It was a reading class in the morning. Bill opened his reading book. A folded paper crane (千纸鹤) fell out. His grandfather made it for him when he came to visit from Japan.

Tony, a boy sitting next to Bill saw it. “What’s that?”

“It’s something my grandfather made for me,” Bill said, showing it to Tony.

“Bill, what are you doing?” his teacher, Mrs. Miller asked.

“Sorry,” Bill said, putting his paper crane away.

Mrs. Miller walked to Bill’s desk. “May I please have that? You may have it back after school.”

In the afternoon when school was over, Bill ran to Mrs. Miller’s office. “Mrs. Miller, may I have the paper crane back?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Miller said. She opened her drawer (抽屉) and took out the paper crane. “I just hope next time you will focus more in class. By the way, did you make that crane?”

“No, my grandfather made it for me,” Bill said. “I miss him very much, so I like to keep it with me.”

Mrs. Miller said, “I understand. I also have one of those specially folded birds made by my grandfather. He could make all kinds of paper animals.”

“Did your grandfather grow up in Japan, like mine, Mrs. Miller?” Bill asked.

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Miller said, laughing. “He grew up in Spain. A long time ago, the Spanish learned how to fold paper animals from the Japanese. My grandfather folded paper animals all his life.”

“He sounds just like my grandfather,” Bill said.

Mark is a 15-year-old boy from Canada. At six, he started to learn to skate. He skates very well. 1. He is going to be a skater when he grows up.

2. Two years ago, something bad happened to him. There was something wrong with his eyes. He couldn’t see anything. People thought it was impossible for him to skate. However, Mark didn’t give up. He still practiced skating. He learned to use sound to help him skate.

“When people have problems, they think it’s the end of the world, but it’s not. Nothing is impossible. I’ll keep skating,” says Mark. “And I’m sure I’ll be a great skater in the future.”

My cat’s name is Lucky. She is black and white and her eyes are green.

I found Lucky in the street. Once I went to a store. I bought some bread and went home. It started to rain on the way. I didn’t take a(n)     51     with me. So I ran to a tree and waited under it. Suddenly something     52     from the tree and I saw a little cat. She was very small,     53     and dirty. After the rain stopped, I took     54     home.

My dad often said that the cat was lucky to live with a family     55     ours. That is why we call her Lucky.

    56     one night, we learned that we were luckier     57     Lucky.

That night, when all of us went to sleep, a small fire started in our kitchen. Soon there was smoke (烟) everywhere in the house. We were in great     58    .

That’s when Lucky went to my parents’ room. She started to scream (尖叫) loudly. She also jumped on my parents’ bed to wake them up.

    59    , we could call the fire station for help in time.

    60     lucky we are to have her! We thank Lucky very much for saving our lives.

Leandro Barbosa is an NBA star. To others, life may seem easy for a famous basketball player. But in fact, life hasn’t always been like this for him. Leandro grew up in a poor neighborhood in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He shared a small house with his mom, dad, brothers and sisters. There were days when his family didn’t have enough food to eat. But Leandro’s brothers and sisters always fed him first.

At age four, Leandro started to sell fruit to make money for his family. When his mom put him to bed at night, she would say, “Be happy no matter what. Life is short. Enjoy the day you have.”

When Leandro was five, he started playing basketball. “My brother taught me,” he remembers. “Every day I asked for more teaching.”

When Leandro was six, he told his family, he wanted to become a basketball player. He carried his basketball with him everywhere and practiced all the time.

When he was just 19 years old, Leandro was the youngest player to make the Brazilian National Team. The following year, the Phoenix Suns picked him to be on their team. When he saw the locker room (更衣室) there, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “It was so beautiful to me,” he says. He was happy enough to sleep in the locker room that night. After all his hard work, Leandro deserved (值得) to enjoy that special night.

假如你是李明，寒假将至，你收到了你的英国朋友Mike的电子邮件，询问你的寒假计划，请你给Mike回一封电子邮件，谈谈你假期打算做的事情吧！

Thanks for your e-mail. The winter vacation is coming. I’m going to do many things during my vacation. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What are your plans for the winter vacation? I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours,

Li Ming