People normally think of dogs as man's best friend, but to Brian Wilson, his two pet parrots are his best friends.

    It all began in 1995, when Brian was still a firefighter. A car accident caused serious damage to his brain. After several months of treatment, Brian's doctors said that he would never talk again and that he would have to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home.

    However, according to Brian, his two pet parrots didn't give up easily. They kept talking to him day and night, until one day, he said one word, then another, and all of a sudden was talking like a normal person again!

    Brian was so thankful that he decided to set up a home for birds which are not wanted by their owners. Now, his house is home to about 80 birds, including a great variety of birds like several macaws, cockatoos and African gray parrots. The birds fly around from room to room, some cackling (咯咯叫), others talking like humans. Though they all have big cages, Brian lets them fly freely inside the house.

    Over the years, Brian has developed a special relationship with birds. The birds that bite other humans, seem to like him and can get along with him well. He is now called a bird whisperer (鸟语者). Brian pays for most of the costs of looking after the birds with his own money, but has recently established a foundation (基金会) to accept donations. He and his birds also earn money by performing at birthday parties, weddings and other social events.

    For people who want to adopt (领养) Brian's birds, they have to volunteer at the foundation for three months before they can take the pet home.

One afternoon，a teacher was having a math class. However，some boys made a lot of noise in class. The teacher got angry. He kept them in the classroom after school. He told them to add（加）all the numbers from 1 to 100 together. 

The boys took out their exercise books. All of them began to write the numbers down except one boy. He was seven years old and new in the school. He looked out of the window for a few minutes. Then he wrote a number in his exercise book and put up his hand. 

"May I go home sir？"he asked. "I know the answer now. "

The teacher and the other boys were very surprised. 

"Bring it here. "said the teacher. 

The next morning the teacher asked the boy. "How did you find the answer so quickly？"

"Well sir，"he said，"I did not want to stay here so long. So I did my best to find the answer quickly. Soon I found it. You see，if you add 100 to 1，you get 101，and 99 and 2 is 101，and 98 and 3 is 101 too，and when you reach 51 and 50，you have 101 fifty times. That is 5050. "

After this when the teacher gave the class exercises to do，he gave this boy different exercises. 

The boy's name was Carl F. Gauss. When he grew up，he became a great scientist. Gauss's achievements（成就）filled many pages in science encyclopedias（百科全书）. And he was as famous as Archimedes and Newton. And he was one of the three greatest mathematicians（数学家）of all time in the world. 

It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. If we didn't see any rain soon, we would lose everything.

 One day when I was in the kitchen,I {#blank#}1{#/blank#} my six- year- old son, Billy, walking towards the forest. He was clearly trying to be as still(平静的) as possible. Several minutes later, he disappeared into the forest, and then he ran out again, towards the house. This activity went on for an hour, walking{#blank#}2{#/blank#} to the forest and running back to the house. I really wanted to know {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Billy was doing.

 Finally I followed him into the forest. I found that he was holding a cup of water. He walked very carefully not to drop the water.

I saw a baby deer(鹿) lying on the ground. It lifted its head to drink the water in myson's cup. After the deer drank up, Billy jumped up and ran back to the house to get more water.

 When he saw me, he said,"I'm not wasting, mother."I found that his eyes were filled with tears.

"I know."I watched the most beautiful heart working so hard to save {#blank#}4{#/blank#} life. Tears ran down my face. As my tear drops began to hit the ground, more drops suddenly joined them. I looked up{#blank#}5{#/blank#} the sky. It was raining.

 The actions of one little boy saved a life, and the rain saved our farm.

Miss White is a teacher. Her home is near her school. So she walks there in the morning. All her students are very small. It's a cold and windy morning. Miss White walks to school as usual. The cold wind goes into her eyes and big tears（眼泪） come out of her eyes. She gets to school, opens the door and goes into the classroom. It's nice and warm there and she is happy. But then a small boy looks at her, then puts his arms round her and says, "Don't cry, Miss. School isn't very bad. "

Many people draw on the paper, but few paint on stones. Mo Wuying, an artist from Chongqing, has been doing this for more than eight years. And the animals on stones are {#blank#}1{#/blank#}( true) lifelike.

The poses of animals she creates {#blank#}2{#/blank#} ( decide) by the shapes of the stones. Mo says it is{#blank#}3{#/blank#} art form that requires creative {#blank#}4{#/blank#} ( idea).

According to Mo, the first step is to draw the outline of an animal on a stone. Then she colors it {#blank#}5{#/blank#}( make) it lively. After that, she adds all the details.

Driven by her love of painting from a young age, Mo has been improving her stone painting skills for years. {#blank#}6{#/blank#} first, she tried her hand at sceneries and characters. In the past three years, she has focused on painting animals. Mo {#blank#}7{#/blank#}( finish) hundreds of stone paintings so far." The longer I work on it, the {#blank#}8{#/blank#} ( interesting) I find it," said Mo proudly. She sometimes even forgets to eat or sleep {#blank#}9{#/blank#} the painting takes up all her attention.

" It is a{#blank#}10{#/blank#}( please) to paint on stones and that makes me more patient," said Mo, adding that she would continue working on it.