Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452 in Italy. He is best known as an artist today. One of his famous paintings is called Mona Lisa. However, Leonardo had many other natural abilities. He was also a great inventor. Many of his inventions have become important in modern daily life.

Although Leonardo hated war, he invented many different machines used for war. His most special invention was the machine gun, which was produced and used in war many years later.

    By watching the way birds fly, Leonardo tried to find out the secret of flying. Among his sketch (素描) we can see several objects. We consider them as modern flying machines.

    Leonardo spent many hours thinking about how to make good use of time. He developed ideas for labor-saving machines like cutting machines.

Leonardo was a strange man. He didn't eat any meat, which was very unusual in those times. He never published(发表) his ideas and scientific discoveries. He usually used mirror writing, which looks like writing in a mirror, starting from the right side of the page and moving to the left.

    We have very little of his work today. Leonardo finished only a few of his paintings. He left many unfinished because he thought they were not perfect. No one in his life time knew how great Leonardo was. We now believe, however, that he was one of the cleverest men the world has ever known.

    I'm Katy. I have many good friends, and Jema is one of them. I'm in Class Six, and Jema is in Class Eight. We first met in our school tennis club. Both (两个) of us like playing tennis, and we often practice together.

    I often visit Jema on the weekend: Sometimes we swim in the pool or go shopping with our friend Sarah. She is in our school dance club and dances beautifully. I went to Jema's house today. It was raining, so we couldn't go out.

    "Let's watch a movie," Jema said. "You're my guest (客人), Katy, so you can pick it."

    I picked a movie called Dance of Joy. It's about a girl called Susan who likes to dance. Susan has a cat named Albert. Albert chews (咬) her dancing shoes, so she can' t dance anymore. Luckily, she gets a new pair of dancing shoes. Albert surprises Susan by bringing her the new shoes in his mouth. It is a wonderful happy ending.

    I told Jema I loved the movie. She laughed and said she found it quite boring. She only kept watching it because I was enjoying it so much. I felt a little bad about it, but it's nice to have a good friend like Jema.

    One day when some government officials were rebuilding a house, they found a mouse hole in a corner and used smoke to make the mice inside the hole come out. A while later they saw mice running out, one after another, but they saw two mice didn't run away immediately. It seemed that one was trying to bite the tail of the other.

    Everyone was puzzled, so they came nearer to take a look. They realized that one of the two mice was blind, and the other was trying to allow the blind mouse to bite his tail in order to pull the blind one with him to run away.

    During the meal time, they started to talk about the two mice. One serious American said, "I think the relationship between those two mice was that of king and guard."

    A smart Frenchman said, "I think the relationship between them was that of husband and wife."

    A Japanese said, "I think the relationship between them was that of mother and son."

    At that moment, one Chinese asked, "Why did those two mice have a certain relationship?"

    Suddenly, they looked back at the Chinese. The American, the Frenchman and the Japanese who had spoken earlier all lowered their heads in shame, and didn't answer.

    In fact, the great love is not built on friendship or blood relationship. Instead, it is based on no relationship.

The Basket

    Two things changed my life; my mother and a white, pretty bike basket. My mother is a strict parent and I had to earn my pocket money by doing housework around the house.

    One day, my mother drove me to the bike shop to get a tire fixed, and there it was in the window; white, shiny, and decorated with beautiful flowers. It was so special and I knew I had to have the basket. "It's beautiful," my mother said when I pointed it out to her.

    "Mom, please, can I get it? I'll do more housework for as long as you say, but I need that basket. I really love it……"

    "You know," she said gently, "If you save up, you could buy this yourself." "By the time I make enough, it'll be gone!"

    "I'll buy the basket for you, but you have to work for it," she said.

    My mother bought the beautiful basket and put it safely in some secret place I couldn't find. Each week I eagerly counted my growing income. And then, weeks later, I jumped for joy. Oh, happy day! I made it! I finally had the exact amount we'd agreed upon.

    Days later, the unthinkable thing happened. A neighbor girl appeared with the exact same basket on her shiny, new bike. The eight-year-old me cried and ran fast back home to tell my mother about this terrible news.

    And then came the lesson I've taken with me through my life; "Honey, it doesn't matter that the baskets look the same. Your basket is extra-special," Mom said, gently drying my hot tears. "Your basket is special because you got the basket through your hard work."

    She used to sleep on the sidewalk of the Fifth Street Post Office. I could smell her before I came close. She wore dirty clothes and her mouth was nearly toothless. I hardly saw her talk with others. If she was not asleep, she talked to herself. I always had sympathy for her. What a poor old lady! She must be desperate （感到绝望的）and hungry.

    One Thanksgiving, we had lots of food left over. I thought about the old lady. She might be still hungry. So I packed the food up and drove over to the Fifth Street.

    It was a cold night. There was hardly anyone out. But I knew she would stay at the same place and I would find her easily.

    There she was, squatted against a fence near the post office. She was dressed as she always was.

    I drove my car over to her, rolled down the window and said, "I've brought you some food. Would you like some turkey and apple pie?"

    However, the old woman didn't seem to be very excited about this. She looked at me and said quite clearly, "Oh, thank you very much, but someone has given me food earlier and I'm quite full now. Why don't you take it to someone else who needs it?"

    Her words were clear and her manners were gracious. Soon her head sank into her arms again. I was the only person who didn't know what to say. An old lady who was clearly down on her luck still thought about others. Why don't more of us do that?