This is the school timetable of Class One, Grade Three, Sunshine School on Monday.

    Tony, a nine-year-old kid, is sitting at his desk when suddenly he wets(尿湿) his pants. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he can't possibly know how this has happened. It has never happened before. He knows the after-effect (后果)—When the boys find out, he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

    Tony puts his head down and say to himself, "Oh, no. What can I do? I need help now!"

    He looks up and notices the teacher coming, with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

    As the teacher is walking to him, a classmate named Emily is carrying a glass that is full of water. Emily falls down in front of the teacher and drops the glass of water in Tony's pants. Tony seems to be angry, but all the while he is saying to himself, "Thank you, dear! Thank you, dear!"

    Now all of a sudden, instead of being the person that everyone laughs at, Tony is the person of sympathy (同情). The person that everyone laughs at should be him, but now it is Emily.

    She tries to help, but they tell her, "You've done enough, you stupid!"

    At the end of the day, as they were waiting for the bus, Tony walks over to Emily and says in a low voice," You did that on purpose, didn't you ?"

    Emily says back in a quiet voice, "I wet my pants, too."

    Your English teacher has introduced a play to your class. Read the play.

    Characters: Benny, student, 14 years old

    Peter, students, 15 years old

    Susie, student, 14 years old

    Grace, student, 14 years old

    Time: One Sunday afternoon in autumn

    Place: Sunny Park

    (The four teenagers have just finished the picnic. They are tidying up.)

Benny: Wow! That was a great picnic. I'm so full that I can hardly move.

Grace: That's no excuse for not tidying up, Benny. Come over here and help me pack up the leftover food. Peter, can you put out the fire, please? And clean up the plate.

Peter: (Speaking unhappily to himself) How can I always get the dirty and difficult jobs?

    It's not fair.

    (Peter throws a bit of water on the fire. Then he picks up the ashes (灰烬) with an old newspaper and wants to throw them into the long grass. )

Susie: (Sounding surprised) What are you doing, Peter? That's d…

Peter: Whoops…the newspaper has caught fire.

Susie: And the grass… Benny, Grace, help! Help!

    (Benny and Grace come over quickly. They help put out the fire completely.)

Peter: Oh, no. What have I done?

Grace: You know that we should do everything carefully, don't you?

Peter: (With his head in his hands) Yes. What have I done? What have I done?

    Many kids help their parents with chores, such as doing the dishes, cleaning the living room and taking out the rubbish. And some kids get money or other rewards(奖赏) such as more computer time by doing chores.

    But some people do not think that kids should get rewards by doing chores. Susie Walton, an expert, believes that by rewarding kids, parents are sending a message that work isn't important unless you can get something. "Running any kind of family is a team work," Walton says. "A home is a living place for everyone in the family. It's important for kids to see that we all have responsibilities in the house."

    Other people believe that getting money or other rewards makes kids do chores happily and it also teaches them real world lessons about what we need to do to make money. There are also now apps(应用软件). With the Chore-Monster app, kids can get points and online gifts by doing chores. Kids can change them into real life rewards either online or in the real world. "We hope kids can do more chores so they can get more rewards," one man says.

    What do you think? Should kids get rewards for doing chores? Or should kids help do chores without getting anything?

    Write a 200-word reply and send it to us. The last day for reply is April 10^th. If you want to read more ideas about topic, you can click here.

    Once there was a small hotel whose keeper was always caring about money.

    One day, a businessman arrived. The keeper looked at the man's thick wallet and thought, "Oh, I wish that all the money could be mine!" The businessman didn't notice that, so he ordered the most expensive room and went to his room to dress for dinner.

    Around the hotel, there were some beautiful ginger(姜) plants. Many people said that eating the buds(芽) of ginger would make a person forgetful.

    The keeper thought, "If I serve some buds of ginger to the businessman, he may be forgetful to take his wallet!" Then she went to the kitchen.

    Soon, businessman came downstairs and asked for dinner. The keeper was very excited as she served the dish to him. "Delicious!" said the rich man. When dinner was finished, he went to bed happily.

    In the next morning, the keeper saw the businessman leaving from the front door. As soon as he was out of sight, she ran up to his room. She looked all over the room for the wallet, but she couldn't find it. Suddenly, she noticed a piece of paper on the floor. It was the businessman's bill(账单). He had forgotten to pay it! She ran down the stairs, out of the front door, and across the road until she was out of breath, but the businessman was already far, far away. "I'm so silly!”" cried the keeper.

    Tony is a student aged 15. He and his parents are going to travel around Beijing this summer. Below is some information that they have got.

    Sun bears(马来熊)are the smallest of the world's eight bears species(物种). They have a black coat and a white or golden colour on their bodies. Their homes are in the tropical(热带雨林)of Southeast Asia. They live in trees and eat both plants and animals. They can grow to be 1.4 metres in height and 65 kilograms in weight. They usually live alone and are happy to spend most of their time by themselves.

    Scientists studied sun bears in the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Center. They found that although sun bears live alone, they have developed a surprising social skill. They can copy (模仿) other sun bear's facial expression (面部表情) as a form of communication. They can even copy exact muscular (肌肉的) movements that other sun bears make— such as making a face.

    The ability to copy facial expressions is found in humans, gorilla's (大猩猩), some monkeys and some other animals. But until now, only humans and gorillas have the ability to exactly copy facial expressions. However, scientists found that sun bears can copy facial expression as well as humans and gorillas. This surprised them because sun bears are alone and they have no close relationship with human beings.

    Although they live alone in the wild, the sun bears in the study often played gently with each other. Sometimes they played with faster actions as hitting and biting. Scientists are still not sure what messages the sun bears were sending to one another.

    People all over the world eat eggs. Most of the eggs we eat come from hens. Eggs are easy to cook. They can be cooked in lots of ways such as fried or hard-boiled. Eggs can be used with other things to make cakes and ice-cream.

    Every day there is less and less space on Earth for rubbish. Yet every day we make more and more rubbish. What can we do? We can recycle some of our rubbish. Recycling means that the rubbish will be made into something that can be used again.

    Recycling helps Earth. And it saves space in rubbish dumps. Half of everything that we put into landfills could be recycled instead. In fact, most things made of paper, metal, glass and plastic can be recycled.

    Paper can be broken into small pieces and made into new paper. Steel and aluminum cans(金属雄)can be melted down(熔化)and made into new cans. The same is true of glass bottles. This can be done over and over again. Recycling doesn't take as much energy as making these things the first time. So we can use less of Earth's fuel resources.

    Plastic can be melted down, too. Then it can be formed into park benches, playgrounds and so on. Some people call plastic the "wood" of the future. Things made of plastic will last about 400 years-even if they stay outside in the weather. No wood can do that!

Athletics vs. Gardening

    The students of Southside School were asked to give their opinions about whether the school should run an athletic program or start a vegetable garden.

School holiday activities at the library

    Perhaps the only test score that I remember is the 55 I got when I was in high school.

    The test was the last one of the term. I remember waiting nervously as my teacher Mr. Right gave out our papers one after another. It was a rather difficult test. I heard my classmates groaning(叹息),and I could guess by the groans that the scores were not looking good.

    Mr Right put my paper on my desk. There in big red numbers, circled to catch attention, was my score, 55! I let my head go down, and covered the score up quickly. A 55 is not something that you wanted your classmates to see. "The scores were not very good, none of you passed," Mr Right said. "The highest score in the class was a 55."

    A 55. That's me! Suddenly I didn't feel so bad. I had the highest score. I was getting a little better.

    I walked home alone that day with the low but high score. My mother knew that I had a big test that day and asked me as soon as I got home, "How did you do in your test? ""I got 55, "I said. A frown (皱眉) appeared on my mother's face I knew I had to explain at once. "But Mum, I had the highest score in the class," I said proudly. "You failed, Dave!" my mother replied. "But it's the highest!" I insisted (坚持). "I don't care what scores others had, you failed. The important thing is what you do!" my mother said in a strong way.

    For years, my mother was always in that way. She didn't care what others did, only cared what I did and that I did it excellently. My mother's words have made a big difference to my life.

    A young woman traveled and stayed in a hotel. All the rooms in the hotel were singles(单人间). So she lived in a single room.

    Just when she was going to bed, there was a knock at the door. She had no friends in the city. So she was quite surprised but still opened the door.

    The man who was standing at the door looked a little nervous. "Oh! I'm sorry. I thought this was my room," the man said and walked away in a hurry.

    The woman called the police at once. Soon, the man was caught. He was a thief(小偷)! But how did the woman know that?

    All the rooms in the hotel were singles. Who would knock at his own door if he was staying alone? Only a thief would do this. He wanted to see if anyone was inside before he broke into the room.

Sing a Song of People

    by Lois Lenski