A five-day holiday can be very exciting for anyone. But a small thing can also make you feel really bad.

    One sunny day Mr. Li wanted to go to Hangzhou for a trip. He wanted to take a train because he would like to see the villages and rivers along the way. And it was not expensive. After he arrived at the train station, he waited for（等待）a long time. He had nothing to do, so he bought a book and read it. When the train came, he got on the train and sat down. About ten minutes later, a man came up to him and said, “Excuse me, sir. This is my seat.”

  “What?” Mr. Li said, looking at his ticket（票）.

  “Are you going to Chengdu?” the man asked.

  “No, I'm going to Hangzhou,” Mr. Li answered. And then he knew he got on the train by mistake.

   Luckily, he didn't miss the right train. All in all, it was not a good start.

    John likes chocolates(巧克力) very much, but his mother doesn't give him. They're bad for his teeth(牙齿), she thinks. But John has a very nice grandfather. The old man loves his grandson very much and sometimes he buys John some chocolates. Then his mother lets him eat them, because she wants to make the old man happy.

    On Sunday evening, it is John's seventh birthday. He says,” Please, God, make them give me a big box of chocolates for my birthday.” His mother says,” God can't hear you. Don't shout(喊叫).” “I know,” says the clever boy with a smile. “But grandfather is in the next room, and he can.”

    If you have no special plans for your holidays, why not spend your time helping others?

    Don't listen to people who say the young people today often think only of themselves. It's not true at all. More and more people in the USA volunteer to spend their school holidays working for others. And they don't do it for money. Here are some of their stories.

Alice Hamilton, 17

    I'm going to help the Forest Centre build new hiking paths in the mountains. It's going to be terrific—I'll spend the whole summer living in the tent and breathing the clean mountain air. I'm going to sleep under the stars. It'll be a nice sport, and I'll be able to do something good at the same time.

Jason Moore, 18

    This summer, I'm going to volunteer with Special House Program. They build good, low-cost houses and sell them to families that are not very rich. They'll teach me what to do, so I'll help people and also have a chance to learn how to build houses.

Trish Anderson, 16

    I'm going to teach kids who have trouble reading. I'll work for a program called Reading For Life. Every day, I'm going to help kids choose and read books that they like. I want to be a teacher and I love children and reading, so this is going to be a great experience for me.

    Mickey is a cheerful boy. No one can make him angry. And he never says anything bad about others. Even his teachers think he is so special.

    One afternoon, Mickey invited his favourite teacher, Mr Anthony, to have a cup of tea at home. On his bedroom door, the teacher was surprised to see hundreds of small colour cards.

    "Some friends at school think I never think badly of anyone," Mickey smiled, "but that's not true at all. In fact, I was easier to get angry than all the other kids years ago. Then my parents helped me start a card collection. With each little card I put on the door, I can easily forget the bad thing." It was true. On these cards, Mr Anthony could read "fool", "pain", "anger" and some other bad things. That day they talked about many other things, but Mr Anthony never forgot the small colour cards on the door.

    From then on, Mr Anthony began his own card collection. He also encouraged his other students to do so.

    Lily is from New York, the USA. She is ten. Now, she is in Shanghai No. 3 Middle School. She is in Class One, Grade Seven. Her phone number is 6678-6091.Dongdong is from Kunming. His English name is Tom. He is eleven. He is in Class Two, Grade Seven. His telephone number is 633-1890. They are not in the same class. They are good friends.