学进去

“Okay,” said our teacher, Mrs. Woodland：“It’s time for the gift exchange.” I was actually a little excited. I knew what a lot of the girls had brought, and any of those gifts would be great, especially my best friend Sara’s. She had made some candy and put it in this super cute bear mug（马克杯）.

Mrs. Woodland had us put our gifts on our classroom table. Then we opened the gifts like a game. We each drew numbers and we got to the table and chose a wrapped（包装好的） gift when our number was called. But we didn’t necessarily have to. We could take a gift from somebody else that had already had their number called—if we thought we’d like that gift better than the wrapped ones.

When it was my turn, I didn’t take a wrapped gift from the table. And I didn’t take Sara’s either though I really wanted to. I took the perfume（香水） Megan had brought instead. I didn’t have enough money to get Mom something special, but the perfume was really nice. She might really like it.

I was busy thinking about the perfume and whether Mom would like it or not when there was a big commotion（嘈杂）. It had been Hannah’ s turn to choose. She was the last one. And unsurprisingly, she didn’t go for the last wrapped gift on the table. Instead, she’d taken Sara’s gift from Lauren. Well, that meant Lauren had to take the wrapped gift. She looked a little upset when she got to the table. Everyone knew the last gift was from Kali. That was why no one had chosen it. Kali was really poor. And she always brought gifts that no one ever wanted. This time, she brought a pair of old—fashioned crocheted potholders（编织的防烫套垫）！

“I don’t want these,” Lauren whined（哀怨）.“I want my candy back.”

“No way,” Hannah protested, keeping the mug of chocolate out of Lauren’s reach.

“Then I want Megan’s perfume.” Lauren came over to take my perfume. “Come on, Melanie, trade with me.”

Mrs. Woodland advised me to trade with Lauren since I had always been kind.

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“Here,” I said to my mom after I got home, handing her the potholders. “They are an early New Year gift.”

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