One morning it was shining brightly when I woke up. I looked at the alarm clock. It said 3:45! It had stopped! What time was it? I climbed out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. The kitchen clock said 8:30—I was late! My parents were away. My aunt had gone to work without checking if I was up. The school bus went at 8:00. I had missed it. I rang my friend Tony on his mobile phone.
    “Tell the teacher I'll be in as soon as I can!”I said.
    “Come on your rollerblades,” Tony said. “It will be faster than the bus.”
    I washed and dressed in a hurry. I grabbed an apple to eat on the way. That was my breakfast! Then I put on my rollerblades and set off for school. It took half an hour to get to the school. I took all the shortcuts I knew. I went across the park — even through some backyards! When I got to school, I was very hot and my legs ached. I had missed math, our first lesson of the morning. But I made it just in time for history, our second lesson. I was very happy because history is my favorite subject.

    During his life Dr James Naismith worked as a doctor, taught P.E and wrote several books. While he never thought it very important, Dr Naismith is today best known for one thing. He was the inventor of basketball.

    Dr James Naismith was born in Canada in 1861 and his first job was at a special sports school in the USA.

    One day the school principal（校长） told James he was having a problem with the students. Because of heavy snow, the students could not go outside. He told James that they needed a sport the boys could play indoors and gave the teacher two weeks to think of something.

    It was on the very last day that James came up with his idea. The "birth of basketball" is said to be on December 21, 1891, when two teams from the school played the first game. It was quite different from the basketball games of today. It had 9 players on each team and footballs were used instead of basketballs. Soon after, the game changed to 5 players on each side, using special "basketballs" through nets.

    Although Dr Naismith did not live to see basketball become the worldwide game it is today, in 1936, just three years before his death, basketball became an Olympic sport at the games in Berlin.

    Then Alice saw a small glass table. There was a little golden key on it. She picked it and put it in all the locks on the doors but it didn't open any of them. She moved a curtain on one of the walls and discovered another door, a very small one. She put the key in the lock. It was exactly the right size! She opened the door and looked through it. At the end of a low passage she saw a beautiful garden. It was full of brightly coloured flowers and fountains.

    "Oh, how beautiful!" she said. "I'd love to go there but I'm too big to get through the door."

    She walked back to the table. There was a bottle on it now.

    "I'm sure that bottle wasn't there before," she said, a little confused.

    She put down the key and picked up the bottle. She read the words "DRINK ME" on it. Alice wasn't a stupid girl. She didn't drink it immediately. First she looked at the bottle carefully. There wasn't a label on it that said "POISON".

    So she put the bottle to her lips and drank.

    "Mmm, ifs nice," she said. It tasted like cherry tart, pineapple, roast turkey and toast-all the things that she liked to eat-so she drank some more. And some more. Soon the bottle was empty.

    "What a curious feeling," she said. "I'm getting smaller and smaller.'" It was true! She was now as small as her cat Dinah.

    "Good! I can go through the door into the garden," she said. But, poor Alice! When she got to the door, she didn't have the key! It was on the table. She couldn't reach it because she was too small now. She sat down and cried.

    After a while she said, "Alice! Stop crying! Crying doesn't help! Dry your tears immediately!"

    When she looked at the table again, she saw a small glass box under it. She picked it up and opened it. There was a small cake inside. It had the words "EAT ME" on it. She put a small piece of it in her mouth.

    "If I grow bigger I can reach the key," she thought. "And if I grow smaller I can go under the door."

    But nothing happened so she finished it.   

    May 10th is Meg's birthday. She gets a gift. It is a new coat from her sister. The coat is very beautiful and she feels very happy.

    One day, Meg finds that a button(纽扣)of her coat is lost. She looks for the button everywhere, but she can't find it. The next day, she doesn't wear that coat to school and feel sad all day. After school, she goes to the clothes shops and wants to buy that kind of clothes. But she feels disappointed.

    Meg tells her sister about that, her sister says," We can change all the buttons. Then the buttons will be the same." The coat is beautiful again and Meg feels happy again.

    I once knew a man who was rich in his love for birds, and in their love for him. He lived in a grove full of all kinds of trees. He had no wife or children in his home. He was an old man with blue and kind eyes, and a voice that the birds loved.

    While he was at work in the grove, the birds came close to pick up the worms(蠕虫) in the fresh earth he dug up. At first, they kept their distance from him, but they soon found he was a kind man, and would not hurt them, but liked to have them near him.

    They knew this by his kind eyes and voice, which tell what is in the heart. So, day by day their faith in his love grew in them.

    All the birds of the grove were soon his fast friends. They were on the watch for him, and would fly down from the green tree tops to greet

him with their chirp(叽叽喳喳叫).

    When he had no work to do, he took bread with him, and dropped the pieces on the ground. Down they would dart(俯冲) on his head and feet to catch them as they fell from his hand.

    He showed me how they loved him. He put a piece of bread in his mouth, with one end of it out of his lips. Down they came like bees at a flower, and flew off with it piece by piece.

    When they thought he slept too long in the morning, they would fly in and _______.

    They went with him to church, and while he sang his hymns in it, they sat in the trees, and sang their praises.

    So the love and trust of birds were a joy to the old man all his life long.

    My cousin Bill likes going to the beach on Sunday. There was much sunshine that day. He went there with his brother. They got there at 9:00. There were lots of people there on vacation. Bill and his brother sat down and began to relax.

    Soon Bill found there were lots of empty water bottles on the beach. He also saw some paper bags on the beach. That made Bill sad. He and his brother began to work. To clean the beach, they worked hard. About two hours later, the beach was clean again.  At last they put up a sign, saying, "No Littering(乱扔)" on the beach. They wanted people to keep the beach clean. After that, they were very hungry. So they went to a restaurant nearby to have lunch. They had two large bowls of beef noodles there, and then went home.