Sam was worried. The following morning, he would have art class. It was his favourite class, but there was a _________. Sam saw the world differently from everybody else. When he drew, birds had different-sized wings, and buildings had strange shapes. Every time he painted a picture, his teachers and classmates would be _________.

It was time for the art class. Nervously (紧张不安地), Sam looked at the white piece of paper in front of him.

“Good morning, class,” said Mr. White. “Today, we’re going to paint…”

Sam _________, wondering what the next word would be. Please, he thought, not houses. Not buildings…

“We’re going to paint _________,” said Mr. White, with a smile.

“Yes! Great!” said Sam _________.

“We can’t paint that!” shouted Mike from the other side of the classroom.

“Sure, you can,” replied Mr. White _________. “Think about it, Mike. What makes you happy?”

“Umm… beaches, sunshine, and… ice-cream!” said Mike.

“Well, there you go. That’s how you paint it. Start working!” said Mr. White.

Sam was already _________. He splashed (泼洒) large amounts of paint all over the _________. It was really beautiful! There were shapes that we didn’t have in the real world and the colours were so shining. The whole class _________ and Sam looked proud (自豪的).

From that day on, Sam was never __________ about art class. He knew that he could paint happiness, no matter what he painted.

Soapy sat on a seat in Madison Square, New York, and looked up at the sky. A dead leaf fell onto his arm. Winter was coming, and Soapy knew that he must make his plans. He wanted three months in a nice, warm prison (监狱), with food and good friends. This was how he usually spent his winters. And now it was time, because at night on his seat in the square, three newspapers did not keep out the cold.

So Soapy began to try his first plan. He stopped in front of a shop window and looked at it. It was nice and bright, and everybody in the street could see him. Slowly and carefully he picked up a stone and threw it at the window. The glass broke with a loud noise.

People ran round the corner and Soapy was ▲ , because the man in front of him was a policeman. Soapy did not move. He stood there with his hands in his pockets, and he smiled. “I’ll soon be in prison now.” he thought.

The policeman came up and asked. “Who did that?” “I did.” Soapy answered. But the policeman knew that people who broke windows didn’t stop to talk to the policeman, so he left.

“What was wrong with the policeman?” Soapy was really unhappy now.

But, just then, he saw a fat man with an expensive umbrella inside another shop. The man put his umbrella down near the door, and smoked there. Soaph went into the shop, picked up the umbrella, and he began to walk away slowly. The man came quickly after him. “That’s my umbrella.” he said aloud.

“Oh, is it? Then why don’t you call a policeman? Call a policeman! Look! There is one on the corner.” Soapy shouted.

The fat man looked embarrassed. “Well, you know, maybe I made a mistake. I took it from a restaurant this morning. If it’s yours, well, I’m very sorry…”

“Of course it’s my umbrella.” Soapy said.

Soapy was really angry now. He threw the umbrella away.

A visit to the old city of Petra in Jordan is an amazing experience. Around the city, there are mountains with many pink rocks. To get to the mountains, tourists walk for over a kilometer through a narrow hole in the rock. Then they come to a large building in the side of a cliff (悬崖). Petra has many of these beautiful rock-cut buildings, and they make the city famous.

Two thousand years ago, Petra was a busy and noisy place. People came from far away to buy and sell in the market places. The city became rich. At one time, more than 30,000 people lived there. But the pink rocks were not as safe as they looked. Earthquakes (地震) made many of the buildings fall down. As the year went by, people stopped coming and living there. Finally, the world forgot the city of Petra.

In 1812, a Swiss traveler called Johann Burckhardt heard about the lost city. Local people told him that it was in the mountains, and someone took him there. When Burckhardt went back to Europe, he wrote about Petra and people started visiting the city.

________ More than a million tourists go there every year. People sell postcards, camel rides and cold drinks there. There are museums, shops and restaurants, but nobody lives there. At night, the old city is quiet again.

Most of us never thought about making an educational (益智的) toy by ourselves. If we need an educational toy, we will go to the nearest store to buy it. But things are not so easy in the third world countries. Some families even have no food to put on the table, so it is impossible for them to buy educational toys.

Then how to get these kids interested in science? The Indian engineer Arvind Gupta thought about this question for a long time. While still an engineering student at college, he helped to teach the children who were too poor to go to school. He found a good job at India’s Tata Motors after he finished school, and then he spent the next five years designing cars.

But he didn’t want to do that for the rest of his life. He took a year’s course and became a member of the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Project. Mr Gupta found the whole project so helpful, so he decided to leave his high-paying job and started designing educational toys to help the poor children.

When the Internet became a popular learning tool, Mr Gupta started a website (网站) called Toys from Waste, and now it includes more than 260 videos. About 50,000 children and teachers visit the website every day to learn from the videos. Some young children have even won very important science competitions.

85. 假设你是李华，学校要举行“最佳好少年”选拔大赛，你班推选优秀学生代表Daniel参赛，请你为他写一封推荐信。内容要点如下：

I’d like to recommend Daniel for the Best Teenager Award.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________             

I think Daniel has all the qualities to be the Best Teenager. I hope you can agree with me.

Yours faithfully,

Li Hua