My uncle has a very beautiful umbrella. He's had it for years. As he is very careful with it, so it still looks as good as new.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}He shook his head. "Then how did you get it?" I asked. "Well," he answered, "there's a strange true story about the umbrella. About ten years ago, I was walking along a quiet London street one evening when it suddenly rained. I had no raincoat or umbrella.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} And the people in the streets were fewer and fewer. As I was on my way to a party, I was afraid to get wet. So I stood in a doorway and waited for the rain to stop.

{#blank#}3{#/blank#} What was worse, there even wasn't a person around, and still it rained and rained. At last a young man came to the place where I was standing.{#blank#}4{#/blank#} As I hoped he would allow me to walk to the next corner with him, where I could get a taxi, I stepped out of the dark doorway where I had been standing.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} As I suddenly appeared before him, the young man was so shocked that he dropped the umbrella. He ran away and disappeared into the darkness. I picked up the umbrella and continued my walk. I knew it would be hard in this big city to find the owner, so I've kept it ever since."

    Alice Brown lives in New York with her mum and dad and two brothers, Tony and Peter. It is Alice's fourteen birthday next week. The family has got two dogs, a cat and four rabbits. Alice likes cats and rabbits but her brothers like dogs. Alice's dad works in a hotel. He's a hotel manager. Her mum teaches English at a junior high school.

    Alice and her brothers study at the same school, but they are in different grades. She's in Grade Seven. Her brother Tony is in Grade Ten and Peter is in Grade Six. They live in a flat near the school. They walk to school together every day.

    Alice is interested in computers. At home she plays computer games in her free time.

    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.

    The story of Robinson Crusoe is known all over the world. The story is about the life of a real person. His name was Alexander Selkirk.

    Selkirk was born in 1676 in Scotland. His father made shoes and clothes, but Alexander didn't want to work in his father's shop. He wanted to sail a ship on the sea.

    When Selkirk was 28 years old, he was sailing on the Pacific Ocean. The ship was in a bad state. Selkirk was worried. "This ship is not safe!" he thought. He told the captain that he wanted to get off. The captain didn't like Selkirk, so he agreed. The ship took Selkirk to a small island.

    Selkirk took a few things from the ship: a gun, an axe, and a few clothes. Then the ship left, and Selkirk was alone. There were no people or houses on the island. He was more than 600 kilometres from the nearest country, Chile.

    He found a cave near the beach and this became his home for the first few months. In the day time, he had to leave the cave and find some food. He usually ate fish and other small sea animals. At night, he heard strange noises from the trees. He thought that there were wild animals on the island that could hurt him. He was afraid and didn't want to leave for the beach. He stayed in his cave. He was very lonely.

    One day, when he woke up，he saw hundreds of sea lions on the beach. He couldn't get to the sea, so he couldn't catch any fish. He had to look for food on another part of the island. He was still afraid of the wild animals, but he was hungry! He had to go out in order not to be hungry.

    Alice is an American school girl. She is now in Beijing with her parents. She doesn't know Chinese, but she is trying to study and speak it. She often tries to speak Chinese to her Chinese friends. Sometimes they don't understand her, because she can't speak Chinese well.

    It's Saturday morning. Alice goes out. She is going to see the flowers show. But she doesn't know how to get there. She asks an old Chinese man. The old man doesn't understand her. Then she takes out a pen and some paper. She draws flowers on it and then gives the picture to the old man, companying with a body gesture (肢体动作). The old man smiles and shows her the right way to the flowers show. Finally, she walks for about 15 minutes and gets to the flowers show. The flowers are so beautiful that Alice likes them very much. And she also buys one bunch of flowers for her mother and two cards for her father.