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【完形填空】Cloze: The Orchard on Signal Hill
Ruth Calloway was sixty-two when she first knelt in the orchard, and her knees made a noise like an old gate.
Her grandson Teo, nineteen, had come to Signal Hill for the summer, and he had a gift (1) machinery.
The orchard held 214 trees on a slope above a suburb that had once been farmland.
In 2009, a company asked the council for (2) to build a tunnel through the hillside.
The council's report (3) on one assumption: that the population would grow by 12 percent.
Ruth went to the town hall exhibition and stood among 300 people.
She spoke into the microphone, and her voice was not (4) a whisper.
She lost, and the tunnel opened in 2014.
By 2017, the water table had dropped four metres, and the trees were dying (5) the sediment the tunnel released.
Ruth kept records: a list of symptoms, a series of photographs, a ledger with 4,100 entries.
Teo looked through the pages one evening and said, "You're describing a catastrophe."
"No," she said. "I'm describing a (6)."
She was sceptical of tears and (7) evidence.
By 2021, only 61 trees were left, and Ruth had become an advocate, then a volunteer, then a nuisance.
She wrote to an embassy on the (8) belief that its agricultural attaché might help.
She applied for a grant of £18,000 and received £2,200.
Teo introduced her to flexitime work so she could oversee the harvest.
In October, they picked 340 kilograms of apples — a tremendous quantity, she said, considering.
The market would discount them, but she said, "(9), they are ours."
What she could not adapt to was the silence.
The orchard had once teemed with insects; now it was scarce of everything.
The birds were gone, and she was dissatisfied.
Teo described a prospectus for a vertical farm, all glass and water, and she listened.
She did not kneel because her knees had withdrawn their consent.
"You could sell the land," he said. "You have an overdraft."
"I have a constitution," she said, "and it does not include selling."
The words were incendiary, and he left the room.
The following spring, she postponed nothing and mounted the slope with a manual pump.
She inspected the remaining trees one by one.
Her presence irritated the new owners of the dome complex; they had expected her to (10).
Instead, she delivered a request for an unbiased review — 14 pages, embossed, sincere.
The council's reply was a single paragraph: "We cannot guarantee a favourable outcome."
She read it standing, then sat down on a crate.
The exhaustion was immense; she had sacrificed a decade to this.
One Tuesday in June, a stranger arrived: Priya, thirty-four, an optical engineer on vacation.
She had seen Ruth's exhibition at the library and had come to volunteer.
"My grandmother had an orchard in Kerala," she said. "It decomposed after the dam."
They began to sift the soil together, to engrave tags, to mingle compost with sediment.
They found one tree — a Belle de Boskoop — with new growth.
"It's a beginning," Priya said.
Ruth said nothing. She kneeled. The knees complained. She stayed there anyway.
Choices
(1) A. for B. at C. in D. on
(2) A. allowance B. permission C. admission D. approval
(3) A. rested B. depended C. based D. focused
(4) A. simply B. only C. just D. merely
(5) A. from B. of C. with D. by
(6) A. sample B. routine C. pattern D. model
(7) A. liked B. enjoyed C. preferred D. favoured
(8) A. false B. mistaken C. wrong D. erroneous
(9) A. Therefore B. However C. Besides D. Regardless
(10) A. accept B. submit C. conform D. agree