Anna was a student in a middle school. The school was near my house. Every day, I watched her play basketball after school from my house.

She played very well, much better than any other of her classmates. And she never stopped.

She practiced over and over again, sometimes until it was very dark.

One day, I asked her, “Why do you practice so hard? You are playing very well.” “That’s because I want to play in the city basketball team, but I’m still not good enough. I must work hard.” I was touched by her great resolution.

Another day, I saw her crying on the grass, instead of playing basketball. I walked across the street and sat down by her side.

“Why are you crying, girl?” I asked.

“The coach (教练) of the city basketball team told me that I couldn’t go on playing basketball because I was too short.”

But some days later, I saw her playing basketball again, practicing even harder than before. I was surprised and asked her the reason.

“My father told me if my dream is big enough, nothing can stop me.” I was touched again.

I was on my way to visit my sister, Mandi, who was badly ill in hospital.

It was winter. The once colorful leaves had all fallen from the trees, leaving them black and bare. Just like what Mandi was going through, the joyful things in her life were dropping away one by one.

“Are we almost there, grandma?”

I’d nearly forgotten my young granddaughter was in the car with me. She’d been sitting quietly in her car seat, watching the scenery go by.

I needed to focus on something more positive, at least for her sake. “Thank you, God, for this beautiful day,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. Calling it beautiful was a stretch but at least it wasn’t raining.

“I see a pretty blue sky,” Jocelyn said. “And the yellow sun. And the chocolate trees!”

“Chocolate trees?”

“Yes,” Jocelyn said. She seemed surprised I didn’t know exactly what she meant. “When the trees don’t have their leaves on them, they look like chocolate.”

Chocolate? I thought. Well, she’s not wrong. They are deep brown, like dark chocolate.

I was still thinking about those trees when we got to Mandi’s, so I told her about it as soon as we walked in the door.

“I love that!” Mandi said, a glimmer of light in her eyes. She looked at the trees outside the window, “I used to see something bare and ugly out there, but our Jocelyn sees chocolate trees. We should all be like that, shouldn’t we? We should learn to look for the chocolate.”

A．	B．
C．	D．