Mary is an American girl. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Smith find work in China. So they live in Wuhan now. Mr. Smith works in a big shop. Mrs. Smith teaches English in a middle school. Mary goes to that school on weekdays. On Sundays she goes shopping with her mother. She likes dumplings very much. Every time they'd like many dumplings. It's 6:30 in the evening now. Mrs.Smith is cooking. Mr. Smith is helping her with the housework. What's Mary doing? She is doing her homework carefully.

    Camilla Chomp was a strange little girl. She liked to spend her time alone eating chocolate. Her parents were worried, so they tookall the chocolate away.

    Camilla left her house to look for some chocolate. She found a small house full of bottles. Among the bottles, a blue bottle caught Camilla's eyes. It was full of chocolate. In the bottle there was also a card with the words "Changetears(眼泪) into chocolate."

    Camilla was very excited.She ran out of the house with the bottle to look for someone crying. First, she met a little boy crying hard and collected his tears. The tears were quickly changed into chocolate. While Camillawas collecting the tears, she comforted the boy. Finally, the boy stopped crying and they had a good time together.

    Later, Camilla met a woman and an old man crying. The woman had broken some bowls. And the old man's dog had just died. Camilla collected their tears and made them happy again.

    Soon, Camilla knew that making people happy was much more important than finding chocolate. So she stopped collecting tears and began to help sad people. As a result, she had many friends and had a happy life.

    Tom arrived at the New York airport two hours before the flight to Paris. He was wearing three shirts, a jacket, two pairs of socks, a pair of shorts, and two pairs of jeans. He was carrying one small backpack, which was very full, but he didn't have any other luggage. Tom needed to meet a man named Tony before he checked in for his flight. He found Tony near the Air France counter. Tony gave him a round-trip ticket and a small package.

    “Give this package to Jean-Paul at the airport in Paris. He will have a sign with your name on it. I think you can find him easily,” Tony said, ”You don't have any luggage, right?”

    “Only this backpack,” Tom answered. ”You said I could bring one carry-on bag.”

    “That's right. One carry-on bag is fine. Have a good trip.”

    “Thanks.”

    Is Tom a criminal (罪犯)? Not at all. He is an air-courier(空中信使). And he paid only $110 for the round-trip ticket to Paris. Air couriers get cheap airline tickets because they take important packages and papers to foreign countries. Businesses sometimes need to get packages and papers to people in foreign countries by the next day. Often, the only way they can do this is to use an air-courier company. It is not cheap for a business to send a package with an air courier, but it is quick.

    Every year about 80,000 people worldwide travel as air couriers. The number of tickets for courier travel is growing by about 10 percent a year. However, air-courier travel isn't for everyone. But if you have very little money, can be flexible(灵活的) about your travel plans, and don't mind wearing the same clothes for a week, it can be a great way to take a vacation!

B

    Most of us have ever imagined the life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise(天堂) where the sun always shines. “Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you are free to sit around without any work. This is really a beautiful picture, isn't it? However, the other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is awful. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes.

    Perhaps there is some truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the chance to find out. We can only experience it in the story like the following.

    Many years ago, two men spent five days on a coral island and they wished that they could stay there longer. They were driving a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink(下沉). They quickly put food, matches, and cans of beer into a rubber dinghy(救生筏) and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island.

    There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not seem to be a problem. The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a gun with them, they had plenty to eat. They caught lobster and fish every day, and they thought they lived just like a king. Five days later, a tank passed by and saved them. However, they felt sorry that they had to leave

    Winnie the Pooh is about 100 years old. It is my favourite, and I'm sure it's also yours. Do you know how it came to our life?

    Winnipeg is a place in Canada. Many years ago, Harry, a soldier, went to Europe from here. When he stopped at train station, he saw a man selling a little black bear. Harry bought it and named it Winnipeg. The name became Winnie in short later.

    Harry went to a lot of places. When he got to London, he left Winnie in the London Zoo. He thought they could look after Winnie.

    Near the zoo, there was a boy named Robin. He loved to visit the London Zoo with his dad. Winnie was his favourite animal. Robin's father was a writer. He wrote the bear in one of his poems for the first time. Later he wrote stories about Winnie and Robin. Slowly, the father wrote more characters(角色) like Piglet, Rabbit, Roo and Tigger and so on in his stories.