Two hunters rented(租用) a small plane to fly them to a forest. They told the pilot to come back and pick them up in about two weeks. By the end of the two weeks， they had hunted a lot of animals and they wanted to put all of them onto the plane.

    But the pilot said， “This plane can only take one lamb. You'll have to leave the others behind.”

    Then one hunter said， “But last year， another pilot with the same plane let us take two lambs and some other animals onto the plane.”

    So the new pilot thought about it. Finally he said， “OK， since you did it last year， I think this year we can do it again.” Then they put all the animals they had hunted onto the plane， and the plane took off. Five minutes later， it crashed.

    The three men looked around， and one hunter asked the other one， “Where do you think we are now?”

     The other hunter looked around and said， “I think we're about one mile away from the place where the plane crashed last year.”

The story of the red-crowned crane

    Have you ever heard of the song "The story of the red-crowned crane"? It is about a girl called Xu Xiujuan.

    Xu xiujuan was born in Zhalong, Heilongjiang Province in 1964.Her father's job was to look after red-crowned cranes. Xiujuan started helping her father when she was young. She soon showed a great love for these white birds. She become good at raising them.

    When Xu Xiujuan was 21, she got a job at a nature reserve in Jiangsu Province . She enjoyed taking care of the baby cranes. If a bird become sick, she took good care of it stayed with it every day until it was strong enough to fly again.

    In September 1986, one of the birds went missing .The workers in the nature reserve looked everywhere, but no one could find it. Xiujuan was very worried. She looked for it day and night for two days. On the second night, while she was looking for the missing bird, she fell into a river and died. She was only 23.

    Later, a song was written in memory of Xiujuan. Though Xiujuan died young, people always remember her when they hear the song or see a red-crowned crane.

    It is very cold outside. There comes a black car and it stops in front of a supermarket. A young woman is in the car. She is very hungry and wants to buy a hamburger to eat, but she doesn't want to go out on a so cold morning. At that time she finds a little boy playing in the street

    "Come on, boy!" she says to the boy. "Do you know how much a hamburger is in the supermarket?"

    "Two dollars each," the boy answers.

    She gives the boy four dollars and asks him to buy two hamburgers. "One is for you and the other is for me," she says.

    Some minutes later, the boy comes back. He is eating a hamburger. He gives the young woman two dollars and says, "Sorry, there is only one hamburger left."

    My parents told me we were going camping during winter vacation. Camping! They are always trying to get me outside more. It seems like my mom is always saying, "Brian, turn off the computer!" or "Brian, put down your phone and talk to us!" They don't understand that I'm in the zone when I'm using a keyboard, so of course I don't want to stop.

    We drove for an hour to Everglades National Park. As soon as we got there, I couldn't get a signal(信号) for my phone. Suddenly, I was facing three days of no contact with the outside world. My mom tried to tell me I'd like it, "You'll be able to look around more when you're not staring at a screen."

    We took a hike with a ranger(护林者) in the afternoon. He explained a lot to us about the Everglades. At first, I couldn't care less, but after a while I started listening. By the end of the hike, I realized there was more action going on in the park than in most video games.

    We did a lot of walking and that night I was really tired. Even so, I woke up in the midnight, and I was scared at first because of some strange sounds. But then I realized it was the barred owl that the ranger had described. It sounded like it was calling out "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" Then I was not afraid anymore and went back to sleep.

    The next two days we did a lot more exploring. I saw that all the land and water and animals were connected in the Everglades. Small fish eat mosquito eggs; large fish eat those smaller fish; and alligators eat the large fish. If you got rid of(除掉) the mosquitoes, you might lose some of the other animals higher up the food chain too.

    After we left, we talked in the car about the Everglades. Right in the middle of our discussion, I heard a familiar sound from my phone. My friend Jeff was sending me a message. I reached for my phone, then put it back down. "Aren't you going to reply?" asked Mom.

    "I will in a little while," I said. My dad and mom looked at each other and just smiled.