Tony is from New York. His father has a store there. And his mother is a reporter. He's six years old now and begins to go to school this year. It's very near their shop and his father doesn't drive a car to take him to school. He walks to school early every day. So he's not late for class and his teachers like him.

    It's Tuesday today. Miss White is teaching them to count from one to ten. Tony is studying hard. Soon he can count them. Miss White is happy and asks, "How many people are there in your family, Tony?"

    Tony stands up and begin to count with his fingers, and then says, "Two, Miss White."

    "Who are they?"

    "My father and my mother."

    "Oh?" Miss White is surprised, "Two people in your family?"

    "Because now I'm not at home."

    A beautiful and very successful actress played the lead role in a new musical show. Her home was in the countryside, but she did not want to go back there every night, so she bought an expensive house in the centre of the city, she got some beautiful furniture(家具) and had a man to paint the rooms in new colours.

    It was very difficult to get tickets for her show, because everybody wanted to see it. So she decided to give the painter two of the best seats. She hoped that this would make him work better for her. He took the tickets without saying anything, and she heard no more about them until the end of the month, when she got the painter's bill (帐单). At the bottom of it were these words: “Four hours watching Miss Hall sing and dance : 3 pounds,” with this note: “ After 5 p.m. I get 15 shillings (先令) an hour instead of 10 shillings.”

    Mr. Harris taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a talk about an animal called" birdcat", which died out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull（头骨） as he talked. We all took notes carefully and later we had a test.

    When he returned my paper the next day, there was a big red"×" through each of my answers. I failed! There must be some mistakes! I wrote down exactly（确切地）what Mr. Harris had said. Then I learned that everyone in the class had failed. Why? "Very simple, "Mr. Harris said, "I made up all that 'birdcat'. But there had never been any such animal. So the information in your notes was not correct. Did you think you would get good grades for that?"

    However, we felt that was unfair. What kind of a test was this? And what kind of a teacher was he?

    Mr. Harris added, "I have told you many unbelievable things about this animal, such as the size, the color, but none of you have questioned. I hope you will learn something from this lesson. Teachers and textbooks are not always correct. In fact no one is." He also told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we thought he or the textbook was wrong.

    Up to now Mr. Harris' class gave me and my classmates something just as important: to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong.

    Last weekend, Jake had a lot of homework to do. He finished listening, spelling and reading exercises in the morning. In the afternoon, he added fifteen and twenty—two, and then he got thirty—seven. He added and subtracted until his hand got tired of writing.

    After supper, Jake's dad reminded Jake to do his job. Jake went from room to room unloading baskets and cans into a large plastic bag.

    Then he took the bag out to the dustbin.

    Then Jake could have some free time. He decided to play "Star Monsters". He turned on the monsters fighting on the TV screen while his fingers pushed buttons to make them move.

    Jake was tired. He put on his pajamas, brushed his teeth and crawled under the covers.