Betty and I are best friends. Our birthdays are on the same day, so every year we have a birthday party together. But this year, we had a costume party instead.

      While we were writing the invitations, my mum came in and asked, "Why not invite John?" John had been in our class for only a few months, but he was already getting better grades in Maths than anyone else in class. I wrinkled (皱起) my nose, “Mum, he wears the same pants to school every day. How could he even afford a costume?" Mum said nothing. The next day, mum gave me an envelope with a shopping certificate (凭证) in it. "I thought it would be nice for you to give this to John" Mum said. But how? We didn't want to make John embarrassed. We discussed it for a long time. Finally, Betty and I had a good idea.

      On the day of our party, kids arrived, dressed differently. John arrived, in an old sheet (床单), but still in the same brown pants as usual. We danced, ate snacks and played games in groups. Before eating the birthday cake, Betty said in a loud voice, “Now it is time for the great prize game.  It is the following riddle……". It was a maths game. None of us was surprised when John came up with the right answer first and walked off with the envelope.

      Everything went on well as we planned. John wore a new pair of pants and a new shirt the next week. He felt happy. So did we.

When we help others, we need to find a proper way, or we may hurt them in another way.

Which Is More Useful?

    Thomas is in Grade Two now. He goes to school from Monday to Friday. After school he must do some housework. He helps his parents on the farm(农场) on Saturdays and Sundays. So he doesn't have any time to play football in the daytime. He often plays with his friends in the moon(月亮).

    It's five in the afternoon. School is over. Thomas goes home and cooks for his family. After dinner he sees his friend Paul near his house and asks him to play football. The boy looks at the sky and sees the moon. Then he asks, "Which is more useful, the sun or the moon?"

    "I think the moon is," says Thomas. "We need light(光线) in the evening, but we can not see the sun, but the moon!"

    Alan comes from New York, and now he is having a great time visiting his aunt in China. Today is Sunday. It's his eleventh birthday. He gets up early and wants to make a cake for his birthday party in the afternoon.

    When he comes out of his bedroom, he sees a big bowl of noodles on the table. It's a bowl of tomato and egg noodles. Alan usually has bread and milk for breakfast in America. Alan likes the tomato and egg noodles, but he still wants to know why his aunt cooks noodles this morning

    "It's your birthday today," his aunt says, *in China, many people eat very long noodles on their birthdays. It's a symbol of long life. We never cut up the noodles, and we call the long noodles changshou noodles.”

    "Thanks. I think it's my first special gift I get for my birthday," says Alan.

Mr. Hamel picked up a grammar book and read us our lesson. I was surprised at how well I understood it－everything he said seemed so easy! Mr. Hamel had never explained things so patiently. It was as if the poor man wanted to give us all his knowledge in one go.

After grammar, we moved on to writing. For this last day, Mr. Hamel had prepared new examples written in a beautiful style: France, Alsace. Everyone worked hard in dead silence. The only sound was the scratching of pens on paper.

Pigeons (鸽子) cooed softly on the roof. I wondered if they would be forced to sing in

German, too. Mr. Hamel looked at the things around him as if he wanted to remember everything in the small classroom. He had been in this same place for forty years. The desks and chairs were worn with use. The walnut trees in the garden had grown up. The flowers he had planted were now climbing up to the roof.

It must have been sad for the poor man to leave all these things behind. His sister was packing their bags upstairs. They were leaving the country tomorrow.

Mr. Hamel bravely kept on teaching the lesson to the end. After writing, we had history. And at the end of the day, the little children read "BA, BE, BI, BO, BU" together. The old man put on his glasses and read with them. He held his textbook tightly in both hands. His voice was shaking.

Suddenly, the church bell rang. Mr. Hamel got up from his chair. His face was pale, but he had never looked so tall before.

"My friends, I…" But something stopped him. He could only turn around and pick up a piece of chalk. As large as he could, he wrote "…"

"Today's lesson is over. You can go now," he said.

Zhao Wenjing and Zhao Yajing are twin sisters(双胞胎姐妹). They live with an unusual disease(疾病)— spinal muscular atrophy(脊髓性肌萎缩症), or SMA. It isn't easy to live with such a disease(疾病), but the twins always try to live a meaningful life.

Because of their disease, the twins only studied at school full- time for one year. Then they started to study at home. When they studied, they always helped each other.

 The twins' father encouraged them to read and travel as much as possible. From 2017 to 2019, the family took many trips across China . The twins' SMA was a big challenge for some long trips. So, the family made changes to their car so that the twins could li e down and rest. While they were on the road, they read many books. They realized that reading and traveling were both important because reading encouraged creative thinking on their trips.

During their trips, 她们还把一些书赠送给贫困的孩子们。 They hoped to share their love for reading with those children.

But the twins felt it wasn't enough. They wanted to do more. They thought about opening a library. Recently, the twins made their dream come true. They changed their living room into a small library to share their books with others.

 Hi! My name is Justine. I'm from America and I'm a middle school student. I. et me1 you something about my life (生活).

I always get up at 6: 30 am. I have 2 and then I go to school at 7: 00 am. Some of my classmates and I go to the3 club after school on Mondays and Fridays. In the club, we dance, and we4 make dancing videos(视频). Then I go home and do my homework. At 7:30 pm, l have dinner and talk with my5 .

I don't think my school life is difficult. Every school day, I have seven classes. Some of my classmates think history is 6 , but I can get much fun from it.

 In my 7 time, I often go to play with my classmate, Nancy. We talk about our lessons and8 TV shows about our favorite dancers.

I'm lucky(幸运的) because there are many holidays(假期) in the school year. For example (例如), I have one week for the New Year and two9 for the summer holidays. In the holidays, I have great parties with my friends.

110 my life and I'm a happy middle school girl.