Tommy and his mother go shopping(去购物) today. Tommy's father likes apples very much. They buy some red apples for him. Tommy's mother likes yellow bananas, but the bananas are green. “Look! The strawberries are very nice, Mom. Do you like them?” Tommy says to his mother. “Yes, I like strawberries very much.” Tommy's mother buys some for herself (她自己). The oranges are very nice. Tommy's mother buys some for Tommy. He likes oranges very much.

    They need some vegetables. The vegetables in the supermarket are very good. They buy some tomatoes, cabbages and carrots. Tommy doesn't like carrots, but his parents like it. They like carrots very much. They buy lots of carrots.

    Once there was a parrot on sale in a pet store. It was a beautiful red and blue bird. It sat on a perch in the middle of the store, so that everyone could see it when they came in. The owner was very proud of it and asked a high price for it.

    One day a man went into the store. “That's a beautiful bird,” he said to the pet store owner, “But why is it so expensive? Is it unusual bird?”

    “No, it's not very unusual. It's expensive because it can talk,” the pet store owner said.

    “I see. How can I make it talk?” the man asked.

    The pet store owner asked him, “Do you see those string tied to each of the bird's legs?”

    “Yes,”the man answered.

    “Well, you pull those strings,” the pet store owner told him. “That will make the parrot talk.”

    The man asked, “Do you mind if I try?”

    “Not at all,” the pet store owner said.

The man walked up to the parrot and pulled the string on its left leg. The parrot said, “Good morning.”

    The man pulled the string on the parrot's right leg. This time the parrot said, “How are you today?”

    “That's not very interesting, ” said the man. “Any parrot could do that.” Then he laughed, “But what would happen if I pulled both strings at the same time?”

    “I'll fall off my perch, you fool!” the parrot said.

    Michael Perham (born on 16^th March, 2000 in Hertfordshire, England) is a boy who, at the age of 17, became the youngest person to sail around the world in the 50 feet racing boat, completing his journey on 7^th August, 2017. He started the world trip on the 15^th of November 2016 from Portsmouth, England.

    Just six days after Michael Perham set sail from Portsmouth, he started having serious problems with the boat, which he was unable to fix himself on the sea. He had to stop in Portugal. Just one day later, he set sail once again, with the hope of breaking David Dick's world record for the youngest person to sail around the world.

    Michael met many challenges along the way, including rough seas and knock-downs in the Southern Ocean, terrible loneliness and fighting storms, but the largest difficulty Michael faced was the boat itself. It caused one problem after another. He celebrated his birthday in March last year among the dolphins in Indian Ocean.

    Michael Perham has entered the record books after becoming the youngest person to sail around the world. The teenager already holds the record for being the youngest people to sail across the Atlantic, aged just 14.

    Michael Perham plans to create the Sail Michael Fund to encourage young people to take to the water. He is also aiming to take part in the 2020 Olympics.

    There once was a man and a woman who had been married for more than 60 years. They talked about everything. They kept no secrets from each other…except that the old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet and she told her husband never to open it or ask her about it.

    For an these years the husband had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would never recover.

    In trying to sort out things they had, the little old man took down the shoe box from the top of the closet and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed it was time that he should know what was in the box.

    When he opened it, he found two beautifully crocheted (钩针编织的) doilies (装饰垫) and some money. He counted the money. It was $25,000 in total. He asked his wife about the unusual contents.

    "When we were married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doily."

    The little old man was so moved, and he had to fight back tears. Only two precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He was filled with joy and happiness.

    "Sweetheart," he said, "that explains the doilies, but what about all this money? Where did it all come from?"

    "Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the doilies."