Washing the Apples

    Mrs. Smith has a shop in the town. There are all kinds of fruit in her shop. She's friendly to the customers and never fools^① anyone. So the customers like to buy fruit in her shop, and she gets more and more money.

    One day, the apples she sold were all fresh and nice. She remembered her son Steve liked them best, so she brought some home for her son. After lunch, she went out and left the apples on the table. That afternoon Steve came back from school, he felt very hungry. He looked for something to eat and found some apples on the table. “Great! They are my favorite.” he cried and ate a lot. Mrs. Smith got home after she closed her fruit shop. When she saw Steve, she asked him, “Did you have the apples? ” Her son answered, “Yes. And I ate lots of them.” “Did you wash them? “Oh, I forgot. I was too hungry^②. What should I do? ”

    A few minutes later, Mrs. Smith found her son kept on drinking water.

    “Are you thirsty? Why are you drinking so much water?” asked the mother.

    “No, Mom.” answered the boy, “I want to wash the apples in my stomach with the water.”

    One day, the Earth was very sick. He felt so bad that an earthquake happened. After the earthquake, it rained every day. Then the Sun told him to go to the hospital.

    The Moon looked at the Earth and said, "Look! Your skin should be the blue sea and the green land, but it is turning more and more yellow… "

    "It is the desert," the Earth said.

    The Moon put on her glasses and looked at him carefully. She saw that some people were cutting down trees near the desert.

    "I'll make these trees into chairs and beds. I'm going to get married in a few days," a young man said happily.

    "I want to make a wonderful piece of art with this tree," an artist with long hair said.

    "I'm too poor and I have a big family. I need to sell these trees to make money," an old man said while cutting down the small trees.

    "Winter is coming! I need more wood to make my house warmer," an old woman said.

    At that moment, a truck came with giant machines. A group of men got off the truck.  They began to cut down the trees with the machines quickly. Soon, all the trees disappeared and the truck took them away.

    The Earth began to cry. The Moon was too surprised to do anything. The desert laughed at the Earth, "Ha! Ha! You have nothing to do with me!"

In a small town，there was a young boy named Ted. He was always curious about how things worked，and loved to take things apart（把……拆开）1 back together. Usually he succeeded，but sometimes he2 . Still，he enjoyed what he did. One day，while he3 his mother cook，he realized how hard it was to stir（搅拌） the sauce. He thought that there must be 4 way to do this，and he decided to think of a better way. 

Ted took out his tools and began to work. After a busy afternoon，he created a new invention. He took apart a broken wood mixer（搅拌器） and then connected a motor （电动机），it was able to stir things by itself 5 it got power from the motor. It was so convenient that anyone 6 stir the sauce easily and quickly. 

The next day，Ted showed his 7 to his mother. She was 8 and allowed him to spend more time improving it. He tried，failed and then tried again. Finally，he added some new ideas to make it even9 ，like a timer，so that the user could leave the tool on the table and not have to10 the sauce burning. 

11 mum's support，Ted decided to bring it to school and introduce it to his eight 12 schoolmates. Suddenly，Ted's invention became a big hit in his school. They used it 13 drinks or stir any kind of sauce at lunch，and it was also easy to clean and store. In School Science Festival，Ted even received 14 prize from the school principal for his creativity and intelligence. 

Perhaps not everyone can be an inventor. However，it is always meaningful to15 what you are really interested in and keep going like Ted. 

Mr. and Mrs. Green have three children. They are all girls. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Sue is fifteen, Rose is twelve and Kitty is eight. Their father, Mr. Green, is an English teacher. Their mother, Mrs. Green, is a nurse. They love their children very much.

Sue, Rose and Kitty all like fruit. But they don't like the same fruit. Sue likes apples. Rose likes pears and Kitty likes oranges. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Sue likes red. Rose likes yellow. And Kitty likes purple. They often have clothes in different colors. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

{#blank#}4{#/blank#} They call Sue "Apple", Rose "Pear" and Kitty "Orange". The children like their nicknames (绰号) very much. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Do you like their names?

A. They like different colors, too.

B. They are Sue, Rose and Kitty.

C. So you can know them from their clothes.

D. Now Mr. and Mrs. Green don't call their names at home.

E. They think the names are interesting.

My father was busy fixing Belinda's spaceship all afternoon. In the evening, I went to the landing place. "Dear Father," I said politely. "Have you found Belinda's parents yet?"

"Not yet, my dear." He shook his head.

I felt relaxed. I didn't want to meet Belinda's parents—they might be ten times as loud and bossy as she was.

But Belinda had followed me.

"Not yet?" she shouted. "Why not? I'll send them a message! They'll listen to me!"

Belinda ran to the radio. She shouted into it so loudly that I had to cover all my four ears. "Mummy! Daddy! I'm on an awful spaceship full of purple people! Come and find me now!"

"Poor Belinda!" my sister came and said. "Her parents must be missing her."

"Huh!" I snorted (发出哼声). "Missing her? You're joking! Who would want such a bossy kid back? They probably lost her on purpose."

Belinda's face clouded. I thought she was going to shout again, but she didn't. Instead, something very strange happened — her eyes began to water!

"Oh, help!" said Roa. "Is she dying?"

I felt terrible. "Don't die, Belinda! I didn't mean it."

Then Belinda opened her mouth wide and shouted, "What if it's true? What if they've gone away and left me here forever?"

We were all so busy comforting Belinda that we didn't notice the soft knock of a ship landing outside. We didn't see two tall people come out of it until Belinda ran out in excitement.

"Mummy! Daddy!"

Belinda's parents were even uglier than she was, but they looked polite. "Hello, dear," the female said. "We're sorry we kept you waiting."

We smiled as the three of them boarded their spaceship. "Goodbye!" shouted Belinda. "Goodbye! Thanks for taking care of our baby girl!" said her father.

None of us answered. We waved cheerfully as the ship took off and went far away into the stars.