How’s it going? Sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, but I couldn’t use my computer for a few days. You’ll     17     guess what happened to me!

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take up yoga. Yoga is combination of physical and breathing exercises. It’s supposed to be good for relaxation and     18    . I’ve been feeling a bit stressed about my school work recently and I thought yoga might help.

My dad couldn’t give me a lift to the first lesson, so I decided to go to the gym by bike. The lesson was great and I felt really     19     afterwards. On the way home, though, it started raining and I got very wet! The next day, I woke up with a bad cold. I couldn’t stop coughing and sneezing. I couldn’t go to school because I also had a high fever. We were having a maths test that day so it was great that I could     20     at home.

I didn’t really enjoy my day off though. I felt awful and stayed in bed. Mum     21     me cups of hot tea for my sore throat (and you know how much I hate tea). She also went to the chemist’s and got me some vitamin pills. I have to keep taking these for a while so I can get     22    .

That afternoon Robbie came to visit me. He said he’d got something to cheer me up and pretended it was the maths test that I missed. “Mr Banks says you can do it at home instead,” he said, but I knew he was joking. I didn’t think it was very funny, but he did! The next day, I was     23     pale and didn’t have much energy, but I was feeling better. The day after that, I was able to go back to school.

Can you believe my luck? I went to the yoga class to feel healthier and instead I caught a cold! Anyway, I hope you’re OK. Write and let me     24     what you’ve been up to! Bye for now!

Kate

April 1st is a day on which, in some countries, people try to play jokes on others. If one succeeds in joking with somebody, one laughs and says, “April Fool”, and then the person who has been joked with usual laughs, too.

One April 1st, a country bus was going on a countryside road. The road was so small and not so straight that the driver had great trouble in driving along. When the bus slowed down and stopped, he quickly turned his key again and again, looking very worried, but nothing happened. Then he turned to the passengers with an unhappy look on his face and said, “This poor bus is getting old and it isn’t going as well as it used to. There is one thing to do if we want to get home before dark. I shall count three, and on the word ‘three’, I want you all to lean forward(前倾) suddenly as hard as you can. That should get the bus started again. Now, all of you lean back as far as you can in your seats and get ready.”

The passengers all followed the drivers’ words. They leaned back all at once and waited quietly for the drivers number counting. Then the driver turned to his front and asked whether they were ready. The passengers hardly had enough breath to answer “yes”.

“One! Two! Three!” counted the driver. The passengers all leaned forward suddenly and the bus started up at a great speed.

The passengers breathed more easily and began to smile with joy. But their smiles turned to surprise and then big laughter when the driver cried, “ April Fools”.

Electricity keeps us warm in winter, cool in summer, cooks our food, heats our water, cleans our clothes and powers our TVs, radios, video games and computers. Electricity makes wonderful things ________.

Electricity can travel ________ through our bodies. Do you know why? Because electricity moves quickly through water and the human body is 70 percent water!

Electricity can be very dangerous. What will happen ________you get shocked? You will find it hard to breathe, your ________ will stop beating and you will get burns and even ________! As electricity travels at the speed of light, it’s almost impossible for you to get rid of it if you really get shocked. And, you should ________ try to touch anyone who’s been shocked with your hands, because you can become part of the circuit as well!

It sounds terrible, and it is, but if you remember the ________ rules, you can always use electricity safely:

● Never touch an electric appliance if you are standing in water or if your hands are wet.

● Never touch broken electrical cords(电线，皮线).

● Never put a metal object into an appliance or a plug.

● Keep kites away from power lines.

● Keep away from downed(下落的) power lines.

Tony loved basketball. One afternoon on his way to a basketball game, he was walking and dreaming about playing college basketball the next year. Suddenly a car hit him and he was thrown three m    48     into the air.

Tony woke up in a h    49     room. When the doctor told him that both his legs were broken, he knew his college basketball dreams were over. Tony did what the doctors told him. B    50     it didn’t work when he left the hospital. Tony was sent to a rehab centre.

A week after he arrived there. he met Sunny Chen. Sunny used to be a coach. His legs were hurt seriously in a skating accident. Though he couldn’t move his legs, Sunny became a coach of a basketball t    51     called the Suns. It was a on-wheelchair basketball team, because everybody on the team played from a wheelchair. Sunny invited Tony to j    52     the game. Tony played badly, but for the first time since the accident, he stopped feeling sorry for himself.

After becoming a part of the Suns, Tony Improved quickly. Basketball was like m    53     for him. Tony was much better than before. When Tony became sad or angry, Sunny was there to help him. The day before Tony left the centre, he had dinner with Sunny. He asked Sunny h    54     he could be so happy, even with his broken legs. Sunny smiled and said, “It’s really quite easy. When you keep your face to the sun, the shadows fall behind.”

Every year on my birthday, from the time 1 turned 12, a white gardenia (栀子花) was delivered to my house. No card ever came with it. Calls to the flower-shop were not helpful at all. After a while I stopped trying to find out the senders name and was just pleased with the beautiful white flower, in soft pink paper.

I never stopped imagining who the giver might be, though. Some of my happiest moments were spent daydreaming about the sender. My mother encouraged these daydreams. She’d ask me if I had been especially kind to someone. Perhaps it was one of my classmates. Perhaps it was the old man. He lived across the street. I’d delivered his mail during the winter. As a girl, though, I had more fun imagining that it might be a boy that I had met.

One month before my high school graduation, my father died. I was so sad that I became completely uninterested in my upcoming graduation dance, and I didn’t care whether I had a new dress or not. My mother, in her own sadness, however, would not let me miss any of those things. She wanted her children to feel loved. In fact, my mother wanted her children to see themselves much like the gardenia: lovely, strong and perfect, with perhaps a bit of mystery (神秘).

I got married at the age of 22. My mother died ten years after I was married. That was the year the gardenia stopped coming.