1 . It is said that most people have no more than 30 friends at any given time, and 400 over the whole of their lives. However, on social networking sites, most users have about 150 friends. If these numbers are correct, then friendship means different things in different situations.

Also, there are no rules about friendship. There are no instructions about how to make friends, how to keep friendships going, and how to finish friendships if we want to move on. People have very different opinions about this: some people would die for their friends and they value them more than family. Others say that friends are temporary, only there to help each other until they are no longer needed. If people with such different views become friends, this can lead to problems.

Because of these different definitions of friendship, it is easy to be unhappy about our friendships. We may want them to be deeper or closer, or we may want to have more friends in our lives. Sometimes we simply do not have the time to develop our friendships, or we fear we have left it too late in life to start. If we move to another country or city, we have to find ways to make new friends again.

This dissatisfaction shows us how important friendships are for most of us. We should not think that it could be too late to build friendships. We also need to understand that the need to be around other people is one that is shared by many. Therefore, we should not be too frightened about starting to talk to people who in the future may become our friends: it is likely that they too would like to get closer to us. Remember what people say: strangers are friends we have not met yet.

3 . A 12-year-old boy was called a hero after he saved a kid trapped in a car outside a supermarket. Ben Theriot was _________ with his mom Nikki Fields in Tusla, Oklahoma, when they heard the _________ cry of a little boy trapped in the back seat of a _________.

The day was very hot, with temperatures reaching 116 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Inside the car, the _________ must have been terrible. Quickly, Fields and Theriot decided that the boy had to be _________.

“It was so hot. I just got on the phone with the _________, and with 911,” said Fields. “I _________, ‘We’ve got to get this boy _________ immediately.’”

Following his mother’s orders, Theriot went into her car and found a small hammer. “I started _________ the side window, but it didn’t break,” he recalled. “I started attacking it a lot more, and then it __________,” Theriot added.

“He just jumped right into action and didn’t even __________,” Fields recalled. “I am proud of my son. I’m glad he knew what to __________.”

Soon the police arrived on the scene and got the boy out of the car. “Time __________ in that situation. Within __________, that boy could have passed out or even got __________,” said Officer Jeanne Pierce.

The environmental group Heal the Bay organized a beach clean-up. And I was one of the volunteers. We went to Venice Beach to clean up the trash.

At first glance, the beach didn’t look dirty at all. But then I saw a Styrofoam (泡沫) cup half buried in the sand on the beach. I pulled hard and finally got it out. As we moved farther, we found pieces of Styrofoam spread all over the sand. Sea animals eat the plastic. After eating it, they think they are full. As a result, they can die of starvation as they are cheated by their feeling and don’t think they need to eat any food.

We kept on picking up the trash. Then I saw someone with a full Heal the Bay trash bag and I went to see what was inside. When I opened the trash bag, I found everything from a pair of old jeans and a brown belt to headphones and some plastic bags. It made me very angry with the people who left their things behind without thinking what effects they might have on the ocean.

By noon, the sun was shining and the temperature was rising. The volunteers that had spread out across Venice Beach were coming back to throw the trash they had collected into the truck. I could not believe how much trash there was. All together we collected more than 135 bags of trash. I do hope that next time people go to the beach, they will stop littering.

6 . It was on her 14th birthday that her first book, In the Forest of the Night, was accepted for publication. It was a huge success gaining the attention of millions of young readers. At 16, her second novel, Demon in My View, also reached the bookstores. Several books later, the teenage author still works away in her room, surrounded by shelves full of dark tales about vampires (吸血鬼) and witches (女巫). Amelia Atwater-Rhodes is widely seen as America’s finest teen writer and was named one of Teen People’s “20 Teens Who Will Change the World”.

Born in 1984, she began making up stories when she was about three years old. “I never stopped and said, ‘I want to write’,” Amelia remembers. “I loved stories and created stories before I was old enough to know how to write them down.”

In her family, reading was basic and fun. “My parents encouraged me to read — and to read anything I wanted, so long as I was reading,” she said. “They never limited what I read. Later, when I started writing, they never criticized what I did or said I was ‘too young’. They never said it was impossible for me to achieve what I have.”

In her short but successful career, Amelia has tried different styles. But vampires were the first characters to really come alive in her work. From them she has developed a whole world, one which she always enjoys learning more about.

As a published teen writer, Amelia’s advice to other teens who dream of being author s is: just do it! “I believe anything is possible. Don’t give up your dreams just because you fear failure. Getting a book published is difficult, but if I can do it, others can too.”