There was magic in the secret garden in spring. First everything turned green. Then the green changed to colors—blue, purple and red. There were flowers everywhere. The roses—the roses! From small buds they grew into large flowers and filled the air with pleasant smell.

Colin was sick and thought that he would die soon. But he watched all the changes as they happened in spring. Dickon, Colin’s friend, pushed Colin on wheelchair to the garden every morning and Colin spent the day there. Sometimes he sat on the grass watching the insects. He once watched a mouse digging a hole.

One morning Dickon pushed Colin to the secret garden as usual. Mary, Colin’s cousin, and Ben Weatherstaff, the gardener, were there too. Colin said, “I want to tell you something very important.”

“I believe that there is magic in everything,” continued Colin. “Dickon knows some magic. He charms (迷住) animals and people. Mary also knows a bit of magic because she was born in India. There’s magic in the garden, too. I’m going to try and put some in me because I want to be well and strong. Please sing ‘Magic is in me!’ with me.”

“Magic is in me. Magic is in me. Magic is in all of us.” They started singing.

Then Colin tried to walk on his own. His first step was shaky (摇晃的) and he even fell to the ground. But as he took further steps forward, he soon got used to it and was able to walk steadily. Although he was slow, he did not fall again.

“I can walk! The magic worked!” he cried.

At thirteen, I was told with a kind of attention disorder (失调). It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature (文学) class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.”

She looked at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

I tried, but I didn’t finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn’t get much education. But Louis didn’t give up. Instead, he made a great invention and invented a reading system of raised dots (凸起的点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind.

Wasn’t I the “blind” in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? Thinking about this, I started to write smoothly. I completed the task within 40 minutes. In fact, I was not different from others. I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up?

I didn’t expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day—with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep trying.”

Once, there was a thief (贼) who was on the run from the police. He arrived in a small town called Seitsaneruc, where he hid his stolen things and worked as a new teacher and started to teach classes under the name Mr. Pepo.

Because he was so bad, he always told the children off and you could tell that he did not like them at all. At the end of the day, his pupils would rush off in a hurry. Until one day, instead of leaving, Paul-one of the smallest pupils, stayed behind and just looked at Mr. Pepo in silence. He then gave him a hug and ran off quickly, without giving time for the teacher to get over his surprise!

From that day on, little Paul used any chance to give the teacher an unexpected hug and run off. One day the teacher managed to catch him, and asked why he was doing it. “I think you are so mean because you have never been loved. I am going to love you, so you get better, even if you don’t like it.”

The teacher pretended (假装) to be angry, but deep down he liked that the boy loved him so much. Until one day when he saw that one of the boys was very sad and quiet for a few days, the teacher decided to make his day as Paul did to him. Just then, everyone in the school began to clap (鼓掌) and cheer.

But then some police officers turned up with little Paul, who was carrying the things Mr. Pepo had stolen.

“Don’t be afraid, Mr Pepo. We already know you regret what you did. You can stay here at the school if you like because you’re cured (治愈).”

Mr. Pepo could not believe it. Everyone in the town had known from the beginning that he was a thief and had been trying to help him become good. He decided to stay and live there to help others turn their lives around, just as they had done for him.