Jake is eight years old. He is good at ________. He has a three-year-old sister Jane. Helen, their aunt, is a teacher ________ a middle school. She often looks after Jake and Jane in her free time. Today, Jake’s parents have to work. Helen is free, ________ they ask Helen to look after the children. Then Helen goes to their home with a bag of oranges. She takes out some oranges and puts them on the ________.

“How many oranges can you see on the table, Jake?” she ________.

“________,” answers Jake.

“Then can you divide (分配) them between you and Jane?”

“Sure, that’s ________.” He quickly gives one to Jane and five to himself. Helen is surprised (惊讶的), “You ________ five? Are you really good at math?”

“Yes, I am,” says Jake. “But my ________ isn’t.”

Helen looks at ________ and says, “It’s not right to do like this, Jake. You should learn to share (分享)” .

It was a cold November morning. My alarm clock rang many times, but I had ______ getting out of bed. My father had died a few days before. I felt so ______ that I didn’t want to face it.

My father was tall and strong. He worked very hard to support (供养) us in his life. He had a bad temper (脾气) and would sometimes shout at me, but I knew that he ______ me. He was raised in a(n) ______ way and raised us that way too. For example, I couldn’t remember ever being hugged by him.

After my mother and grandmother ______, my father moved into my grandmother’s home right up the road from where I lived. I was really happy ______ I had more chances to visit him and talk with him about life. But we still ______ touched or hugged each other. Then his ______ became poor, and a few months later, he left me.

I slowly got out of my bed. I turned on the lights and walked into the living room. I saw my son walking out of his bedroom. Suddenly, he ______ his arms and gave me a big hug. And just then I heard my father’s voice deep inside of me say, “Joey, this hug is from ______.” I cried and smiled at the same time. At that moment. I felt loved. I felt loved by my father. I felt loved by life.

When I was a little girl, my father loved to play catch with me. The game is _____. One person throw the ball, and the other try to catch it. I was not good at catching, but he would encourage me. He _____ told me “keep your eye on the ball” when I couldn’t catch the throws.

As I got older, we didn’t play catch. If I had a problem, I would go to my father to ask for his _____ He would try to joke with me and say “keep your eye on the ball”. We would both _____ when hearing that. The words made both of us _____ the happy old days. Though his words couldn’t really help me solve the problem, I felt much more _____ and didn’t worry any more.

_____, my father became ill in 1995 when I was 23. As he suffered from a stroke, he could not _____. There were no more talks between us. He could only mouth the words, which were sometimes hard to understand. After a while, I seemed to be pretty good at reading his lips (嘴唇), even better than the nurses who _____ him.

During our last conversation, I was telling him about a (n) ______ I was having with my work. Once again, I could read his lips: “Keep your eye on the ball.” We both smiled.

That was the last time I saw my father before he passed away. Since then, “keep your eye on the ball” has become a way for me to get rid of stress.