Tom and his cousin took a boat trip. When they got on the boat, every passenger(乘客)should answer the keeper a question. If the passenger answered "yes", he or she got one gift; if the passenger answered "no", he or she got two gifts. Tom and his cousin saw all about this. Now it was their turn. The keeper came up to them and asked, "Are you a good sailor?" Tom wanted to get two gifts, so he answered "no" loudly, at the same time he said, "I have never been a sailor, how could I be a good sailor?" The keeper gave him two gifts. His cousin gave the same answer, so he got two gifts, too.

    The boat started off. The passengers began to open their gifts. Tom and his cousin did the same. They found that one of the two gifts was a small bottle of drinking water, the other was a seasick tablet(晕船药). Tom had a look at a "yes"-passenger's gift. His was a nice chocolate. Tom shouted at the keeper, "We are never seasick. Why do you give us seasick tablets? "

      Campbell Remess, a 12-year-old boy from Tasmania, has an unusual hobby—sewing(缝纫). He makes teddy bears, and gives them to children at the local hospital. “If Campbell could be on that sewing machine for 24 hours, he would,” said his mother, Sonia.

      Campbell is one of nine children, so when he had the idea of giving Christmas presents to kids in hospital, the only choice was to make them himself. “First, I took a lot of practice,” said Campbell. “ I haven't sewn anything before.” He downloaded patterns from the Internet and learned by trial and error （反复试验）. At first, a bear took him five hours to make, but now it only takes him an hour to make a bear.

      Campbell visits the hospital every Thursday, giving out new bears and visiting kids whom he's given gifts before. “He looks at sadness and tries to turn it upside down,” Said Sonia.

      There has been sadness in his family, too. Five years age, his father Nathan had cancer. Even though he received the medical treatment, there was still an 80-percent recurrence rate（复发率）. “When we discovered Dad had cancer, we all felt very upset.,” said Campbell. “As a result, the cancer got worse with stress. So I made my first bear, hoping that Dad could be free from cancer.

      Since Nathan got the bear,   ▲    It's the longest period he has been free from cancer.“ there's a little magic in it,” said Nattan. “ A lot of magic in Campbell though.”

      Campbell explained his project with this: “ I think being kind will change the world.”

    My name is Mike. I live in America now. I am a twelve-year-old junior high school student. I go to school on foot every day because my house is close to my school. We have four classes in the morning.

    Each class lasts 40 minutes. The first class starts at 8:00 a. m. There is a ten-minute break between two classes. I study hard and do well in Maths, English and Science. Of all my subjects, I like Science best. I want to be a scientist in the future.

    Most of my classmates have lunch at school, but I usually eat lunch at home. After lunch, I can rest for half an hour. Afternoon classes begin at 2: 30 p. m., and end at 4: 50 p. m. We usually study PE, Art and Music in the afternoon.

    I like playing the piano very much. I often have an hour's piano practice after school. I always have a good time at school.

As the spring comes, the world comes back to life. Chinese people call this time Jingzhe, or the Awakening of Insects. It's one of the 24 solar terms (节气) in the Chinese lunar calendar. When Jingzhe comes, it begins to thunder(打雷) and everything in the nature begins to 1 . As the temperature rises and more rain starts to fall, insects appear. Not just insects, 2 also show changes—grass breaks ground and out, flowers 3 .

Chinese farmers put a high value on Jingzhe, 4 it means the start of spring plowing (春耕). Farmers gets even 5 than before. They are busy plowing fields.

Here are some fun 6 about Jingzhe. In some old Chinese stories, a white tiger, always bites (咬) people during Jingzhe. People draw the white tiger on paper, and then put some meat in its mouth. The purpose of 7 the white tiger is to prevent the tiger from biting people. Peope in some areas eat pears on Jingzhe. Pears are sweet and juicy. They think 8 eating pears can stop us coughing. What's more, it is said that the god of thunder beats his 9 to make spring thunder during Jingzhe. To 10 him, people on the earth also beat the drums.

When I was fourteen, I made my first visit to the United States. It wasn't the first time I had been abroad. Like most English children, I learned French at school. And I had often been to France, so I was used to speaking a foreign language to people who didn't understand French. I believed that I wouldn't have any 1 problems when I went to America. So I was really looking forward to having a nice easy holiday there.

How2 I was! The misunderstanding (误解) began at the airport. I was looking for a public telephone to call my friend Danny who had been in America for two years and told her that I had arrived. A friendly old man saw me looking confused and asked if he could 3 me.

"Yes," I said, "I want to give my friend a ring."

"Well, that's nice," he said. "Are you getting married? But aren't you a bit too 4 ?"

"Who is talking about marriage?" I replied. "I just want to give my friend a ring to tell her I've arrived. Can you tell me 5 the phone box is?"

"Oh! I see. " he said, "There's a phone downstairs."

When Danny and I met up, she explained the misunderstanding to me. Then I knew "Give somebody a ring" could mean deciding to get engaged or marry someone else. I felt shamed for myself.

"Don't worry," she said to me. "I had so many difficulties at first. There are lots of words which the Americans use differently in meaning from the British. You'll soon 6 all the funny things they say. Most of the time British and American people understand each other!