Leon was a postman. Every day after Leon woke up, he would feed his 37 cats. Leon didn't really want 37 cats, but one by one they had turned up on his doorstep, and Leon had taken them in.

    Every day, after feeding the cats, Leon would collect the mail from the red postboxes in the village and take it home to sort（分类）. “If only I had 37 helpers instead of 37 cats, my job would be so much easier,” Leon thought. Just then, the cats started meowing for their dinner. That gave Leon an idea. That night, Leon stayed up making 37 cat-sized postal backpacks. Each backpack fitted neatly onto a cat's back. Then, he went around to each postbox, putting signs up that read: Postbox closed. Please use the Postal Cat Service.

    The next day, Leon put a backpack on each cat and dropped off the cats around the village. Leon knew that the cats would be happy lazing around all day. He also knew that they would always come home for dinner. Leon spent the day relaxing, waiting for his helpers to return. Leon was right. The cats did return, but they did not bring home many letters. Somehow, the cats had managed to wriggle（蜿蜒而行） out of their backpacks. Or lose their letters. Or get the letters wet. “Cats are just too unreliable（不可靠的）” Leon thought. Just then, there was a scratching（刮擦声） at Leon's door. A dog was waiting to be invited inside. That gave Leon an idea.

    Mary was afraid of the dark. She thought there were terrible monsters（怪物） in the dark. One day her aunt Valerie came to visit. Valerie was a brave woman. Mary wanted to be like her. So Mary asked her aunt, "Are you afraid of the dark?"

    "A lot of times" answered her aunt. "When I was small, I was afraid of staying in the dark."

    Hearing this, Mary felt better.

    "I know a secret not to be afraid of the dark. Some blind children told it to me."

    "Can you tell me?" asked Mary.

    "Of course! The secret is to change your eyes. Because blind children can't see, and their hands are their eyes. At night, if anything makes you afraid, close your eyes, get out of bed, and try to see what it is. But use your hands as eyes..."

    That night when Mary felt afraid of something in the bedroom, she closed the eyes of her face and opened the eyes of her hands. She went to touch it with her hands...

    The next morning, Mary ran into the kitchen.

There was a big smile on her face. "The monster is so lovely," she cried. "It's my toy dog!"

    One day an American went to a small town in South America for his holidays. Few people went there because it was far away from the cities. He fell ill（生病） and wanted very much to see a doctor.

    The American went to find out how he could find a fine doctor there. A man told him, "That's very easy. If there is a patient（病人） that a doctor can't cure（治愈）, the doctor has to put a balloon over his clinic（诊所）. "

    The American thought, "The fewer balloons are, the finer the doctor is." He began to look for the finest doctor along the street. First he found a clinic. There were 20 balloons. After a few minutes he found another one-30 balloons. He thought neither doctor was fine.

    At last he found the third clinic. Only 5 balloons were there. He was very happy and went in.

    "Wait a minute," said the doctor. "I'm too busy, you know. This clinic opened only yesterday." The American was very much surprised（感到吃惊的） and said to himself, "Where can I find the finest doctor?"

Elias Chasiotis loves taking photos. He s{#blank#}1{#/blank#} a few days in Qatar. That was surely a worthy trip. One day, a solar eclipse（日食） was in progress above the sea, making it look like two horns rising from the water. And Chasiotis caught it all with his c{#blank#}2{#/blank#}. 

The photo wasn't the result of just chance and luck. Chasiotis carefully chose a place where he got a perfect view of the eclipse. The w{#blank#}3{#/blank#} wasn't good at the beginning— it was cloudy. He was w{#blank#}4{#/blank#} that he couldn't see anything. L{#blank#}5{#/blank#}, the Sun began to rise after a while. It looked like two red horns rising from the sea. Because of their shape, they were nicknamed the "Devil's Horns".