My grandfather Jack is 96 years old，and he has had an interesting life. He has travelled a lot in his life in the Far East. He visited the Taj Mahal in India and the Pyramids in Egypt. He hunted（狩猎） lions in Africa, and rode a camel in the Sahara Desert. He says the most beautiful place he has travelled to is Kathmandu in Nepal.

    Jack has married twice. His first wife died when she was 32. He met his second wife Maria while he was cycling round France. They have been married for 50 years, and they have lived happily in a small village since they got married.

Jack says that he has never been ill in his life. The secret of good health, according to my grandfather, is exercise. He goes swimming every morning. He has done this since he was a boy. He also has a glass of wine every night! Perhaps that is his secret!

    A boy called Mike had many friends, and he was proud of it. Whoever he met, he would like to show off how popular he was at school.

    One day, his grandpa said to him, “Mike, I know that you don't have as many friends as you think. Many of them are not true to you.”

    Mike thought maybe his grandpa was right. However, he wasn't sure how he could test whether his schoolmates were real friends or not, so he asked his grandpa. The old man answered, “I have just exactly what you need. It's in my room. Wait a minute.” The old man left, soon returning as if(好像) carrying something in his hand, but Mike could see nothing there.

    “Take it. It's a very special chair. Because it's invisible, it will be hard for you to sit on it. However, if you manage to sit on it, you can use the chair's magic power to tell who your real friends are.”

    Mike took the strange invisible chair to school. At break time he asked everyone to form a circle, and he put himself in the middle, with his chair.

    “Nobody moves. You're about to see something amazing,” said Mike. Then he tried sitting on the chair. Having difficulty seeing it, he missed and fell to the ground. Everyone had a pretty good laugh. “Wait, wait,” said Mike, making another try. But again he missed the chair.

    Mike didn't give up. He kept trying to sit on the magic chair. Finally, he did it. This time he felt himself in mid-air. Then he experienced the magic that his grandpa had been talking about. Looking around, Mike saw George, Lucas and Diana holding him up, so he wouldn't fall. But some schoolmates whom he had regarded as friends had done nothing but made fun of him. Mike was quite thankful to his grandpa, who helped him test who his true friends were.

    I grew up in a small town in South Canada. Every autumn, there was a week—long fair in the town. Thousands of people from other towns came to sell and buy things. It was the most exciting time of the year.

    When “Fairtime” came, my grandma became the busiest person of the family. Grandma was a kind, well—educated old lady. She was good at cooking. During “Fairtime”, relatives would come to live in her house and have meals there. Grandma was always happy to look after them.

    Year after year, many people moved to big cities. There was no longer “Fairtime”. Grandma became very old and was going a little blind. My parents and I did our best to make her life as comfortable as possible. I was at high school then. What I often did at home was to help Grandma with the daily newspaper's crossword puzzle. However, she didn't look happy. She often sat in her room for hours, without saying a word.

    To attract people to move back, the Town Hall decided to reopen the Fair. One day, when I came back from school, I saw Grandma wearing her glasses, washing the dishes in the kitchen. With a big smile on her face, she looked excited and a lot much younger. She told me that her two of her cousins would come. "They said they missed hometown and wanted to enjoy my food again."  Grandma said happily. "They will stay here for one week and we can have a big party. That must be the busiest week I've had in years!”

    I suddenly realized that Grandma didn't want to be looked after. She wanted to be “useful”, appreciated and helpful.

    We had an awful school trip last week. Some students were late. Then we waited half an hour for the school bus, but it didn't arrive. Finally, our teacher took us to take the subway. It took over an hour. Then we walked a long way. When we arrived at the zoo, it was already 12:00. We were all tired and hungry. We wanted to see pandas, but there weren't any. There were some really smart dolphin（海豚）,but we didn't see the show because we arrived too late. We forgot our cameras, so we couldn't take any photos. Then it started to rain, and no one had an umbrella. We didn't see many animals because of the rain. So we went for lunch. We ate hamburgers. My friends also had some ice-cream. But I didn't have any, because I don't like it. I wanted French fries, but there weren't any in the shop. They were sold out! Finally we went back to school. We were wet, tired and stressed out. I didn't enjoy my school trip at all.

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

    Once there was an emperor. He had a beautiful garden. In the garden, there was a little nightingale(夜莺) singing very beautifully.

    One day, the emperor heard about this little bird's beautiful voice. He asked his guards to bring her to him. When the emperor heard the nightingale's voice, he said, "Put her in a golden cage, so she can stay and sing for me whenever I want to hear her."

    The little bird was so unhappy about being kept in the cage that she stopped singing one day. The emperor was very angry. He ordered the scientists in his palace to make a robot bird for him. The bird could sing very beautifully too. The emperor was pleased.

    Soon the robot bird became old. It no longer sang beautiful songs. Just at that time, the emperor was ill and he became very weak. One morning, while lying in bed, the emperor wanted it to sing once again. But the robot bird could not sing any more. Suddenly, the nightingale landed on the window. She began to sing her most beautiful song. The emperor was very happy! He became better and better each day.

    After the emperor was well, he changed a lot and became kind to his people. From then on, all his people cherished(爱戴) him for his love and kindness.