Mei had loved butterflies for as long as she could remember. Her favorite thing to draw was butterflies and her bedroom was decorated with butterfly patterns. But Mei lived in a big city and had seen only a few butterflies fluttering around the park. Today she’d get to see a lot of them in one special place.

A loud honk sounded in the street and Mei’s mother walked downstairs. Mei ran.

Aunt Fay’s yellow car ran along the highway. Mei, who watched the signs for their exit, wished they could go faster.

“You’re excited, aren’t you?” Aunt Fay asked.

“I sure am!” Mei had told all her friends at school about the special trip. “You know how much I love butterflies.”

Mei always checked out books about butterflies whenever she went to the library. Her best friend, Lisa, called Mei the butterfly expert. An expert, she knew, was someone who knew a lot about something.

“I may not be an expert,” Mei told Aunt Fay, “but I know more facts about butterflies than anyone in my third grade class.”

They arrived at the butterfly garden and walked up to the wooden gate.

“Are the butterflies hiding?” Aunt Fay asked.

Mei skipped to look inside the high windows at the flowers, bushes, and small trees. Then she wondered. It was spring, the time of year when butterflies hatched. But was it too soon and too cold where they lived?

“Welcome.” A man with round eyeglasses greeted them at the gate. “I’m afraid you’ve come at a slow time of year.”

Aunt Fay bought their tickets and they went into the indoor garden. They stepped along the stones of the path and Mei spotted colorful birds flitting in and out of trees. That was all.

Aunt Fay looked around and asked, “Where are all the butterflies?”

“They haven’t hatched yet.” Mei’s feet dragged with her words. “I forgot that it’s still too early for the butterflies in our climate.”

Had they come all this way for nothing? Would Mei’s friends laugh when she told them? Maybe Lisa was wrong.   

Aunt Fay bought Mei a book about butterflies from the gift shop.   

The Pizza Encounter

As Mr. Anderson entered the cozy pizzeria, he couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement for the delicious pizza he was about to enjoy. Dressed in his best suit, he scanned the menu eagerly, his mouth already watering at the thought of the melted cheese. But as he made his way to the counter to place his order, his sense of excitement quickly turned to annoyance when he was rudely bumped into (偶然遇到) by a homeless man named Jack.

Mr. Anderson glared at the man, his eyebrows raised in a look of disgust.

"Watch where you're going! Do you know how expensive my suit is?" he snapped, carefully straightening his suit.

"Oh, I am really sorry," apologized Jack.

Mr. Anderson sniffed (哼了哼) in response, a look of superiority on his face. "Some people," he complained under his breath, as if to say that the homeless man was beneath him.

After ordering three slices of cheeses, Mr. Anderson sat down at a table, feeling annoyed. To his surprise, the homeless man followed and sat down across from him. Mr. Anderson's frown (皱眉) deepened.

When the pizza arrived, Mr. Anderson was about to take a bite, but the homeless man reached out and grabbed a slice. Mr. Anderson's eyes widened in disbelief (难以置信). He had never seen such rudeness.

“Great cheese, right?” said Jack.

Mr. Anderson shook his head. He reluctantly took a bite of his slice, while glaring at the homeless man. However, the man kept reaching for more slices, and Mr. Anderson grew increasingly angry. It went on like this until the last slice, which Jack simply took without asking and handed him half of it. Mr. Anderson exploded with anger, yelling at the homeless man loudly. Mr. Anderson slammed (砸) his fist on the table and continued to yell at Jack, demanding an explanation for his behavior.

Just then, the waiter approached Mr. Anderson with another plate of pizza.

“But why did you give the last slice to me?” asked Mr. Anderson, genuinely curious.

Sometime during the seventh grade two things happened to me. The first was that I got hooked on salami (腊肠). The other thing was that my mom and I weren’t getting along really well. We weren’t fighting really badly or anything, but we didn’t laugh together much anymore. Things were changing, and my mom and I were the first to feel it.

As far as the salami went, my mom wouldn’t buy any because she said it was too expensive and not that good for me. To prove my emerging independence, one day I used my pocket money to buy a full sausage of dry salami. I didn’t want my mom to see it. So I hid it in the only place that I knew was totally safe — under my bed. There was a special corner under the bed that the upright hoover couldn’t reach. Under the bed went the salami, back in the corner — in the dark and the dust.

A couple of weeks later, I remembered the delicious treat that was waiting for me. I peered beneath the bed and saw... not the salami that I had hidden, but some green and hairy object that didn’t like anything that I had ever seen before. The salami had grown about an inch of hair, and the hair was standing straight up, as if the salami had been surprised by the sudden appearance of my face next to its hiding place. Being a picky eater, I was not interested in consuming any of this object.

Some time later, my mom became obsessed with spring cleaning, which in her case meant she would clean places that had never seen the light of day. I knew in my heart that the moment would soon come when she would find the object in its hiding place. During the first two days of her cleaning, I watched carefully to judge the time when I thought she would find the salami, She washed, she scrubbed, she dusted... she screamed! “Ahhhhhh... ahhhhh... ahhhhh!” The screams were coming from my room. Alarms went off in my head. She had found the salami!

“What is it, Mom?” I yelled as I ran into my room.

When my mom continued pushing it hard, I finally burst out laughing.