Deisha walked up and down as she waited backstage. This would be her most important piano performance yet. At ten years old, she was the youngest performer in the recital (音乐演奏会). She had practiced playing her song more than 30 times that week. When she closed her eyes at night, the music played over and over again in her head.

    Now that the day had arrived, Deisha was not sure she was ready. She smoothed her hair and picked a piece of lint (绒毛) from the new dress that her mother had bought for her. She noticed that her hands were shaking. How could she play the notes of the song if her hands were shaking? She tried to concentrate on steadying (稳住) them, but they only shook more.

   Deisha's piano teacher, Ms Neal, walked up to speak to her. “I have something for you,” she said, putting a smooth black stone into Deisha's hand. “It's a special stone. There's no other one like it in the world. You've practiced so much, you don't need anything else.”

   The stage lights reflected off the rock. “Thank you,” Deisha said.

   When Deisha's name was called, she rubbed the stone, stepped onto the stage, and played better than ever. After her performance, she noticed that Ms Neal had a whole bag of black stones. “Why did you say this one was so special?” she asked.

   Her teacher responded, “Because, like your talent, it belongs only to you.”

    One day, some tourists came to a hotel but there were only two rooms left. One was on the fourth floor and the other was on the seventh floor.

    "We Chinese like the number 8. 8 means we will get rich. We also like 9 because it means we can live long. But we don't like the number 4 because it sounds like 'death' in Chinese. I think if we sleep on the fourth floor, we may die?

    The Greeks said,"We want the room on the fourth floor." In Greece, 4 is a lucky number.

    The South Korean said, "We don't like number 4 or 13. 4 sounds like 'death', and 13 is an unlucky number in the west." The tourists from the west said, "Oh, we love number 7. There are seven days in the world as it says in the Bible(圣经).We don't like the number 13. It is an unlucky number. If we sleep on the 13th floor, oh…"

    "In Japan, 4 sounds like 'death', so we don't like it. And 6 is also not welcome. There isn't the fourth floor or the sixth floor in the tall buildings in our country. However, we like 7 very much", said the Japanese.

    At last, only the Greeks lived on the 4th floor, and the rest slept on the 7th floor.

    A farmer had a cow. He took very good care of this cow and one day when it was ill, he was very worried. He telephoned the vet.

    "What's the problem?" The vet asked him when he arrived.

    "My cow's ill," the farmer said. "I don't know what's the matter with her. She's lying down and won't eat. She's making a strange noise."

    The vet looked over the cow. "She's certainly ill," he said, "and she needs to take some very strong medicine."

    He took a bottle out of his box, put two pills into his hand and said, "Give her these. The pills should make her better."

    "How should I give them to her?" the farmer asked.

    The vet gave him a tube (管子)and said, "Put this tube in her mouth, then put the pills in the tube and blow. That'll make it."

    The next day the vet came to the farm again. The farmer was sitting outside his house and looked more worried.

    "How's your cow?" the vet asked.

    "No change," the farmer said, "and I'm feeling very strange myself."

    "Oh?" the vet said, "Why?"

    "I did what you said," the farmer answered. "I put the tube in the cow's mouth and then put two pills down it."

    "And?" the vet asked.

    "The cow blew first," the farmer said.

    Terry Fox was only seventeen when he got a cancer (癌症). He must have felt hopeless when the doctor said his right leg would have to be cut off 6 inches above the knee.

    But to everyone's surprise, Terry Fox made up his mind to become a long-distance runner and do something about the cancer. What a dream!

    Although it seemed impossible, Terry decided to run across the whole country. He hoped to raise one million dollars for cancer research. Few believed he would make it. Anyway, on April 12, 1980, Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope. For the first days of his marathon, Terry Fox was alone. He started running at 4:30 am. Day by day, people began to realize that something big was happening on the lonely road. As people saw Terry, they stopped and donated (捐赠) money for cancer research.

    However, his health took a rapid turn for the worse several months later. He had to give up his marathon on September 1, 1980. Terry died three months later, at the age of 22. In his short life, he raised $24 million for cancer research—one dollar for each person in his motherland.

    Since his death, the yearly Terry Fox Run, first held in 1981, has grown to be the world's largest one-day fundraiser (筹资活动) for cancer research.