B

      Bill sells Coca-Cola all over the world. Last week, he returned from the Middle East.   

       A friend asked, "How was your business with the Arabs?" "Too bad," Bill said in a sad voice. Then he explained, "When I got to the Middle East, I was very confident that I would have a good sale as Coca-Cola is well known around the world. However, I had a problem - I don't know how to speak Arabic. So I made some nice posters to help sell Coca-Cola. There are three pictures in each poster. In the first picture, a man is crawling (爬行) through ahot desert sand. He is terribly tired and thirsty. In the second one, the man is drinking our Coca-Cola with a big mouth. In the third one, he is smiling happily. Soon such posters were seen."

      "That's a good idea," said the friend. "Well, it should," Bill answered. "But I didn't know that Arabs usually read from right to left."

The Man of Many Secrets

    Harry Houdini was one of the greatest American entertainers(表演者·演艺人员) in the theater this century. He was a man famous for his escapes－from prison cells(囚室), from wooden boxes floating in rivers, from locked tanks full of water. He appeared in theaters all over Europe and America. Crowds came to see the great Houdini and his “magic” tricks.

    Of course, his secret was not magic, or supernatural powers. It was simply strength. He had ability to move his toes as well as to move his fingers. He could move his body into almost any position he wanted.

Houdini started working in the entertainment world when he was 17, in 1891. He and his brother Theo performed card tricks in a New York club. They called themselves the Houdini brothers. When Harry married in 1894, he and his wife Bess worked together as magician and assistant, but for a long time they were not successful. Then Harry performed his first prison escape, in Chicago in 1898. Harry persuaded a detective to let him try to escape from the prison, and he invited the local newspaperman to watch. It was the publicity(名声) that came from this that started Harry Houdini's success.

    Harry had fingers trained to escape from handcuffs(手铐) and toes trained to escape from ankle chains（脚镣）, but his biggest secret was how he unlocked the prison doors. Every time he went into the prison cell, Bess gave him a kiss for good luck－and a small skeleton key（万能钥匙）, which is a key that fits many locks passed quickly from her mouth to his.

    Harry used these prison escapes to build his fame. He arranged to escape from the local jail of every town he visited. In the afternoon the people of the town would read about it in their local newspapers, and in the evening every seat in the local theater would be full. What was the result? Worldwide fame, and a name remembered today.

    Morning，everyone．I'd like to tell you something about my two friends in other schools．

    Luo Bin is twelve years old and he is tall and strong．He likes sports and football is his favourite．He often plays it wim his ffiends in the playground on Saturday afternoon.But he wasn't in the playground last Saturday afternoon．He was in a bookshop with his sister Luo Yuan．Some books about sports and health were on sale there．

Tian Ping is a twelve-year-old girl．She is good at drawing animals and tigers are her favourite．She likes to watch the tigers in the zoo．So she often goes to the zoo with her brother Tian Yong on Saturday.TianYong likes monkeys best．But Tian Ping was at a party last Saturday afternoon.It was a birthday party for her classmate Shen Hong.Many of thier classmates were there.Tian Ping was happy to enjoy the delicious chocolate cake．

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    Who were your best friends five years ago? Is there anyone you would really like to see again? In 1999, Julie Pankhurst, a computer programmer from London, was thinking about her past-and especially the people she used to go to school with.

    Julie looked on the Internet for a website to help her find her old school friends. But there was nothing. So Julie and her husband, Steve, started their own website. They called it Friends Reunited.

    The site grew slowly at first, but soon they received their first "thank you" email. The man wrote, "Thank you so much. Using your website, I found an old friend from thirty years ago！"Julie and Steve were very excited about this and continued to improve their website. By the end of 2000, there were 3,000 members.

    The next year was really hard work for the couple.

    In January, a national radio station mentioned their website. Their membership doubled in one week! People were talking about the website all over the country, and it became a full-time job for Julie and Steve. In a year, they had four million members!

    Now, over fifteen million people in lots of different countries use Friends Reunited to find old school friends, work colleagues and neighbors. Some of the stories which people tell Julie and Steve are amazing. For example, David Webster lost his memory in a car crash. He used the website to find old school friends, and they helped him remember his past.

    Julie's simple idea gave us a national obsession（痴迷）-getting in touch with old friends and hearing their news. And it made her and Steve very rich in 2005, they sold Friends Reunited for ￡120 million!

    How much pocket money do you get from your parents every month? Maybe 200 yuan. But for Li Beibei, 30 yuan each month is enough. The only thing she buys is lunch-1.5 yuan each day." Meat is too expensive for me, "said Li.

    Li, 14, is a Junior 1 student at Beijing's Xingzhi Experimental School. Her parents are migrant workers(外来务工人员).They came to Beijing from a village in Luohe, Henan two years ago. Her father now works as a cleaner and gets 500 yuan every month. Her mother has no job.

    Li Beibei has 460 friends at Xingzhi. Every day, Li gets up at 5:30 a.m. and rides her bike for 20 minutes to get to school. Like many teens, Li has a lot of homework-usually at least one hour every day. But that is not all her work. During the weekdays she helps her mum cook. At weekends, she helps wash clothes." I could cook when I was eight. Dad said sometimes I cook better than Mum！"Li said she wanted to be a doctor." I watch TV and find out there are many people with AIDS in He'nan. Some are kids. They need help," said Li.

    But she is afraid to leave school." I hope I will always be in school, "said Li." Dad works hard to get money. I promise him I will study hard to be a good student and a good doctor in the future."