It's Sunday afternoon. It's my son's eighth birthday tomorrow. I go into a cake shop to buy a big birthday cake for him.

      When I get there, the shop is full of people. When I am looking for a cake, I find a little boy watching the cakes for a long time. He is in poor clothes. At last he picks a cake. Then he gives money to the salesgirl and says to her, “I want the small cake.”

  “Sorry, the cake is 20 yuan, but you only pay 10 yuan.” says the salesgirl.

  “I …I have no more money.” says the little boy and he begins to cry. “Oh , my boy. Who would you like to buy the birthday cake for?” I ask.

 “My mom, madam.”

“Why doesn't she come and buy one?”

“My father left us a few years ago,” the boy says. “we don't have money. My mother has to work from morning to night every day. She celebrates my birthday every year, but she never celebrates her birthday. It's her birthday tomorrow. I want to buy a small cake for her. But I don't have enough money…”

“Oh, my boy! I'm your mother's friend,” I say. “I will buy her a nice birthday cake.”I give the money to the salesgirl and leave the shop.

    I am Li Ping. I am a girl of ten. My favorite subject is English, because it is very interesting. And I like speaking English.

    I have a good English teacher. Her name is Wang Hong. She loves us very much. She likes playing basketball after class. She likes reading books very much. And she often tells us some funny stories.

    My favorite sports are swimming and dancing. I cannot play basketball, but I want to join the basketball club. My favorite animal is a cat. Its name is Mimi. It is  white and black. It often stays under the chair, but now it is on the chair.

    Devike was walking home from school. Everything was bad at school. In the morning, she got to school late. In the math test, half her answers were not right and she forgot to do her English homework. The teacher wrote a message in her notebook for her parents to sign.

    She knew her parents would be angry with her. She also knew she had a lot of schoolwork to do. Just thinking about these, she was sad.

    After she got home, her mother gave her a hug(拥抱) and said, "How was your day, dear?" Her little brother Rohit came to her and said," Hi, sister! I miss you.

    Quickly Devika felt better. Of course, her mom would be angry with her poor grades. But she loves her and that is more important. And her little brother always thinks she is smart and beautiful.

    At that time, Devika felt lucky to have such a great family and she didn't worry about her poor grades because the family could comfort(安慰) her when she was sad.

Do you know rice first came to China? There is an old Chinese story about it. It is about a little girl who went out to fish. At that time, there was very little food, so everybody was very hungry.

One day, when fishing, the little girl suddenly felt her fishing net get heavy. She was so happy! It was the King of Frogs that she found. When the frog heard how hungry the girl was, he wanted to help her. The frog told her to take out her fishing net and let the sun shine on it. The little girl followed his words. Then the King of Frogs began to sing a magic song. The girl was very surprised at what she saw. As the sun shone through the net, the sunlight turned into golden grains（谷粒）of rice. That was how the first rice arrived.

Maybe the story is not true, but it tells us rice is as important as gold to the Chinese. Rice is always one of the main foods on Chinese tables. For many years, much land has been used to grow rice and many Chinese people are farmers, who work very hard for each grain. So it's important not to waste food. Remember, Waste not, want not.