Ned wanted to escape from the Nautilus while we were in the Mediterranean. However, he had no chance. The submarine raced into the Atlantic in two days mostly staying deep under the water. I saw many shipwrecks along the way. Some were very old. Others were recent. As it surfaced, the submarine turned north.

Ned came to my room. “Tonight!” he said. “Tonight?” I wasn’t ready for this. “Tonight,” he repeated, “we are a few miles off the Spanish coast. It will be dark, and the wind is blowing in the right direction. You agreed, Dr Aronnax, to escape with me. Remember your promise!” I said nothing. “At nine, I will go to the staircase with Conseil. You will wait in the library for our signal. Everything is ready.”

“The sea is quite rough,” I said.

“Yes, but if we don’t go tonight, we will soon be too far from land!”

I knew he was right. I was also frightened. What would Captain Nemo do if he discovered our plan or if we failed? I had not seen him for several days. Now I didn’t want to see him. He might notice that I was nervous. I stayed in my room.

As I waited for Ned’s signal, the Nautilus’s engines stopped. I felt a bump as the submarine came to rest on the ocean floor.

The library door opened and Captain Nemo entered. He took me to the window. I found the crew of the Nautilus were gathering some gold from the sand and bringing it to the submarine. Now I knew how the Captain became so rich. “But of what use is all this gold to you?” I asked. “It’s of no use to me!” he replied, “but it can help people who are suffering.”

Ned came to my room the next morning. “We were unlucky. The Nautilus stopped just as we were about to escape.”

I told him what I had learned about Nemo and the gold. I hoped that Ned would change his mind, but he didn’t. The Nautilus was going away from the land. Escape was impossible now. Ned was disappointed, but I was not.

At eleven that night, I was surprised that Captain Nemo invited me to go for a night walk under the sea.

Whenever the sun dropped and the blue sky came up, my father and I used to climb the mountain near my house. Walking together, my father and I used to have a lot of conversations through which I learned lessons from his experiences. He always told me, “You should have goals like climbing the mountain.” Without the mountain-climbing that we both enjoyed, we couldn’t have enough time to spend together because my father was very busy. I really got a lot from the mountain-climbing. It gave me time to talk with my father and to be in deep thought as well as develop my patience.

Once we climbed a very high mountain. It was so challenging for me because I was only ten years old. During the first few hours of climbing, I enjoyed the flowers and trees, and the birds’ singing. But as time passed, I got a pain in both of my legs. I wanted to quit climbing, but my father said to me, “You can always see a beautiful sky at the top of the mountain, but you can’t see it before you reach the top. Only there can you see all of the nice things, which is just like your life.”

At that time, I was too young to understand his words. But later after that, I got to know the meaning of hope in life. I found myself standing at the top of the mountain, and the sky was as clear as crystal (水晶).

A sleepover (过夜) program, which is designed to make kids believe that their favorite toys enjoy reading, can help encourage children to pick up more books, a new study suggests.

Toys sleepover programs are designed to get children interested in books. Children take their toys to a library for the night. At this point, workers and volunteers take photos of the toys which explore the library and read books. The next day, the children collect their toys and the photos of what the toys did during the night. They are given the books that their toys chose to read.

It was found that before the sleepover, the children did not spend time looking at the books in their play area at preschool. After the sleepover, the number of children who read to the toys was higher than the number who did not, but after three days the effect decreased gradually.

The researchers also tested a method for keeping the effect. They reminded the children of the sleepover a month later, by hiding the toys and showing them the photos again the next day. This simple method brought an increase in the number of children reading to their toys.

The study proves for the first time that children who take part in sleepover programs read picture books to their toys more. “We wanted to know if there really was an effect, and if so, how long it lasts. Surprisingly, the children not only showed interest in the books, but also began to read to their toys. This means that a new behavior pattern appeared that the children hadn’t had before. We did not expect anything like this,” said one of the researchers.

Reading is important for the development of children’s language skills and imagination. When parents read to their children, it is a passive way of reading for the child. However, when children read to their toys, it is a more active, self-directed way of reading, helping them develop into more active readers, researchers said.

I will never forget the tenth summer of childhood with my grandfather in western Norway at the mountain farm where my mother was born. As a boy, I always thought people simply bought whatever they needed. Whether grandfather knew this, I don’t know. One day he said, “Come, I have something for you.”

I followed him to a workroom. “You should have a toy boat. You can sail it at Storvassdal.” He said. Great, I thought, looking around for the boat. But there was none.

Grandfather pointed to a block of wood. “The boat is in there,” he said. Then he handed me some tools and showed me how to use them properly. “It’ll be a fine boat, and you’ll make it with your own hands,” he said, “No one can give you what you do for yourself.” The words rang in my head as I worked. Finally I finished the boat. It wasn’t much to look at, but I was proud. Then I sailed it at Storvassdal.

We had to return to America. “You can not bring that boat home with you,” my mother said. We already had too much baggage. Feeling sad, I hid my boat under a big rock at Storvassdal.

I said good-bye to grandfather, not knowing I would never see him again.

In 1964, I went to Storvassdal with my parents and my wife and children. To my surprise, for 34 years my treasure stayed here, waiting for my return. I felt we three were together again although my grandfather had died 22 years before.

I carved “1930” and “1964” on its side and put it back.

I returned to the lake in 1968,1971,1977 and 1988. Each time I had the boat and carved the year, my grandfather seemed near.

My last trip to Storvassdal was in 1991. I brought my granddaughters: Catherine, 13; Claire, 12. I hoped they would understand the importance of the little boat and its simple message. At Storvassdal, Claire said softly,“Grandpa, someday I’ll come back.” She added, “And I’ll bring my children.”

The pilot, Antoine De Saint-Exupery, who wrote The Little Prince, died long ago, but the fictional pilot, who told the story, is as a    61     today as he was many years ago, along with his Prince, the fox, the rose and the snake.

This timeless tale touches upon childhood and growing up. It opens with the reminder: All grow-ups were once c    62     — but few of them remember it. The pilot in this story loses that part of himself. A    63     a stay in the desert with the little prince, he finds his inner child again. It is a s    64     story with life lessons. Here are some.

One only understands the things that one tames (驯服). Seeing the thousands of roses that look just like his rose makes the prince feel as if he was tricked by his f    65    . The fox shows him taming someone t    66     time. The prince understands the nature of relationships: the time he has wasted on his rose makes h    67     so important.

The fox, as his parting(分别) gift, shares his secret with the prince: One can see rightly with the heart. What is very important and necessary can’t be s    68    . When the pilot shows his picture about the snake eating the elephant, adults only see it as a hat. Adults can’t see what’s i    69     the snake. What is outside is not what matters. This truth sets the little prince free. He decides to join his rose back on his planet.

Has he returned to his planet and his r    70    ? The ending is in the imagination of every reader as well as the pilot. After all, it is a book with something for everyone.

76. 社会不断在发展进步，成绩好已经不再是衡量一个好学生的唯一标准。某校正在开展“走进新时代，争当合格中学生”的大讨论，以“We act, we improve”为主题，用英语写一篇演讲稿，谈谈你觉得除了学习课本知识之外，我们还应该做些什么？提示如下：

We act, we improve

With the development of the society, to learn well is not the only thing a student should do. To be a qualified(合格的) middle school student, I think we have a lot of things to do.