I’m Linda. I live in Oxford with my parents and sister. There’s a second-hand shop near my home.

Although it’s old, it looks nice. People give away their unused things to the shop. The shop then sells them at a low price. All the money is used to help poor people living in our city. It is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. My mother always shops there on weekends.

In front of the shop, there is a very big box and people can put their old clothes in it. The shopkeeper comes to take the clothes out before she starts working every morning. Then she will put prices on the clothes and try to sell them. I am always curious about what is in the box. But there’s a sign on the box that says, “Only the shopkeeper can take the clothes.”

One day after school, on the way back home with my sister, I decided to open the box. The first thing I saw was a beautiful dress. “I can wear this to my friend’s party,” I said to my sister. My sister said in a serious voice, “You can’t take it. That’s not yours. That should go to the second-hand shop.” “But no one is around. They will never know who took the dress.” I held it in my hand and refused to put it down. Then my sister said to me patiently, “Let me explain it this way. If everyone is like you and everyone breaks the rule and takes clothes from the box, how can the shop help others? The shop needs these clothes to help people in need.” Hearing this, I knew I was wrong, I put the dress down and went back home with my sister.

What are the basic ingredients (要素) of good manners? A strong sense of fairness is one of them.

A friend once told me an experience that he had. When he was driving along a one-lane (单行小路), unpaved (未铺路的) mountain road, the car ahead of his produced clouds of choking dust (呛人的尘土), and it was a long way to the nearest paved main road. Suddenly, the car ahead stopped at a wider place on the road. My friend thought there must be something wrong with the car ahead. He stopped and asked if anything was wrong. “No,” said the other driver. “But you’ve endured my dust so far. I’ll endure yours the rest of the way.”

Another ingredient is empathy (同情心). It makes a person see into the mind or heart of someone else. Recently I happened to read such a story in a book.   

A man was having dinner alone, and he was trying to open a bottle. But he failed. Then he asked a waiter for help. The waiter took the bottle, turned his back and opened it without difficulty. Then the waiter closed it again and turned back. He pretended (假装) to make a great effort to open the bottle without success. Finally, he took it into the kitchen and returned very soon. He told the man that he managed to open it, but only with a tool. Yet another ingredient is the ability to treat people alike (一视同仁). No matter who he is and what he does, everyone is worth respecting.

When I was walking back home at around 12:15 during my lunch break one day, an apple core (果核) comes flying towards me. It landed just before my feet. Surprised, I counted myself lucky not to get hit by it.

The apple was thrown over the fence by a school student. I live opposite a school. A wall separates my apartment building from the school.

Thinking it was a one-off experience, I told my friend, and we laughed about it.

Then, the week after, I was walking along exactly the same place at exactly the same time and bam! Another apple came over. This time it landed on the roof of a shed (棚屋). I thought to myself “Am I supposed to get hit by an apple?”

Last week I was walking back home. I checked my phone. It was 12:15. My mind came back to those two times before when I’d seen an apple thrown over the wall. But suddenly, my thoughts were stopped by another flying apple! This one was a big one, and it was thrown with speed.

Enough was enough. Someone could be really hurt by these apples. Did the students not realize that people live across the wall? Or do they not care?

I told my friend about it. “You should just throw the apple back over the wall. That will teach them,”my friend suggested. But I don’t want to play that “game”. As they say, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. Besides, I might end up hurting someone when I throw it back.

Maybe I’ll call the school and let them know. The students responsible need to know that they might end up hurting someone if they keep throwing their waste. What’s more, waste belongs in the bin, not anywhere else.