In Paris, one freezing winter evening, I was having dinner with my friend, Mr. Dupin, the famous detective. We had just finished our meal, when there was a loud knocking at the door. Dupin opened it. There stood Mr. Germain, the chief警长）of the Paris Police.

      We welcomed him warmly, for he was an old acquaintance（熟人）whom we hadn't seen for a great time.

      "I need your assistance," said Germain. "I met a case（案件）that has been giving me a great deal of trouble. It is very simple but very strange."

      “Also, please keep this secret. If anyone found out that I told you this. I would certainly lose my job.”

      “Well, then,” said the Chief,” I have learned that a very important letter has been stolen from the king. We are sure who stole it and that the letter is in his house."

      "But who would dare do such a thing" I cried.

      "The thief," said Germain softly, "He's a man who darers do many dangerous things. He is one of the most powerful and important ministers in the government. He is Minister Danton.”

      "A lot of times, while Minister Danton was out, a lot of well-trained police officers carefully searched the entire house, room by room. In fact, we examined everything in the house but found nothing."…

       A month later, Dupin asked Germain and me to his house. There he took out a letter and handed it to the Chief. We were both very surprised.

      Dupin explained, "I know Minister Danton very well. He could not hide the letter in any of the usual hiding places. I realized that he might have left the letter out in the open, right under everyone's nose, where no one would search for it."

      "Then I visited him with my dark glasses on to help me observe（观察）better. While we were chatting, a dirty, torn letter in the letter holder suddenly caught my eyes-unusual for the Minister, who is careful and neat."

      "I was sure it was the letter."

      "Then I purposely left my gloves behind so I could come back again."

"The next morning, I hired a man to fire a gun on the street, while the Minister went to see what happened, I stole the letter by replacing it with a similar one, On it Dupin wrote these words:

             Your plan was good, but mine was better

             As you can see, I took the letter.

—-Based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe

    I have many teachers now and I love them all, but I think I love my English teacher, Sophia, best.

    Sophia is from the UK. But she loves Chongqing very much. She thinks Chongqing is great. She loves Chongqing food. Do you know what she likes for breakfast? Bread and milk? No, she doesn't. She only has noodles（面条）. Hot pot（火锅） is her favorite and she always eats it on Saturday and Sunday. Sophia has a daughter and a son. Her daughter's name is May. Her son's name is Jack. They are 8 years old. They go to the same school. They like hot pot, too. They are all in Chongqing now.

    We have English from Monday to Friday. So Sophia is very busy. But she is always nice and happy. All my classmates like her and her classes very much. She often plays English games and sings English songs with us. When we have questions, we like to ask her for help.

    Now I think I can do well in English because I have the best English teacher, Sophia.

    My family took a trip to Qingdao last summer vacation. We had great fun there.

    We went to Qingdao by fast train. It was about 11:00 am when we got to the train station. First, we took a taxi to the hotel. After a short rest, we had lunch in the restaurant near the hotel. We ate some fish dumplings there. They were really delicious and they weren't expensive. We enjoyed the meal very much. In the afternoon, it was sunny and hot. So we went to the beach(沙滩). There were quite a lot of people there. My father and I swam in the sea. It was really cool. My mother lay(躺) on the beach and enjoyed the sunshine. She said it was relaxing. Well, the best thing was that I made two new friends on the beach. They were from Canada. That made me feel happy. They said they would write e-mails to me later.

    Qingdao is really a good place to relax. I want to visit it again next year.

    Are you always happy during your vacation? Many people may say "yes". But last week I had a bad vacation.

    My parents and I took a bus to the Great Wall We got on the bus at 7:00 a, m. But on the half way, there was something wrong with the bus. After an hour, it started again. It was about 11:00 a. m. when we got to the Great Wall.

    We were excited when we stood on the Great Wall. My father took out the camera and wanted to take some photos. But just then, it started to rain. We had to go back to our bus. When we wanted to eat something, we found we left our food at home.