A funny thing happened to my sister Tina last month. She lives in Japan and teaches English. In Japan, people don't usually wear their outdoor shoes in the house or in school, and a lot of buildings have places for shoes. So her school has a special place for shoes. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}
Tina teaches English in the evening. One Friday, she went to school, and she put her shoes in the shoe box as usual. Then she had an interesting spoken English class with her students. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} But to her surprise, her shoes weren't in the box. There was only one pair of those there, and they weren't her shoes! She had to get home in a hurry. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}
On Monday, at her next English class, her shoes were in a shopping bag on her desk! There was a note that said, “I'm so sorry. I took your shoes by mistake!” {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Somebody felt a lot of shame!

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    There was a beautiful garden. Every year the king would go to the garden to decide(决定) which flower was the most beautiful one. 

    For the last few years, the rose was always Number One. Because of this, the rose Gulaab became arrogant. It would never let birds stay on its flower. Then all the birds started staying away from Gulaab.

    Behind Gulaab, there was a little yellow flower. People called it Junglee. Junglee wasn't more beautiful than the rose, but it welcomed the birds to stay on its flower. All the birds in the garden liked it.

    This year the king went to the garden as before. The gardener(园丁) pointed at the rose and said to the king, “Your favorite flower, my king.”

    Of course, the king also saw the yellow flower behind it and asked, “What flower is that?”

    “Oh! That's Junglee, a wild flower.”

    “I didn't see a flower like it before. There are so many birds on it. I think it's much more beautiful than the rose. It will be the King Flower of this year!” said the king.

    Jenny was a five-year-old girl. One day, while she was shopping with her mother, she saw a plastic pearl necklace (塑料珍珠项链) and loved it so much. So she asked her mother to buy it for her.

    Every night, before Jenny went to bed, her dad would read stories to her. One night, when he finished the story, he asked, "Jenny, do you love me?"

    "Dad, you know I love you," Jenny answered.

    "Well, give me your necklace," Dad said.

    "No, Dad. But you can have my favorite doll."

    Several times, when her father asked her to give him the plastic necklace, Jenny would give him something else instead. One evening, after Jenny's father read her a story, Jenny said, "Here, Dad." She put her plastic pearl necklace into her father's hand.

    Her father held the necklace in one hand and opened the other hand. There was a real pearl necklace in it. He had had it for a long time, and waited for Jenny to give up the cheap one so that he could give her the real one.

    So, don't be mean. If we are generous (慷慨的), maybe we will get something better.

    This year the US will honour(纪念)one of the country's most famous writers-Mark Twain(1835-1910).Most readers know that his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but how many know where the pen name "Mark Twain" came from?

    The answer shows Clemens' colourful early life before he became a writer. "Mark Twain" was the cry shouted on a ship when the ship entered a part of a river that was two fathoms(6 feet) deep. "Twain" is an old-fashioned way of saying "two". Twain trained as a ship pilot on the Mississippi river for two years, a time that he wrote about in the humorous Life on the Mississippi(1883).

    The famous river would become an important theme in many of his works-who could forget the journey of Huck and Jim along it in his most famous book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884).

    With little education, he had to teach himself how to write stories. Whenever possible, he would go to public libraries. There he spent much time reading and thinking, which greatly helped him with his writing.

    On the other hand, his life experiences gave him wonderful material to write about and attract readers. Twain wrote in a style that has been called "local colour" because it shows great knowledge of local people and their customs.

    The gift is very clear in the two books for which Twain is still celebrated today: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876) and its follow-up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which many people call "The Great American Novel".

    The most amazing invention in his book is the voice of Huck himself. Huck did not enjoy schooling. It shows in the way he uses language, in a spoken style. Only a master like Twain could copy the way a young southern boy talked so well.

    Once there was a boy. He loved sweets(糖果) very much. He always asked his father for sweets.

    The boy's father thought hard about how to stop the child asking for so many sweets. There was a saint(圣人) living near their house. The boy's father decided to take the boy to him. He thought he might make the child give up (放弃) sweets.

    So they went to the saint. The father said," Great man, could you ask my son to stop asking for sweets all the time?" But it was difficult for the saint, because he liked sweets, too. Then he told the father to bring his son back after one month.

    During that month, the saint tried to stop eating sweets. At last, he did it. When the boy and his father went back a month later, the saint had a long talk with the boy. From then on, the boy did not ask for sweets any more.

    The boy's father felt surprised and asked, "Why didn't you ask my son to give up sweets when we came to you a month ago?" The saint answered," How could I ask a boy to give up sweets when I loved sweets myself? During the last month, I gave up eating sweets."

    A person's example(例子) is much more stronger(更有力的) than just his words. When we ask someone to do something, we must do it ourselves, too.