! I thought. How could I compete in a world of professional writers? Knowing I couldn't_______the rejection letter, I threw the unopened envelope into a drawer.Five years later, I was moving to California While_______my apartment I came across the unopened envelope.This time I opened it and read the editor's letter in________:

Your story on Salome Bey is fantastic. Yet we need some________materials,. Please add those and return the article immediately. We would like to________your story soon.Shocked, it took me a long time to________.Fear of rejection cost me dearly. I lost at least five hundred dollars and having my article appear in a major magazine. More importantly, I lost years of________writing. Today, I have become a full-time writer.Looking back on this experience, I learned very important lesson: You can't________to doubt yourself.

Miss Baugh was the kind of teacher that everyone had at least once: scary. She ________ no nonsense. She drilled us and grilled us and taught us to take ________ seriously.

But I had my own life outside of school and had just discovered a prop (道具) for ________: an ink bottle painted to look as though it had overturned.

Of all the people I could have tricked, ________ I chose Miss Baugh. Before class, I opened her book and placed the bottle on one of the pages, proudly ________ that it truly did look like spilled ink!

Then I waited for the fun. I wasn’t ________. When Miss Baugh saw the overturned bottle, she let out a little ________.

But immediately Miss Baugh discovered the ________. She picked up the bottle and ________ it. She looked up. Her eyes ________ the classroom with a deadly look. Some of my classmates carefully ________ looking at me, so as not to give me away.

“Who did this?” asked she.

I quietly ________ my hand. All of my life I’ve been educated to be honest. I couldn’t help ________. Besides, I wanted my bottle back.

Miss Baugh fixed me with a stare that struck ________ in my heart. And then, most ________, she laughed.

“Well, it certainly ________ me!” she said, and ________ the bottle to me.

But something had ________ for me, anyway. I came to understand that, if even the ________ of Miss Baugh had a warm human being beneath that strict look, then other strict people probably do, too. And I’ve happily proved that ________ many times in my life.