My name is Bess Curle, but this is not my story. It is the story of my lady Mary, Queen of Scots. She wrote the story, and then she gave it to me. I am going to give it to her son.

    She began the story a week ago. It was January 1587, and we sat here in our cold room in Fotheringhay Castle, in the north of England. We couldn't see much from the window. One or two houses, a river, some trees, some horses, and a road. That's all.

    The road goes to London, the home of Queen Elizabeth of England. Mary sat with her little dog in her hands and watched it, all day long.

    No one came along the road. Nothing happened. I watched Mary, unhappily.

    "Please, Your Majesty, come away from that window," I said. "It doesn't help. No one is going to come. Queen Elizabeth can't do it-Queens don't kill Queens."

    "Don't they, Bess?" Mary said. "Then why are we here, in this prison? Why am I not free?"

    "Why, Your Majesty(陛下)? Because Queen Elizabeth is afraid of you."

    "That's right," Mary said. "She's afraid of me, and she hates me too. She hates me because I am beautiful, and she is not; because I had three husbands, and she never married. And because many people-good Catholic(天主教的)people in England France, Scotland, Spain-say that I, Mary, am the true Queen of England, not Elizabeth. And E}zabeth has no children, so, when she is dead, my son James..."

    She came away from the window and stood in front of me. "James," she said quietly, "my son, does he think about me sometimes? He was only ten months old when I last saw him. It is nearly twenty years..."

B

    July 4, 2015 was American's 239th birthday. This country had an International Hot Dog Eating Competition for the big day.

    Since 2007, Joey Chestnut is always the winner of the competition. His best show was in 2009. He ate 69 hot dogs in ten minutes. This year, Chestnut's winning history came to an end. Matt Stonie, a 23-year-old man won the competition by eating 62 hot dogs. He ate two more than Chestnut. Stonie took home 10,000 dollars as a prize.

    Though it was the young man's first win here, Stonie already won some other eating competitions. He once got the first place in eating the most birthday cake (5.5 pounds in nine minutes).

    Women took part in the competition too. The 2015 women's winner was Miki Sudo who ate 38 hot dogs.

    It is said the competition started on July 4,1916. Now it is one of the traditions (传统) on America's National Day.

    My name is Bill. I'm from England. I am a worker. I work in a clothes shop. My wife , Ann, is a teacher. She teaches English in a junior high school. We have two kids: a son and a daughter. They are students. Jim is our son. Now he is in his favorite T-shirt and blue pants. Sally is our daughter. She likes blue very much. Now she is in her blue dress. My father's name is Robby. My mother's name is Diana. They are old and they don't work now. I have a brother. His name is Robert. He is a worker, too. My wife's father is Sam. Her mother's name is Rose. Her sister is Lily. She is a teacher, too.

    At the opening of the sports meeting, our class was chosen to be the team holding colorful flags.

    At firsts I thought we were lucky, because this work seemed so simple that we could finish it easily. Each of us only needed to hold a flag of different color. However, the work was not as easy as I thought. There were two weeks for us to practice before the sports meeting. During this time, all the classmates were trained strictly. We practiced walking, holding the flags and standing still without moving for one or two hours.

    Finally, the day came. At the opening of the sports meeting, we were the first class to appear. As we went through the platform (主席台), we shouted out our saying loudly when we walked through step by step, holding different colorful flags. As we arrived at our place we formed two lines and started running along the sides of the playground. At last, all of the classmates stood one by one, holding the flags and circling the whole playground. When the wind flew, our colorful flags flew. How beautiful!

    After that, other classes put on many wonderful shows, but we couldn't see anything. What's worse, we had to stand the whole time until the whole opening finished, which meant that we stood for three hours without any break!

    This experience made me realize that we cannot tell the difficulty only by the appearance of a job.