Peter is thirteen years old. He is in Grade Two this year. He likes to play football and watch football matches. And he often reads newspapers. He does his best to know where and when there is going to be a football match. Now Peter is having lunch. He is listening to the radio, too. He is very happy because there is going to be a nice football match on TV at four this afternoon. He wants to watch it very much. But he is going to have English and Chinese lessons. He thinks hard and finds a way.

    “ Hello, Mrs. Black,” Peter says to his teacher on the telephone, “ Peter is ill in bed. He wants to ask for half a day's leave ( 请半天假 ).”

    “ Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.” says Mrs. Black, “ But who's that?”

    “ It's my father, Mrs. Black.”

    Michelle and Ryan often stopped by a pet shop on their way home from school. They stopped for Sugar and Spice. Sugar and Spice were two cats that shared a cage. They were cute and played nicely together. Michelle and Ryan thought that they must be best friends like them.

    Things got busy at school, so Michelle and Ryan didn't have time to stop by the pet shop. How they missed seeing Sugar and Spice! One Sunday morning, Michelle went to the supermarket. Her mother asked her to buy some fruit. She was happy that she could stop by the pet shop to have a look. To Michelle's surprise, Spice wasn't there. She only saw Sugar. Maybe someone bought Spice and the two best friends would never be together again. She went home in tears.

    Two days later Ryan's parents held a birthday party for him. At the party Michelle, Ryan and their friends played games, sang and ate cake. Then came the best part—the presents. Ryan's dad brought out a small box with holes in it. Ryan carefully opened it and found Spice inside!

    Ryan was excited to have a new cat, but he was also sad that Spice was not with Sugar any more. Ryan's dad realized his sad feeling and motioned (示意) to Michelle's mum. Then she walked in with a small box with holes in it. The box looked just like the one that Ryan got. Michelle's mum asked Michelle if she wanted an early birthday present. But before Michelle could answer, Ryan took the box aside and Sugar jumped out! Sugar and Spice started playing together. Ryan looked at Michelle and said. "This is the best birthday ever!"

    Jay Chou was born(出生) on January 18th,1979, in Taiwan, China. He grew up with his mother, and was a quiet and shy kid. He didn't do well in study, so people thought(认为) he would never be successful(成功) in life.

As a small child, Jay took a great interest in music. His mother sent(送) him to learn the piano when he was only three years old. He loved it and kept on practicing. When he was in high school, he could play the piano quite well. At the same time, he showed his talent for writing songs.

    Before Jay became a singer, he worked as a songwriter. For two years, he spent most of his time writing for singers. Some of them were very famous, like Coco Less and Jacky Cheung. Jay released(发行) his first album(专辑) in 2000 and soon he got quite popular.

    Now Jay is one of the most famous singers in Asia. However, he is still shy and doesn't speak clearly when he sings or talks, but he has a lot of fans. Most of his fans like him because he is really good at music and never follows(仿效) others.

    Rosa liked making up stories. She was sosure that her classmates believed her from time to time. In fact, the wholeclass believed her! At first she supposed it was1. Now, as she got up to talk before theclass, she knew that making up stories had some way of coming back to make yousad.

    Rosa's parents were separated. Nine monthsout of the year, Rosa lived with her mother in an apartment on Anderson Street.But when summer2, she went to her father's farm inArizona.

    The farm was great! Rosa rode horses andhelped with some farm work. Her father, however, was so3 that he couldn't find time to go to otherplaces with her. When she arrived each summer, her father would meet her at theairport and take her out to eat. And the day she went back to the city he wouldalways buy her a present.

    When summer came to a close, Rosa returnedto her mother. At school she heard lots of stories her friends told about theirfamily trips. Rosa wished she had a4totalk about too.

    Not long after5 began, Rosa was looking through travelmagazines in the school library. They talked about many exciting places, likeEngland and Germany. When Rosa's friends asked what she had done in the summer,she made up something that was not6. Remembering the travelmagazines she had read, she told her classmates that she and her father hadgone to England.

    When the class began studying England, MrThomas asked Rosa to tell all the things she could7 about her trip to England!

Along with firewood (柴), rice, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, tea is considered one of the seven necessities for life in China. Now, it has also won global (全球的) attention as a shared cultural treasure of mankind.

Since ancient times, Chinese people have been planting, picking, making and drinking tea. More importantly, China's tea culture has developed social custom. It is Chinese tradition that a host should welcome visiting guests with boiled tea. A poem by Song poet Du Lei reads: I offer tea, not wine, to a guest on a cold night:

Boiling tea is one of the oldest Chinese tea brewing (煮沏) methods, dating back (追溯) to the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Tea leaves were boiled for a long time and sometimes they were cooked together with different kinds of herbs (草药) and fruits. During this process, people can enjoy a quiet time. Later in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a faster and more convenient method become more popular—steeping (冲泡).

However, the old method is now making a comeback among Chinese young people. On the app Xiaohongshu, here are over 40,000 posts on the topic of "stove-boiled" tea (围炉煮茶). They roast tea leaves before boiling them in a teapot on a stove. People sit around the stove in a natural setting and have snacks with their hot tea. Some also wear traditional hanfu as if it could take them back to those ancient times.

Through "stove-boiled" tea, people can taste a slower life and find their inner peace (内心平). As is written in one Xiaohongshu post, "It is very relaxing to drink hot tea and chat with best friends."