Three years ago, Mike and Ben took a holiday on the beach. They had a quarrel(吵架). Mike hit Ben on the face. Ben was hurt and he wrote in the sand, "Today my best friend hit me on the face."

    After that, they took a taxi back to their hotel. After dinner, Ben started to read. Mike went for a walk in the park. Suddenly, an earthquake happened. The small hotel fell down and Ben was under the hotel. Mike saved him. Ben wrote on the stone. "Today my best friend saved my life."

    Mike asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now you write on the stone, why?" Ben answered, "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in the sand, and then the wind can blow it away. When someone helps us, we must carve(雕刻) it in stone, then the winds can't blow it away."

A

    Mr. and Mrs. Smith got married when he was twenty-three，and she was twenty．Twenty-five years later，they had a big party，and a photographer(摄影师) came and took some photos for them．Then the photographer gave Mrs. Smith a card and said，"They'll be ready next Wednesday．You can get them from my room．"

    "No，"Mrs. Smith said，"Please send them to us．"

    The photos arrived a week later，but Mrs. Smith was not pleased when she saw them．She got into her car and drove to the photographer's room．She went inside and said angrily，"You took some photos of me and my husband last week，but I'm not going to pay for them．"

    "Oh，why not ?"the photographer asked．

    "Because my husband looks like a monkey．"Mrs. Smith said．

    "Well，"the photographer answered，"That isn't my fault(过错)．Why didn't you think that before you married him?''

    On Miriam's 9th birthday two years ago, her aunt, who lives in Kenya（肯尼亚）, gave money to a group that cares for elephants to celebrate Miriam's birthday. Then Miriam and her mother visited Africa to learn how the group was helping elephants. Later, Miriam fell in love with the animals and wanted to help save them.

    A few months after visiting Africa, Miriam watched How I Became an Elephant, a film about the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand, and a young girl's effort to save them. Miriam decided she wanted to raise money to save elephants.

    Last year, Miriam created a program called They Deserve（应得） to Be Free after seeing how young elephants are abused in Thailand. She learned how people take a baby elephant, don't give it food or water for days and beat it hard. "It made me really sad. I need to do something useful." Miriam said.

    Miriam is working to make money for Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. She asked her friends to give money to the park rather than giving her birthday gifts.

    She recently joined about 12 other students in an art center. They made elephants from clay and decorated（装饰） them. Then she created a plan to sell clay elephants.

    Kate, Miriam's art teacher, opened her art studio（工作室） to Miriam and her friends on weekends so they could make clay elephants. She even gave them the clay." It's great to see a young student wanting to spend her time on something meaningful. This is what we should all work towards," Kate said.

    Miriam says she has sold 180 clay elephants worth 2, 000 dollars, and all of that money has been sent to Elephant Nature Park in Thailand.

    I'm a Chinese student studying in Canada. I have been a boarder(寄宿生) with the Carsons for more than a year and a half.

    The Carsons live in their own house, which has four bedrooms including the one in the basement(底层) which I live in. Judy does all the work in the house and Andrew is responsible for the work in the garden. When they go out in the evening, they often ask me to look after their children.

    Judy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Morris, lived in another city. Judy was their only child and naturally they doted on(溺爱) Judy's children. They often sent the children presents.

    Last April Mr. Morris died. Now that Mrs. Morris was quite alone, I expected that Judy would want her to come and live with them. One day, Margaret told me grandma was coming to live with them and her daddy and mummy would want my room back. The news didn't surprise me and the next day I went to Judy and asked her about it. I said I couldn't think of living in their basement room any longer if it was needed for Mrs. Morris. Judy seemed surprised at first. Then she told me there was no deed for me to move, for they hadn't yet come to any decision about her mother coming to live with them. "Naturally I'm worried about my mother. She has been in poor health." She smiled sadly and added. "To be honest, Andrew and my mother have never got on well. We'll wait a bit and see what happens. Perhaps Moter will be all right living herself, of perhaps they will both change their minds."

    That was six months ago. During this time I've heard that Mrs. Morris has had two illnesses and that her health has got worse. A nursing home was mentioned once but Mrs. Morris refused to go there. So up to now she's still living alone and I'm still living in the basement room.

    One day, John read an advertisement in a newspaper. It said "Wanted. The best salesman in the world." John thought he was a great salesman and went to ask for the job. "I'm the best salesman in the world," he said to the manager. "Give me the job."

   "You must prove you're the best," the manager said.

   "OK I will," John said.

   "Good." The manager took several boxes of sweets out of his desk." Last week I bought a thousand boxes of sweets. If yon can sell them all before the end of the week, yon can have the job," said the manager.

   "That's easy," John said. He took the boxes of sweets and left the office.

    Every day and all day he went from shop to shop, trying to sell the sweets. But he couldn't sell one. The sweets were too bad for him to sell. At the end of the week he went back to the manager." I'm sorry, sir," he said," I was wrong about myself. I'm not the best salesman in the world, but I know who is."

   "Oh" said the manager. "Who?"

   "The person who sold you a thousand boxes of the sweets."