Jane is a school girl. She is twelve. She studies at a middle school. She is in Grade Seven. She is a good girl. Jane gets up at seven in the morning. Then she has her breakfast. For breakfast she has eggs and a cup of milk. She doesn't have tea for breakfast.

    After breakfast Jane goes to school. At twelve she comes home from school. She has lunch with her mother. For lunch she has hamburgers and salad. She likes salad, but she doesn't like hamburgers.

    At seven she has supper with her father and mother. They have chicken and vegetables. Her father likes chicken, but Jane doesn't.

    For years I went to school by bus, so I met many "familiar" strangers. We took the same bus but didn't know each other's names. I used to think it was impossible for us to be true friends. How wrong I was! Smiles from the "nameless" people have changed my thought.

    The first time on the bus, I saw different faces. As days went on, we hatted like old friends.

    But I felt it a pity that I was unable to set up the same friendship with a silent girl in the front of the bus. Her old clothing suggested that she didn't have much money, but she always took a cup of water for the driver. I guessed she was a kind girl. But why did she sit in silence instead of talking with us? Why did she never reply to our friendly greetings? Couldn't she smile?

    Then, one evening, I got the answer. I walked to the park nearby and found the girl sitting alone under a tree, lonely and sad. I greeted her with the same warm smile that had shown to her all these months, but this time her face turned red, then a shy smile appeared. As soon as she began her first words, I understood why she hadn't spoken to us before. Talking was hard for her.

    I heard her story. Her parents worked hard somewhere. She lived with her disabled grandparents. She said, "I can't express myself very well. Most of the time, I can't say what I want to say I have no friends but. You always smile at me like an angel… so I also want to smile." That evening, we exchanged our names and we said goodbye like old friends.

    The smile is the key to opening the door of heart; it can break the cold walls in front of us.

    Gary and Gavin were twin brothers who worked in a store owned by their father. After the father had passed away, they took over the store. One day, Gary left the bill on the cash register (收银台), but when he returned, the money was gone.

    Gary then asked his brother," did you see that twenty-dollar bill on the cash register?" Gavin said no. But Gary did not let it go and kept asking. That made Gavin very angry and they quarreled with one another. The quarrel divided the young men. Later, a wall was built in the center of the store. For twenty years, hostility (敌意) never ended.

    One day, a strange man came to the store. He walked in and asked Gary, "How long have you been here?" Gary replied that he'd been there all his life. "Then you are the person I'm looking for," the man said. "Twenty years ago, I was totally broke and hungry. I entered this store from the back door and saw a twenty-dollar bill on the cash register. And I took it. All these years I haven't been able to forget that. I had to come back and apologize for that."

    The stranger felt shocked when seeing tears well up in the eyes of the middle-aged man in front of him. "Would you please go next door and tell the same story to the man in the store?" Gary asked. Then something surprised the stranger even more-after hearing his story, the two middle-aged men hugged each other. After twenty years, the wall that separated them finally came down.

    It started as a game. Wendy and Peter were in River Park. They watched the boats in the river and visited the zoo. They played on the slides and swings. They watched the merry-go-round, but they did not have money for a ride. They ate their sandwiches at a picnic table. Suddenly Wendy jumped up.

    "I know what to do." she said. "Look at all that junk under the tables. Let's pick it up."

    So they picked up paper and empty boxes and cans. They put them in the green cans marked "Litter". Peter's dog Stoopy picked up some paper and ran away with it. Peter called him back and took it from him. Then they taught Stoopy to carry trash for them. They put it in the cans. They worked until there was no trash left on the picnic grounds.

    The next day their friends Mario and Andy came to the park with them. They helped to tidy the picnic grounds again. Then they ran all over the park looking for litter. They tried to see who could find the most. After that, it was a game they played every time they came to the park.

    One day, a man came with a camera. He watched what they were doing. He asked to take a picture for them. Then he took them all for a free ride on the merry-go-round, even Stoopy. The next day their picture was in the newspaper. It said, "Five Litter Lifters at River Park". After that all their friends wanted to be litter lifters. It was the beginning of a club that was a model for others to follow.