Roby Burch, 16, a US student, gets to school a little 1—he goes by horse.

    Burch has been riding his horse 4 miles to and 2 school since the beginning of this semester(学期)."Every morning, wearing my blue jacket and jeans, I'm on my way at 6 am," Burch says. "The streets are mostly 3 at this time of morning. It's a nice way to start the day." The idea was his 4.His family were enjoying their vacation on their farm this summer. "My dad just said, 'Burch, you 5 ride your horse to school every day,'" says Burch. Burch asked for yes from the headmaster(校长), Joe Cox, and he got the green light. Cox even 6 Burch to keep the horse next to the headmaster's house. Then his dad helped Burch find the best route(路线) to school. It is along back streets and has 7 cars than the others. Now as the days grow 8 and colder, he continues to ride his horse. "I will ride my horse even in the coldest weather," he says.

    Burch says the first time he sat on a horse, he was afraid.9 now, "It's what I do best. I love riding horses more than 10 else," he says. "It's really a great thing."

The Double Seventh Festival, also known as the Qixi Festival, is a traditional Chinese festival. Here is a beautiful story1it.

Long, long ago, there was a young man named Niulang. One day, he2a beautiful girl— zhinǚ, the Goddess's seventh daughter. She had just run away from the boring heaven (天堂)to look for fun on Earth. Zhinǚ soon3 Niulang, and they got married without telling the Goddess. They lived a happy life on Earth and gave birth to two children. Unluckily, the Goddess soon found out the fact and 4 Zhinǚ to return to heaven. With the help of his magic cow. Niulang flew to heaven with his children to look for his wife. The Goddess discovered this and was very5. Taking out her hairpin(发簪), the Goddess created a wide river in the sky to separate (分开)the two 6. From then on, Niulang and Zhinǚ had to live7on the two sides of the river. However, their true love touched all the magpies (喜鹊) in the world, 8 once a year tens of thousands of magpies would fly up to heaven to make a bridge ("the bridge of magpies") for the couple to meet each other. At last, the Goddess allowed 9 to meet each year on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month. That's 10the Double Seventh Festival started. Today, it is a great day for Chinese young people to express their love.

You stay up late. It's harmful to your health.

Albert was mad about computer games. When people encouraged him to return to 1 life, he would say, "This is my doorway to the world. "

In one of his favorite games, he would 2 as many turtles as he could. 3 else could collect more than he did. But Albert still wanted more. One day, when he got home from school, he found two real turtles in his bedroom.

Albert's parents decided to make them his 4. Albert had to learn all he could to look after the turtles. He also 5 to trick them into leaving his room, but it never worked. Gradually, he got used to living with the turtles, and 6 began to enjoy it. And other people loved hearing Albert's stories and his growing knowledge about 7.

One day, the turtles disappeared. His parents 8 that he would return to his games, but that didn't happen. 9 , he went to buy some pets and looked after them in his spare time.

Now whenever people ask him about it, he points at his 10 and says, "They are my doorway to the world. There's a lot more to them than you'd realize."

—_________, Cindy.

    The China Foundation for poverty Alleviation(中国扶贫基金会) has started a program to hire and train 100 local women as substitute mothers(替代妈妈) to take care of left-behind children. The three-year program will select 100 villages across Sichuan Province and hire one woman each village.

    "It's a model to solve the problem of left-behind children." said Liu Wenkui, Secretary of the foundation. The "substitute mothers" will do parents' job, finding out what the children need and helping them with problems. Each substitute mother will take of about 300 to 500 children. There will be a "children's home" in each village to be the mother's office and children's playing space. Their job will provide quick service, discover the children's problems.

    The program hopes to hire women aged 19 to 55 years old from the villages." We want to hire full-time 'mothers' to make sure they won't think about other work," Liu said. "We want local women because they understand local languages and cultures." The program in Sichuan is an experiment, and Liu said," If it is a successful model, we will start it in the whole country."

    If parents are forced to leave home to earn a living and unable to take their children with them, we are looking for a transitional(过渡的) way to solve the problem, he added.