Once upon a time there was a baby eagle（鹰）living in a nest on a cliff（悬崖）. The baby eagle liked the nest. It was the only world he had ever known. It was warm and comfortable. Many times each day the mother would swoop down from the sky and land in the nest and feed the baby eagle delicious food. She was like a god to him he had no idea where she came from or how she worked her magic.

    The baby eagle was hungry all the time, but the mother eagle would always come just in time with the food. The baby eagle grew strong. The mother wanted him to try flying and getting the food out of the nest. But the baby eagle was afraid to do it. The mother eagle flew away and stopped coming to the nest. The baby eagle cried and cried. But there was no one there to hear him. Two days later, the mother eagle appeared at the top of the mountain cliff with a big bowl of delicious food and she looked down at her baby.

    The mother said, “Here is some very delicious food, all you have to do is come to get it.”

   “Come to get it!” said the baby, with much anger. “How?”

    The mother pushed him out of the nest. The ground rushed closer, faster and faster. Something strange happens. He looked down and saw the sky. He wasn't moving towards the ground anymore, his eyes were pointed up at the sun.

   “Hug?” he said. “What's going on here!”

   “ You're flying,” his mother said.

   “This is fun!” laughed the baby eagle.

The Man of Many Secrets

    Harry Houdini was one of the greatest American entertainers(表演者·演艺人员) in the theater this century. He was a man famous for his escapes－from prison cells(囚室), from wooden boxes floating in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

    Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had ability to move his toes as well as to move his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in a New York club. They called themselves the Houdini brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant, but for a long time they were not successful. Then Harry performed his first prison escape, in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspaperman to watch. It was the publicity(名声) that came from this that started Harry Houdini's success.

    Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs(手铐) and toes trained to escape from ankle chains（脚镣）, but his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck－and a small skeleton key（万能钥匙）, which is a key that fits many locks passed quickly from her mouth to his.

    Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local jail of every town he visited. In the afternoon the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? Worldwide fame, and a name remembered today.

    Jim, a young farmer, was once put into prison (监狱).

    One day, he got a letter from his mother. "I'm so worried about our farm," she wrote. "It's time to plant potatoes. I can't dig(挖) all the fields by myself. "

    Jim read the letter and became sad. "What can I do?" he thought. Then he had a good idea. He wrote to his mother, "Don't dig the fields. There's a pot of money in the earth. Don't plant potatoes until I come home."

    Some days later, Jim got another letter from his mother. It said, "Two days ago, about ten men came to our farm and dug all our fields. I can't understand it. It looks as if they were looking for something. What shall I do?"

    Jim smiled when he read his mother's letter. He wrote a letter to his mother at once. It was very short. Guess what it would say?

    Kacey Tucker is a 17-­year­-old girl. Her dad works in Saudi Arabia, so she and her family live there. Kacey usually rides her horse (马) to school.

    "I have two horses there, Jacob and Donald，" she says. "My sister, Melissa rides them now. "

    Kacey finishes all her middle school classes. She wants to go to a university (大学) in America. "I want to ride a horse to my school in America，" says Kacey. "And my cousin's university has a really clean and big barn (畜棚). " So Kacey joins her cousin's university. Kacey's cousin Amy is 18 years old. She's a university student in America.

    Kacey buys a horse in America. His name is Winston, and Kacey takes the horse to the university. She can ride the horse after school every day.