Hannay was nervous. His enemies were searching for him. All around him were grassy hills without trees. He had nowhere to hide. How could he escape?

    Hannay walked along the country for a long time. Then he saw a road worker, who was working alone, fixing the road. Hannay could see the road worker was not feeling well. Hannay came up to him and said “How are you?”

    “My head hurts,” the worker said, “I can't do it. I want to go home to bed. My daughter got married yesterday, and I drank a lot of wine with my friends. That's the problem!”

    Hannay agreed that he should be home in bed.

    “Yes, and I would be,” he replied,”but yesterday I received a message saying that the new surveyor was coming to look at my work. If he comes and finds me away, I'll be in trouble.”

    Suddenly Hannay had bright idea--he could act as the road worker and get away from his enemies.

    “You go off to bed,” Hannay said,”I'll do your job until the new surveyor comes.”

    The road worker was pleased with this idea. He gave Hannay his hat and his old coat. Then he went home to sleep and perhaps to drink a bit more. Hannay put on the worker's hat and coat and began to fix the road. About an hour later he heard a voice.

    “Are you the road worker?” it asked.

    It was the new surveyor. He was a young man with a clean face. He sat in a small car.

    Hannay said yes. The surveyor told him about some work he wanted him to do before he came by again and drove off. Hannay continued with his work.

    Then a village boy came by.”What has happened to the road worker?” he asked.

    “He stayed at home today,” Hannay replied.”He's sick.”

    At about midday, a large car came down the hill and stopped near Hannay. Three man got out of the car. Hannay's heart beat fast. He knew his enemies were coming...

    Larry is going to be a pilot. He wants to fly an airplane. But Larry is not a rich man. He doesn't have an airplane. He has only a chair. Larry ties 45 big balloons to his chair and then sits in the chair. The chair goes up.

    For a few minutes, everything is fine. The view from the chair is beautiful. Larry can see houses and trees below him. He is happy. He is flying!

    The chair goes up very high. Larry is afraid. “I don't want to go very high,” Larry thinks. “I want to go down a little.” With a small gun, Larry shoots 10 balloons. Then something terrible happens. Larry drops the gun, and it falls to the ground. Larry can't shoot more balloons. The chair goes up and up.

    Larry is three miles above the ground. Airplanes are flying over him. Larry has a small radio. “Help! Help!” he says into the radio. “I'm flying in a chair, and I want to come down!” People hear Larry, but they can't help him.

    Larry flies in the chair for 45 minutes. Then the balloons begin to lose air, slowly the chair comes down, and Larry is back on the ground. He is not hurt.

    A British man has learned the skills needed to perform Beijing Opera, making the audience (观众) enjoy his lively performance of the Monkey King.

    Ghaffar Pourazar, born in Iran, said he has been a big fan of Bruce Lee since he was a child and is full of interest about China. In 1993, he happened to watch Beijing Opera performed in London by professionals from Jingju Theatre Company of Beijing. Ghaffar said he fell in love with the beautiful voices, colorful costumes, excellent shows and so on. So after one year, he arrived in China alone and became a student of Beijing Opera at a Beijing school.

    At the age of 32, he had to learn with teenage students every day, starting from the most basic training of the legs and waist. At the time, he was mostly troubled by the dialogue in Beijing Opera. To him, it was the biggest obstacle. But he never gave up.

    Four years later, he began to learn to perform the Monkey King, a traditional character from the Chinese classic story Journey to the West. He said he arrived in the workroom an hour earlier than other performers and also bought books and CDs to better understand the character.

    Ghaffar today is not only good a speaking Beijing dialect (方言) but has also built a fame for Beijing Opera. He once got a top international prize for performing the Monkey King.

    To help more people enjoy Beijing Opera, Ghaffar often teaches the traditional art form in schools in the United States, Britain and other countries. When he found that the language was difficult to understand, he started to translate Beijing Opera song lyrics. Ghaffar led a group of actors to perform 66 times in a month and a half in the United States. He also led a 48-member team to perform in Malaysia. In the past 10 years, he has performed in more than 400 shows.

Jacob Tremblay (雅各布•特伦布莱) : a promising young actor

    While you might not recognize the name Jacob Tremblay, you may have seen him in the movie called Wonder (《奇迹男孩》). He plays the role of Auggie, a boy with facial deformities (面部畸形). The director calls the eleven-year-old boy "a once-in-a-life-time actor of his generation". So what about some background information to explain all this success?

    Born in 2006, Jacob started appearing in TV dramas at the age of five. His breakthrough came in Room(《房间》) in 2015. In that movie, he plays Jack, a young boy who has been kept in a small room since he was born. His first-rate portrayal (角色的刻画) of this role won him a lot of praise and several important awards. People then really began to notice this very talented young actor.

    Jacob impressed people again with his acting skills in Wonder. Although the movie audience can see only his eyes under the heavy make-up, they can feel the emotions of the character. People also wonder how he was able to get inside the character so successfully without a shared experience in real life.

    The young actor had, in fact, done a lot of research on children with facial deformities before shooting began. He sent a video to children with facial deformities and asked them to send him letters telling him anything they wanted him to know. He always kept the letters by his side and read them over and over again between takes (录制). He said those letters helped him prepare for scenes with emotional content.

    Jacob's performance on screen has made him one of the most promising actors in his age group. Hopefully, we will see a lot more of him in the future—on the silver screen or on TV.