We walked all afternoon with Infadoos and Scragga. Their men walked about a hundred metres ahead of us.

    “When did your people, the Kukuana, come to this place?”

    “They came from the north many thousands of moons ago,” Infadoos explained. “When they reached the mountains, they could go no farther. They stayed here where the land is good and there is water.”

    “Do you live here in peace?” I asked.

    “There have been two wars. Once an army came down from the north, but we killed most of them. Soon after that, we fought among ourselves.” He said, “The king at that time had two sons—twins. When he died, both young men wanted to be king. One of the twins, Twala, killed the other and became king.”

    “Did the dead man have a wife and children?” I asked. I knew that if he did, the fighting could start again one day.

    “Yes. He had a wife, Imotu, and a son, Ignosi. They ran away.” He pointed to a village a short way ahead. “That is the village where Imotu and Ignosi first hid,” he said. “We shall stay there tonight.”

    As soon as we were within a mile or so of the village, an army of men came out. As we passed them, they shouted a welcome.

    Their women were in the village. They stopped whatever they were doing to watch us pass by, but they were not rude. As soon as we were comfortable in a hut, they came with milk, honey, and cooked food.

    A young man brought a fat young ox which he killed and cut into pieces. We took a few pieces for ourselves and gave him the rest. We don't want them to think we were selfish.（选自《所罗门王的宝藏》，有删节）

    Karl was standing before the queen (女王). "You saved my horse," the queen said. "Now I want to give you a gift." The queen showed him two " boxes. In one box, there were lots of beautiful jewels (宝石), and in the other, there were two chickens.

    "Only one box can be yours," the queen said. "Make a wise choice (明智的选择)."

    "That's easy," Karl said. "I'll take the chickens." Some of the people around them laughed. They thought he made a foolish choice.

    "And why did you choose the chickens?" the queen asked. "Well, I don't know much about jewels," Karl answered. "But I do know about chickens. The chickens will give eggs to my family for a long time."

    The queen smiled. "The jewels you see are only colored glass (玻璃). The chickens are much more valuable ( 宝贵的)," she said. "You made a wise choice." Karl thanked the queen and got the box of chickens.

    "You are a smart man," the queen said. "I need a smart man to help take care of my horses. Would you like the job?" Karl smiled and said, "Yes. Thank you!"

    The job paid well. Now Karl's family could have a good life   all because of his choice.

    Joseph Sekar is 62 years old and he is in India(印度). He feeds thousands of parrots(鹦鹉) every day. And he has got himself another new and interesting name "birdman".

    Joseph always left small number of rice on the top of his house. The neighborhood parrots often came to eat them. One day two parrots flew in and Joseph fed them some rice. The birds not only returned the following day, but also brought along other hungry friends. Today between 2,000~4,000 beautiful parrots visit the birdman twice a day.

    Joseph does not feed the birds raw(生的) rice. He cooks the rice! This means that the amazing man usually gets up at 4:30 am every morning and spends over an hour making the breakfast for birds. He then puts the rice on 14 boards on the top of his house carefully.

The breakfast rush begins at about 6:00 am when the beautiful parrots fly in and continues until every last piece of the delicious rice is gone! The similar situation happens in the evening when the birds arrive at around 4:00 pm and stay for almost two hours. Not only the superman feeds them, but also takes in sick and hurt birds and nurses them back to health.

    Of course, feeding so many birds is not a cheap job. Joseph spends 40% of his income(收入) of $13 as a camera repairman on the meals every day. The superman says all of his actions come out of a feeling of love.

    Though Joseph has no plans to stop the action now, he does worry about what will happen to the beautiful birds as he gets older and is unable to go on.

When I was about fourteen , I had a lot of freckles(雀斑). I was so upset. I tried different ways to cover the freckles, but my mother would shake her head and say ,"▲"I felt sad hearing it .

My cousin Jessica had a peaches and cream complexion(白里透红的肤色) I couldn't help thinking that my life would be a lot different if I had a beautiful face too.

And then, in a magazine I found an advertisement(广告) for a freckle removal cream(祛斑霜) knew that I could afford it if I saved my money and I did . For three weeks I went to the mailbox every day exactly at the time the mail arrived.

Finally, I got the magical cream and I couldn't wait to try it on my face . Later that day I went to work on the farm. But if you apply it in the sun, it seems to make your skin worse. Instead of developing a clear complexion, you just get more and darker freckles.

By the end the day when I came back to the house, my family began to say things like," I have never seen you with that many freckles "When I saw myself in the mirror, I cried and hid in the bathroom .

When my grandfather came to see what was wrong with me I told him about the story of the freckle removal cream. Grandpa didn't understand, so I tried to explain why I didn't want to have freckles . He looked at me in surprise and said, "But my child, there are all kinds of flowers, and they are all beautiful." I said," I have never seen a flower with freckles ! "Then I ran back to my room.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, the first thing I saw was a tiger lily—a beautiful flower with freckles. I didn't know where Grandpa found it. Looking at it , I was lost in thought ...

Mark is my good friend. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}But he is in the UK with his parents for three years. 

{#blank#}2{#/blank#}So he gets up early and does morning exercises ( 锻 炼 ) , like running and playing basketball. He thinks playing basketball is really cool. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}After exercise, he has breakfast. For breakfast, he usually has eggs, milk and bread. At about 7:30, he goes to school. 

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}His favorite subjects are Chinese and history. He is busy every day. 

Every year, Mark and his parents go back to America on December 25th. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}You know it's the day of Christmas(圣诞节).