One night I was sitting in my room half-listening as my 15-year-old brother Tommy fought with my 12-year-old brother Kevin. I didn’t pay attention when Kevin rushed up the stairs with the hurt on his face.
About 20 minutes later, as I was walking upstairs I heard Kevin crying inside the bathroom. I knocked on the door and asked, “Hey Kevin, do you want to talk?”
No answer.
I tried again, “Why don’t you come out of there?”
Again, no answer.
So, joking around, I grabbed a stack of （一摞）cards and a pencil and wrote, “If you don’t want to talk, we can write notes to each other.”
An hour later I was still sitting on the floor outside the bathroom with two stacks of cards in front of me. One was blank and one was cards from Kevin on which he had translated all his
yucky feelings into words for me. As I read one of Kevin’s notes, tears came to my eyes. It said, “Nobody in this family cares about me. I’m not the youngest, and I’m not the oldest. Tommy thinks I’m silly and Dad wishes he had the other Kevin as a kid because he’s better at basketball. And you’re never around to even notice me.”
Tears came to my eyes as I wrote back to him. “You know Kevin, I really do love you and I’m sorry I don’t always show it. I am here for you and you are loved in this family.”
There was no answer for a while, but then I heard a tearing sound coming from inside the bathroom. Kevin, who had run out of cards wrote on a torn paper cup. “Thanks.”
I wrote back “For what?” it returned to me with “Loving me” on it.
Since then, I try my best to never only half-notice my family members any more. Kevin and I have a closer relationship now. And sometimes when one of us notices that the other is upset, we’ll smile and say “Write it on a paper cup.”
【小題1】The underlined word “yucky” most probably means ____.
| A．upset | B．exciting | C．terrible | D．amazing |
【小題2】What could be the reason that Kevin’s Dad doesn’t like him?
| A．Kevin is not as clever as his brother. |
| B．He is neither the youngest nor the oldest. |
| C．Kevin doesn’t like to make friends with others. |
| D．Kevin is not good at playing basketball. |
【小題3】What do we know about the writer?
| A．She has two children in her family. |
| B．She didn’t pay enough attention to Kevin before. |
| C．She used to show her love to Kevin. |
| D．She has a closer relationship with Tommy after that. |
【小題4】What does the writer want to tell us?
| A．Everyone should show how they love their family members. |
| B．It’s hard to get on well with family members. |
| C．It’s important to keep peace in the family. |
| D．We should try our best to stop our children from fighting. |
