Bella arrived home late from school that day. When she walked past her mother’s room, she found her mum was still in bed, and seemed to be very weak.

Bella _____ her room and heard the cries from her little sister. She knew her dad would expect her to _____her sister. And she also had to prepare meals for the whole family as her mum did before.

Bella thought it was not _____because she also had schoolwork to do, just like everyone else in her class. Why did she have to be the grown-up?

When she got out of the room, she saw her dad sitting at the kitchen table, lonely and tired. _____, something happened inside Bella. She _____that her father, as well as a husband, must be really worried.

Then she heard a deep voice from her father, “Make the dinner, will you, Bella?” She was going to find a(n) _____to meet her friends, but she stopped and said to herself, “It is a hard time for everyone in our family. I guess making _____is just what I can do to help.” Then she went into the kitchen and began peeling potatoes.

“OK, Daddy.” said Bella. “_____will be all right and we can manage.” At the moment, she saw a smile on her father’s face. She felt _____—grown-up, somehow. It was really good to a bring smile to her father’s face, even for only a moment.

“Daddy, whatever happens, we will be OK. Right?” “Yes, we will. If we ______on each other, we’ll always be all right.” They both smiled at each other over the table.

The Beets were a new couple. The things in their rooms, such as the television, the computer, the fridge, furniture and so on, were all left by their parents. They only paid some money for their food and clothes. But they tried their best to save money. If they had something important to tell their friends, they always visited them instead of calling them.

One day, it was a quarter past nine. Mr. Beet didn’t come back. His wife was a little worried. The supper was cold and she had waited for two hours and a half. She was sitting by the table in the dark room.

Suddenly the woman heard someone coming upstairs. It was her husband’s step. She hurried to open the door. In the dark she could hear his deep breathing. As soon as he sat down, she turned on the light and found he looked very tired.

“Why do you come back so late, dear?” asked the woman. “Haven’t you caught a bus?”

“Yes, but I didn’t take it.”

“Why not?”

“I ran after it so that I saved two dollars this evening.”

“That’s great!” the woman said happily.” Run after a taxi next time and you’ll save both more time and money.”

Thomas Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be in the dark. However, the electric light was not his only invention. He also invented the motion picture camera and over 1, 200 other things. About every two weeks he created something new.

Thomas Edison was born in 1847. He attended school for only three months. His mother taught him at home, but Thomas was mostly self-educated. He started experimenting at a young age.

When he was 12 years old, he got his first job. He became a newsboy(报童) on a train. He did experiments on the train in his spare time. Unluckily, his first work experience did not end well. They fired him when he accidentally set fire to the floor of the train. Then Edison worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time in experimenting his first patent (专利) in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity.

Thomas Edison was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but he thought of his deafness as a blessing(祝福) in many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he could have more time for work. He always worked 16 out of every 24 hours. Sometimes his wife had to remind him to sleep and eat.

Thomas Edison died at the age of 84. He left a great many inventions that greatly improved the quality of life all over the world.

When a computer runs a group of programs, it can get very hot. Cooling the computer can cost a lot, so some scientists want to know one thing: What would happen if they use the heat(热量) from the computer?

Large Internet companies such as Google and Microsoft have thousands of computers. As people use these computers to look through information, they produce lots of heat, so they need huge cooling systems(系统).

These systems send the heat into the air. A Company in Holland(荷兰) thought paying to make the computers work and then paying again to cool them were a waste of energy. So the company developed a special machine—the e-Radiator. Boaz Leupe, head of the company, says that the eRadiator works as a heating system and saves money. He says that the energy is used twice—once to heat the home and once to cool the computer. He also says that users don’t have to pay to cool their computers. Five homeowners(房主) in Holland are testing the heating system in their homes. “We pay for using the computer, so, in that way, homeowners get heat for free,” Boaz says. Jan Visser is one of the homeowners. “If you use the computer more, the e-Radiator produces more heat,” he says. “It cannot provide enough heat if you don’t use your computer often.” But he is ready to try it. It’s a great help for his family.

The company says e-Radiators produce heat of up to 55°C. It says the system could save its users about $440 a year. That’s really wonderful, right?