When I was ten, my mother worked all day so I had to take care of my younger brother. At that time my little brother was about four years old and he missed mum all the time.

One day, after I had given him his dinner, he started crying for mum. He was so young and really needed mum. So I dressed him, put on his shoes, carried him on my back and walked out. Soon he fell asleep. About half an hour late, I found that he had lost a shoe while sleeping. I took him off my back and put him down. I knew we needed to find that shoe, for our mother couldn't afford new shoes. We had to go back to find it, so I told my brother to Wait right here. A man heard it and stopped me just before I walked off. He asked me, ”You are leaving your brother here to find the shoe? What would you do if he is not here when you return?" I did not know how to answer that question. He continued,It is OK if you can't find the shoe, but it is not OK to lose your brother.”Then he sent us to mum's workplace by taxi.

I have depended on the kindness of many strangers in my whole life. I feel regretful that I cannot find them and say thank you. I don't even remember what the man's face looked like, but he taught me a lesson—people are more important than things.

    It was just three degrees above zero. "That's cold," thought Jane as she got ready to deliver her morning papers. Jane had 50 customers, and on cold mornings when she couldn't ride her bicycle, it took her more than an hour to make her rounds. As she collected her papers and put them into a big canvas bag, Jane regretted that she hadn't finished her math homework the night before. There was still time. She'd hurry with the papers and finish the math before breakfast.

    Less than an hour later, Jane was nearly finished. She had only five customers to go. She could then head for home to complete her math while her room fixed breakfast. As she rounded the corner, she saw a car in the middle of the street. It was Mr. Zimmerman, the elder man, who walked with a walking stick. His car was out of gas. "I'd like to help Mr. Zimmerman," thought Jane, "but if I do, I won't have time to do my homework." She hated to think what Mr. Roberts would say if she hadn't completed her papers.

    "It's his own fault for running out of gas," Jane talked to herself. "The station is only a half mile down the street. Surely Mr. Zimmerman can walk that far, even on a cold morning like this — can't he?" As she walked down the street, Jane wondered what to do.

    Tom was a fat boy when he was ten. He liked watching TV very much. He watched TV at least 5 hours every day. Wherever(无论哪里) he went, he would be late.

    One day, he found a pair of special glasses in his post-box(邮箱). He also found a message saying, “With these you can see time.”

    The boy decided to have a try. He put the glasses on, looked at his brother, a tall and thin boy, and saw a big box of flowers on top of his head. And it wasn't just his brother. When he looked at his parents, he also saw the flowers. The three boxes were very large and the flowers were very beautiful. Then, he looked at himself from the mirror. He saw the flowers, too. But his flowers went to the mouth of the television. Its mouth was big. His flowers became fewer and fewer.

    At last, he learned that watching TV was a waste of time. He could learn nothing from it. He decided he would never again let the television eat his time.

    The Milu deer is a kind of animal with large horns (角). They used to be common in China a long time ago. They lived together and ate grass and the soft parts of trees. In the past, people did not protect the Milu deer but killed them for food or sport, so they disappeared from China.

    Fortunately, before all of them disappeared, the Duke of Bedford (贝德福特公爵) took some to Britain. The Milu deer liked the cool, wet weather in England and their number increased year by year. When in 1985 the government of China wanted to bring back the Milu deer, the Duke of Bedford could help. The first deer came back to China to the Nanhaizi Milu Park near Beijing and to Dafeng, Jiangsu Province.

    Since they returned to China, their number has grown quickly. There are now so many of them that a new park has been opened for them in Hubei Province. Now the Milu deer live in the wildlife parks and have good protection. We hope that one day they can live in the wild again.

    As a volunteer teacher, I traveled a long way to a small village school in Longzhou, Guangxi. On my way there, I thought about the village, the school, and the children there. However, my heart sank when I arrived there. It wasn't what I expected. It didn't look like a school at all! The school had only three rooms, one for Grades 1, 2 and 3, and the other for Grades 4, 5 and 6. There was a third one for me.

    The children welcomed me warmly on my first day. They asked me a lot of questions, and I told them stories about myself and my life in Beijing. The next day, I gave them a test to find out their level（水平）. To my surprise, though the test was very easy, over half of the students couldn't pass it. I knew they needed me.

    I was busy preparing lessons, reading test papers every night. I enjoyed teaching these lovely and hard-working children, and I could see that they were making progress with my help. I have also learned a lot from them. I understand their lives better, and we are now good friends.

    I have worked in Longzhou for a year now. I'm happy, and the experience has been very useful for me. I love the small village and the children. In fact, I would like to continue working here.

    Mr. Chen was puzzled（闲惑的）and a little suspicious（怀疑的）. He sat in the office and studied a letter apparently（看似）from Mrs. Wang, the mother of one of the pupils in his class. There was something about it which worried him.

    "I don't understand," he said to himself. He shook his head as he circled four mistakes in the letter. "Mrs. Wang is an educated woman. She wouldn't make mistakes like these even if she did write the letter in a hurry. "Mr. Chen took out his class register(名册)and said to himself, "Yesterday was Thursday. Let me see. Ah, yes. I thought so. David was absent on Thursday last week and the week before. Hm. Why is he so often absent on Thursdays? Was he really ill yesterday? Could it be a coincidence(巧合)?”

    Mr. Chen stared at the register as if the answers to his questions were hidden in it somewhere. Then he took out a copy of the timetable(课程表)for his class.

    "I wonder." he told to himself. "I wonder if his absence has anything to do with one of these lessons."

    Mr. Chen looked at the subjects for Thursday: Mathematics, English, P. E. He thought about P. E. He knew that the pupils had P. E. twice a week: once on Monday, when they usually played games on the school field, and once on Thursday, when they did exercises in the gym.

    Mr. Chen glanced round the office to find Mr. Long, the rather strict P. E. teacher, but he was not there.

    "I'd better have a chat with Long and David, "Mr. Chen thought.

The bell rang. "I can't do anything right now," Mr. Chen thought. "It's time to go to Class 2. I'll do it later on."

    Mr. Chen picked up his books and walked off to teach Class 2.

Later, on Friday, Mr. Chen spoke to Mr. Long, the P. E. teacher. Mr. Long agreed that it seemed strange for David to be absent so often on gym days. They thought about it for a while.

    "David is a good athlete(运动员)," Mr. Long finally said, "but he's afraid of heights. I was hard on him once because he wouldn't climb more than a couple of meters up the rope. Do you think that's why he's been absent recently?"

    "Yes, I think so," Mr. Chen said. "I'm going to talk to him this afternoon before he goes home."

    "Well, I've got a suggestion to make," said Mr. Long. "If he's scared of heights, he'd better come and see me after school. Quite a few people suffer from (遭受) vertigo. I'll be glad to help him."

    “That's very kind of you," said Mr. Chen. "I'll get him to come and see you on Monday or Tuesday."