I have tried to write a ghost（鬼魂） story that won't make you unhappy with yourselves，with each other，with the seasons，or with me．I hope it haunts（飘荡） your houses pleasantly．

    By Charles Dickens One Christmas Eve，old Scrooge and Bob were working busily in his office．It was a cold，foggy day．The fog was so thick that the houses opposite were like ghosts．It was only three o'clock in the afternoon，but it was already quite dark．

    "Merry Christmas，Uncle!"cried a happy voice．It was Scrooge's nephew（侄子）．

    "Bah!"said Scrooge，"Humbug（骗人的话）!"

    "Christmas is a humbug？Surely you don't mean that，Uncle．"said his nephew．

    "I do，"said Scrooge．"Merry Christmas!What reason have you got to be merry？You're poor．"

    "OK，then，"replied the nephew cheerfully．"What reason have you got to be sad？You are rich．Don't be angry，Uncle!"said his nephew．

    "What else can I be？"answered the uncle，"I live in a world of fools!Merry Christmas!What's Christmas time to you？It's a time for paying bills without money？!It's a time for finding yourself a year older，but not richer．

    Everyone who goes around saying 'Merry Christmas' should have his tongue cut out．Yes，he should!"

    "Uncle!Please don't say that!"said the nephew．"I've always thought of Christmas time as a good time，a kind，and a charitable（慈善的）and happy time．And so，Uncle，Christmas has never put any gold or silver in my pocket，but I think it has done me good．And it will do me good．I'm sure．"

    Bob，standing in the corner of the room，applauded．He realized his mistake very soon，and went quickly back to his work，but Scrooge had heard him．

    "One more sound from you，Bob Cratchit，"said Scrooge，"and you'll celebrate Christmas by losing your job!"

    "Don't be angry with him，Uncle．Come and have dinner with us tomorrow．"said Scrooge's newphew．

    "No．"said Scrooge．

I'm sorry you don't want to celebrate Christmas．But I do．So a Merry Christmas，Uncle!"

    "Good afternoon!"said Scrooge．

    "And a Happy New Year!"said his nephew．

    "Good afternoon!"said Scrooge again．

    His nephew left the room．He stopped to wish Bob a Merry Christmas．And Bob replied，"A  Merry Christmas to you，too．"

    One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of building with a hat by his feet. He held a sign which said, "I am blind, please help me."

    There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words.

    Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Are you the one who changed my sign in the morning? What did you write?" The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way." What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it." Do you think the first sign and second sign were saying the same thing?

    Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.

    The first sign simply said the boy was blind, while the second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

    There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story. The first is: Treasure what you have. Someone else has less, Try your best to help those who need your help. The second is: Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way.

    Michelle Wie, from America, is like a lot of other young girls in many ways. She is a good student, and she likes reading, drawing, and computers. However, in some other ways, she is very different. She doesn't spend much time going out with friends or shopping or going to parties. She's very busy practising golf.

    Michelle Wie is the best woman golfer for her age in the world. She was born in 1989. In 1999, at the age of 10，she began to win games. At 13, she could hit the ball farther than most of the women in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). At 14, she showed she could hit the ball farther than most men.

    Wie began playing golf at the age of four. When she grew older, she played about four hours a day on weekdays and seven hours a day at weekends. Another thing that helped her was that she was tall. Now Wie is about six feet tall. She has the flexibility of a dancer and also is very strong. And it's clear that she loves the game.

    By the time Rihanna was seventeen, she had released(发行)her first album and had an international hit with her first single(单曲)Pon de Replay.

    Rihanna was born in Saint Michael, Barbados in 1988.She grew up there with her two younger brothers. As a child, she loved singing. She formed her first group with two friends from secondary school when she was just fifteen. In 2004 her friends introduced the group to American record producer Evan Rogers, who was on holiday in Barbados. Rogers thought Rihanna could be a big star in America, so she moved there aged sixteen to take up music after she finished school. Rihanna lived with Rogers and his wife. Then she worked for Def Jam Recordings and started working on her first album, Music of the Sun. It came out in 2005 and got into the top ten. Over 69,000 copies of the album were sold in the first week alone. It went on to sell over two million copies worldwide and Rihanna quickly became a big star. Her second album, A Girl Like Me, came out a year later and included the song SOS, which was her first number one hit in America. In 2007 Rihanna brought out her third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, which had more dance music than the first two albums.

    Rihanna sold more than fifteen million albums and forty-five million singles worldwide between 2005 and 2010, the most of any artist at the same time. However, she manages to find time for her charity work, too. She has performed in several concerts to raise money for charity and in 2006 she created her Believe Foundation to help sick children. She also took part in Gucci's activities to raise money for children in Africa.

    Daniel sat in the back seat of the car and he was very excited. It was his first trip to Disney World, and he couldn't wait to get there.

    At first it wasn't too bad. He played some car games with his brother Emmit and his parents. They played number games. They also read out all the letters on the license plates(牌照) from different states. Then Daniel felt bored and slept for a while. But he couldn't sleep for a long time, and they were still far away from Disney World.

    "Are we—"

    "No, Daniel." said his father." Please try to be patient. You chose(选择) the vacation place this year. We told you it would be a long trip."

    "Yeah, but this is so boring!" said Daniel.

    "I think Daniel is right," said Emmit."It's a boring trip."

    "You want to hear about a boring trip?" asked Dad." When I was about your age, Daniel, Grandma and Grandpa took your aunt Jan and me to Disney World. About halfway there, the car ran over a nail(钉子) and we got a flat tire(瘪了的轮胎).Luckily we had one more at the back of the car, but it took a long time to change the tire. So when we finally arrived at Disney World, it was already dark."