My family took a trip to Qingdao last summer vacation. We had great fun there.

    We went to Qingdao by fast train. It was about 11:00 am when we got to the train station. First, we took a taxi to the hotel. After a short rest, we had lunch in the restaurant near the hotel. We ate some fish dumplings there. They were really delicious and they weren't expensive. We enjoyed the meal very much. In the afternoon, it was sunny and hot. So we went to the beach(沙滩). There were quite a lot of people there. My father and I swam in the sea. It was really cool. My mother lay(躺) on the beach and enjoyed the sunshine. She said it was relaxing. Well, the best thing was that I made two new friends on the beach. They were from Canada. That made me feel happy. They said they would write e-mails to me later.

    Qingdao is really a good place to relax. I want to visit it again next year.

    Zeb Hogan is always traveling around the world to save endangered fish.

This famous ecologist(生态学家) grew up in a city in Arizona, America, but he had a big backyard with lots of trees. He spent his free time climbing trees and catching animals with his brother. They each had their favorite places in the biggest tree and they worked out ways to climb from tree to tree without ever touching the ground. Their family went camping in the summer and they would usually visit zoos and aquariums(水族馆) on their family vacations. His clearest memories as a child all had to do with animals and the outdoors. As he was older, he became interested in animal shows on TV and he would wake up early to watch Wild, Wild World of Animals before the other family woke up.

    One day when we talked about fish, he said, “As an ecologist, Mr. White, you should know that fish in most parts of the world have a hard life, such as the Mekong giant catfish, the Chinese paddlefish, taimen, and the Murray cod. They are all in danger and have to do with all kinds of challenges all by themselves. Water pollution is one of them. So these fish really need our help."

    It began one night, last September. We were getting ready to go to bed when it started raining. It was really windy. When weren't worried because it rains often here.

    At 2 a.m., my dad woke me up and said ,"There's a storm coming. We have to go to the basement(地下室）." I got up quickly. "Lin, find the candles, please!" my mom said."...And Chen, bring bottles of water from the kitchen." She said to my brother . "... and Huan, don't forget the radio," she continued.

    Dad asked us not to be worried. Then he told us to go down to the basement. The four of us went down to the basement and only a few minutes later we heard the storm. The noise was huge. We could hear the wind breaking glass and other terrible sounds. I remember we just hugged each other all night. I don't want to live through that again. The storm died out the next day. Our house was completely broken down. But we were happy because we were alive.

    Toby, an 11-year old boy, is playing with a ball. The ball goes into the street and Toby runs for the ball.

    A car hits（碰撞） Toby. An ambulance（救护车） takes Toby to the hospital in 30 minutes. The doctors at the hospital tell Toby's parents, "Toby is in a coma."

    Every day, Toby's parents visit him at the hospital. They sit next to Toby's bed and talk to him. But Toby never talks to them. He just sleeps.

   One day Toby's father says, "Wake up, Toby. Wake up, come home and play with Rusty." Rusty is Toby's dog.

    When Toby's father says "Rusty", Toby moves his arm（胳膊）. "Rusty!" Toby's father says again. Again, Toby moves his arm.

    Toby's parents have an idea. They tell the nurse,

    "We want to bring Toby's dog to the hospital." The nurse says "OK".

    The next day, Toby's parents bring Rusty to the hospital. When they put the dog on Toby's bed, Toby opens his eyes and hugs the dog.

    Toby's parents bring Rusty to the hospital every day. One day, Rusty jumps onto Toby's bed and scratches（抓） his arm. Toby says his first words, "Bad dog!"

    After eight weeks, Toby is well. He leaves the hospital and goes home.

    Mr. King goes to a dinner party. He is wearing old clothes. He comes into the room. But people in the room don't look at him. They don't ask him to sit at the table.

    Mr. King goes home and puts on his good clothes. He goes back to the party. Everyone in the room stands up and smiles at him. They give him very good food to eat.

    Mr. King takes off his coat, and puts it in the food and says, "Eat, coat!"

    The other people ask, "What are you doing?"

    He answers, "I'm asking my coat to eat the food. When I wear my old clothes, you don't look at me or ask me to sit down. But now you give me very good food. Now I see, you give the food to my clothes, not to me!"

    Sam likes fish very much. He often buys fish in the shop and takes it home. But when his wife sees the fish, she says to herself, "Good! Now I can ask my friends to have lunch, and we can eat this fish. They like fish very much."

    So when Sam comes home in the evening, the fish is not there and his wife always says, "Oh, your cat ate it." And she gives Sam some bread for his supper. Sam gets very angry. He takes the cat and his wife to the shop near his house and weighs the cat. Then he turns to his wife and says, "My fish weighs one kilo (公斤). This cat weighs one, too. My cat is here, you see. Then where's my fish?"