There was a story that all the kids told at my school. I don' t know if they believed it but some of them certainly acted as if they did. On the way from my home to school there was a little old cottage. You could only just see the cottage, as if it were trying to hide itself behind the lemonade trees and bushy garden. At times, but not very often, the children had seen a little old woman make her way along the cracked leaf-covered path from the front door to the mailbox. Her fingers were twisted in funny shapes, her body was bent over and her back hunched (弓背). If she lifted her head to look at you, her face was all wrinkly. " The witch (女巫) at Number 97" was how most kids spoke of her. " Don' t look in her eyes, " you could hear them say. " She' ll capture you in a magic spell, take you into the house and never release you again."
In the mornings and at the end of the day, my friends and I would pass Number 97 in a group. We felt safer and more secure in numbers. But now, I played the recorder so well that I was asked to join the school band, and that meant staying after school one afternoon a week to rehearse (排练). So I had to walk home all by myself.
I set out as I normally would but as I began to approach the little old cottage it looked scarier than ever. For a while I hesitated, not knowing what to do. I wanted to run but felt I really needed to just walk my way through the experience. I took some deep breaths and tried to think of something different: Home, supper and my bed. While thinking of those things, the dreadful look of the old cottage seemed to fade. When I started thinking about the witch again, the cottage loomed big and frightening in my thoughts. " No, " I said to myself, " Concentrate on how good it will feel to get home, " and with that I started to feel easier.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
But as I reached the front gate to Number 97, my heart almost stopped.
One day, I asked the " witch" , Mrs. Walcott, if I could know her story for homework.
