I was 8 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1993, but I can remember my mother's words as if it were yesterday. “Jessica, I don't want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”

    AIDS wasn't something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 11, his condition worsened. My father's other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.

    We couldn't afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work. I had no money for school supplies and often couldn't even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher's words muffled as I was thinking how I was going to manage.

    I didn't share my burden (负担) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside even though he was too weak to feed himself.

    I had known that he was going to die. But after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit (非营利的) National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. She saved my life.

    I was 14 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn't want to call attention to AIDS. I do.

    Once there was a parrot on sale in a pet store. It was a beautiful red and blue bird.  It sat on a perch in the middle of the store so that everyone could see it when they came in. The owner was very proud of it and asked a high price for it.

    One day a man went into the store. "That's a beautiful bird," he said to the pet store owner. "But why is it so expensive? Is it an unusual bird?"

    "No, it's not very unusual. It's expensive because it can talk," the pet store owner said.

    "I see. How can I make it talk?" the man asked.

    The pet store owner asked him, "Do you see those strings tied to each of the bird's legs?"

    "Yes," the man answered.

    "Well, you pull those strings," the pet store owner told him."That will make the parrot talk."

    The man asked, "Do you mind if I try?"

    "Not at all," the pet store owner said.

    The man walked up to the parrot and pulled the string on its left leg. The parrot said, "Good morning."

    The man pulled the string on the parrot's right leg. This time the parrot said, "How are you today?"

    "That's not very interesting," said the man."Any parrot could do that." Then he laughed, "But what would happen if I pulled both strings at the same time?"

    "I'll fall off my perch, you fool!"the parrot said.

    Sarah stood in front of the mirror(镜子). "It looks like a raincoat on me," she said.

    "Perhaps the blue," said Mama, gently.

    "Sure," the shopkeeper said. But when she took the blue coat, there on the shelf behind all of the dark coats, hidden like a spring flower in winter darkness, there, as if by magic, was a pink coat.

    "A pink coat!" Sarah cried. "I want the pink coat."

    "That coat is smaller than the other ones," Papa said.

    Sarah spoke up. "I'm small, too. Papa, please let me try it on, Mama? Please?"

    "It wouldn't hurt to let her try it on," Mama said.

    Without a word, the shopkeeper took the coat from the shelf and held it for Sarah.

    "Ohhh!" Sarah said. The coat was smooth and shiny inside like her sister Sylvia's blouses. "Ahhh!"

    Sarah stood very straight and looked in the mirror. She looked for a very long time. In the pink coat she looked like a spring flower.

    "Sarah!" Mama said.

    Sarah looked up. Mama was standing behind her. She was holding the brown coat.

    "I'm afraid the pink coat will only fit one year," Mama said, taking a step closer.

    "And there's no one to pass it on to," said Papa.

    And the shopkeeper said, "It's wise to save money."

    Sarah backed away. No one was going to put her into a raincoat again. She wanted to be a flower.

    "Sarah!" It was Papa. He came over to her. "You're old enough to know that you can't always have your own way," he said seriously.

    "Wise and true," said the shopkeeper.

    Sarah took off the pink coat, slowly.

    "It is her colour, though," Mama said.

    "Ahh," said the shopkeeper. "Anyone can see how the pink of the coat brings out the roses in her face."

    Papa looked thoughtful for a moment.

    "We are lucky." continued Mama, "that it is only one little coat for Sarah and not also new coats for Sylvia and Susan and Sally."

    Papa looked from the brown coat to the pink coat. "The cows will give milk soon enough," he said "And how can we let Sarah wear a brown coat when she looks like a flower in this one?"

    "Papa!" Sarah cried, putting on the pink coat back, quickly. She threw her arms around Papa's neck. "        " she whispered.

    "Like a rose in spring," Papa said.

    It was raining heavily as I was walking up the hill towards the station at six o'clock on a Saturday morning. Just as I was crossing the road near the top of the hill, a car came around the corner. It was traveling very fast. Suddenly it hit a lamp post (路灯杆) and turned over.

    I ran to the car to help the driver at once. He was badly hurt and there was a lot of blood on his face. Many people came to see what had happened and there was nothing we could do. A young woman hurried into the station and phoned for an ambulance (救护车). A policeman arrived a few minutes later and asked me a lot of questions about the accident. After a while the ambulance arrived and the driver was sent to the hospital.

    On Monday morning I went to the hospital to see the man. The doctor told me that he was much better, and he would leave the hospital after a few days' rest.

    Alice is an American school girl. She is now in Beijing with her parents. She doesn't know Chinese, but she is trying to study and speak it. She often tries to speak Chinese to her Chinese friends. Sometimes they don't understand her, because she can't speak Chinese well.

    It's Saturday morning. Alice goes out. She is going to see the flowers show. But she doesn't know how to get there. She asks an old Chinese man. The old man doesn't understand her. Then she takes out a pen and some paper. She draws flowers on it and then gives the picture to the old man, companying with a body gesture (肢体动作). The old man smiles and shows her the right way to the flowers show. Finally, she walks for about 15 minutes and gets to the flowers show. The flowers are so beautiful that Alice likes them very much. And she also buys one bunch of flowers for her mother and two cards for her father.

Sijo Zachariah comes from India and he works in Dubai. Last year, Zachariah returned to India for a wedding ( 婚礼). However, he got stuck ( 困住) there because of COVID-19.

'There was almost no food available in stores," he said. What's going to happen? How are we going to feed ourselves?" From that thought, Zachariah and his father started planting food on the land in front of their house. They took seeds (种子) from all of the fruit and vegetables they could find. Zachariah watched helpful videos online.

In the end, the land didn't just help the father and son. It helped feed people in 20 homes nearby. We also taught our neighbors how to plant. food," Zachariah said. Soon every home was planting food. The hot, wet weather made growing easy.

Zachariah once studied and worked in Wales. One thing he really liked there was the food. It tasted better than food at home. He found the reason the food there was fresh and local. So 'he only planted food that was from his hometown. He also recorded videos to teach others.

Now Zachariah is planning to change his job. He will stop fixing (修理) planes for living. He will plant food. "It' s a big change for me. But this is what makes me happy—helping others and being in nature," he said.