学进去

My family is still recovering from the rainy season of the past few years. It began with the untimely death of a friend, ________ by some major family changes. What’s worse, my teenaged stepson became seriously ill.

As anyone who has ________ a chronically（慢性的）sick child knows, the stress doesn’t go away. My husband and I were ________. Every day the air carried the ________ of an approaching storm.

One day, my stepson and I were discussing Valentine’s gifts—a kazoo（卡祖笛）. My first ________ to this gift was puzzlement, which quickly turned to ________ when, I, a pianist, couldn’t make a sound.

My stepson was ________. It turned out that someone on his school bus had been playing around with a kazoo that day. He wanted to see it.

“You couldn’t get a sound?” he asked. “What’s so ________ about it?”

I shrugged(耸肩). “ I don’t know. It ________ never worked.”

“It’s easy,” said my husband. He grabbed（抓住）it and blew. Nothing happened. ________, he tried again. No sound. His crazy ________ produced only a loud noise.

My stepson burst into laughter. His face ________ like that the first time in almost a year. Soon we were all laughing to the point of tears. It was the ________ 10 minutes in the past couple of years. This experience gave us a moment of ________. It showed us there’re still things to laugh at and enjoy, and that we can still ________ as a family.