Peter Owen has been making wigs (假发) since the 1980s. He has made wigs for the stars of more than seventy movies, including Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow, and Nicole Kidman in The Others. One of his biggest jobs so far has been designing the hair and make-up(化妆) for the three Lord of the Rings movies. He had just six weeks to design and make more than a hundred wigs, each one a different style, colour, shape and length.

    The hair and make-up in a movie are just as important as the costumes(戏装) or the sets. Over the years, Peter has made actors look older, younger, healthy and sick. For one movie he even made a female actor look like a man!“What people don't realize about wigs is that we are not always making people more beautiful,” he says. “Often we are covering up beauty and making them look ordinary.”

    All Peter's wigs are hand-made using human hair, so they look as real as possible. This also makes them very expensive―between US$4,500 and US$12,500 each! He knows he's done a good job when people don't realize the star of the movie is wearing a wig. So he was pleased when one newspaper said that Nicole Kidman had dyed（染色） her hair dark brown for a movie. “It was a wig and no one knew that,” he says.

D

    Linda was Tara's best friend before, but now things are different. Tara is a member of Purple Girls Club and they have some rules about who they can be friends with. Linda isn't very pretty and doesn't wear cool clothes. So she can't be in their club. Now Tara is making a name list for her party, and she decides not to invite Linda.

    “Tara, come here.” her mother calls from the living room. Tara goes to her mother and sees the school report card in her hands.

    “Tara, what's the matter with you? You have failed(不及格)math and English and you did badly in all of your other subjects. You were such a good student before!”

    Tara sees the disappointment in her mom's eyes. She feels terrible. The activities of Purple Girls Club leave her very little time for studies. The girls get together almost daily for movies, shopping and surfing the Internet. She calls every friend in the club and asks them to help her. But they all refuse(拒绝）and say, “Who cares about studies now?” This makes Tara even sadder.

    Later, Tam's mom takes her to Linda's house across the street. Tara says sorry and Linda is glad to have her friend back. She happily helps Tara with her studies.

    Tara now has a new rule for friendship and it is that a friend that lends a helping hand is a true friend.

    Here is a story told an American general (将军) who was a very important figure in the American army during the First World War. Everybody in the Untied States knew him and many people wished to have a picture or something of his in their homes. Soon after the war the general returned to Washington. One day he went to a dentist (牙医) and had six teeth pulled out. A week later the general heard that his teeth were being sold in curiosity shops (古玩店) at $5 each. On each of the teeth there was a label (标签) with the name of the general and words, “Buy these teeth and show them to your friends at home.” The general got angry. He rushed to his office and ordered six officers to go around the city and buy all his teeth. The officers went out and visited every curiosity shop in the capital. They were away from the office all day. In the evening they returned and put on the table in front of the general the teeth they had bought. They had collected 175 teeth.

    Nearly all students want to have a good memory so that they can study well. Yan Jiashuo, a young girl, is quite lucky. She has received the honor of "International Master of Memory". About 300 people have been honoured as masters. Yan Jiashuo is the youngest among them.

    Yan Jiashuo always has a good memory. And the good memory comes from good training. When she was 4 years old, her parents asked her to recite ancient poems and books. She has practised a lot. So when she is at school, it is easy and quick for her to recite texts in class. What's more, she loves reading. When she was in the third grade, she could read one book a day.

    Yan Jiashuo is good at not only Chinese, but also maths. For her, numbers are not boring at all. She can make up stories with these numbers. She compares remembering a lot of numbers to watching a movie. Every group of two numbers is imagined to be a picture of the story. And these pictures are made up into a movie in her mind. She said everyone could have a good memory by training and there were plenty of ways to train your memory.