第１０回毎日パソコン入力コンクール　秋季大会
第３部　英文Ａ（文字数３，０００字程度）
山形県公立高校入試問題　平成２１年度　英語　より引用

 Every summer, many people in Taku's village enjoyed singing and dancing on the festival stage by the shrine. Taku came to the shrine to help the village people who were building the stage. When he was working, Mr. Kudo, a teacher of Taku's school, called his name. Mr. Kudo was Taku's father's best friend. He also came to build the festival stage. "You don't look happy, Taku. Are you worrying about your father?" said Mr. Kudo. "Yes. But I'm all right," Taku answered. Taku's father was in hospital. He was badly injured when he was working. He had to stay in bed all day and he couldn't move. He sometimes looked sad and he didn't smile very often.
 A week later, when they finished building the stage, Shige-jii, one of the oldest men in the village came to see it. Shige-jii said, "You did a good job again this year. Now I remember the village kabuki we showed every summer here on the stage a long time ago. Young men in the village practiced hard after work every night. Everyone in the village loved our kabuki." Taku said to Shige-jii, "When did you stop showing the kabuki?" "We stopped the kabuki during the war. After the war, many young men in the village went to big cities to work. The kabuki was not shown for a long time. And the village people forgot about it," answered Shige-jii.
 At that time, Taku remembered one thing. When his father was youg, he was very interested in plays. He wanted to bring back the village kabuki. But it was too difficult. So he wrote a play with Mr. Kudo and showed it with his many friends at the school festival. "If I bring back the kabuki, Father will be happy and he will smile again," Taku thought.
 The next day, Taku went to Mr. Kudo's house. Mr. Kudo was happy to hear about his idea. Mr. Kudo said to Taku, "Make a team first, and study the history of the village kabuki." Taku made a team of five members. They were friends since they were little children. They visited Shige-jii and studied the history of the kabuki. They also visited other old people in the village. The old people taught many other things to Taku's team. Some of the old men remembered the music of the kabuki, so the team asked them to play it. The music was beautiful.
 The next spring came and went, and summer came again. Taku's father came back from the hospital. There were more than twenty people on Taku's team then. A lot of village people helped them to show the kabuki again. Some people gave them the costumes, and other gave them things to make the set. At first Taku thought he wanted to show the kabuki for his father, but now he was working for the people in the village. Taku and his team worked very hard day after day.
 On the night of the festival, when their turn came, Taku said to his team, "Now, it's time to bring back our kabuki!" Taku's team did a good job, and the village people enjoyed it. They gave Taku's team a big hand. Taku found his father among the people. He was smiling.