A Bookworm’ ComplaintBy Wang Yifei (王怡菲), a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle School Everyone in this world has something that they can’t resist, which is like a friend, or a partner to them. And to me, it is a book. I love reading, and reading is part of my life and reading makes my daily routine as colorful as my dull life could be. I’m not even kidding. I read lots of books and that habit had improved my writing a great deal. In these days, book lovers aren’t that common anymore and many parents are literally thrilled to see their kids with a book, any book. In other words, they would be thrilled as long as their kids held a page with words on it. As you can see, there really aren’t many students reading anymore and their compositions are really down to hell and mine have been the model for three times in a row now. So I thought my parents would be happy when they saw I was so digging into those “Pages with Words on Them” I’m always reading. I managed to squeeze my little friends into my tight schedule and that worked well.Things are always unpredictable, and you get weirdoes at every door frame. So when I was going to school this morning, my parents stopped me by standing in the door frame. It is amazing how people always stood in their door frame to stop other people from doing something and that was exactly what happened to me today. Okay, back to the main topic. I was blocked in the house by my parents and my dad spoke, “Sunny, we are going to have a talk with you.” And that sounded creepier than any other sound in this whole world. Usually when my dad says that we are going to have a talk, that means I’m going to stand there with my head hanging down and my parents scolding me. And as I have known this routine a long time ago, I was in my role no more than three seconds. So there I was, with my backpack on my back and with my head hanging, and not to anyone’s surprise, my dad started scolding, “You are a middle school student now and you need to think more about your study! You can’t just go like this. You must go with a few more exercise books in your bag! I’m very disappointed in you and I hope that you will keep this conversation in mind, this will do great help to you in future days.” I nodded and sniffed, trying hard to sound that I was truly devastated by my behavior while I didn’t even know where I’ve done wrong! And then its my mom’s turn to deliver the lecture. I stood there with my head hanging even though my neck was already hurting and was trying very hard to subdue the urge of going to school right now because if I didn’t I would be in serious trouble with my teacher. And finally, after my mom’s speech, I understood where the rub was. They think that I’m reading too much! Okay, I know this might sound weird but what I meant reading was like reading novels and scientific novels or Chinese emotional novels, and my parents think that these kind of books are rubbish. And they are literally “Pages with words on them”. I know that kind of books they want me to read, which were all like Biology, Geography, History and loads of stuff. I mean, if they want me to read these, why don’t they just let me read more exercise books. My dad was really worried about my writing skills, who was deeply troubled by what I’ve taken a favor to these days. I know where this all started: a few months ago, I was obsessed with a book called “Rushed to the Dead Summer” （夏至未至）, which got such beautiful phrases that my heart nearly melted on those pages. They were all like “She never met him, so the setting sun closed the door of the dawn”（她不曾遇见他，于是落日关上了拂晓沉重的门） or like “Someday, what we have experienced could all come back to us. Sing the song you once sang, walk the path you once walked, love the very person that you loved a million years ago”. （总有一天，我们曾经经历过的事情都会卷土重来，唱曾经唱过的歌，走曾经走过的路，爱曾经爱过的人。） My dad was an official in the government so he was especially annoyed with books like this. What he didn’t know was that all girls in my age read this kind of books now, and besides, its got a really nice point and we could actually learn a lot from it. My dad wouldn’t listen to my explanation. He had found one of my latest compositions and was fussing over it for the whole day. In the end, I couldn’t even tell if he was my dad or some old lady that wouldn’t stop talking about one thing anymore. Too bad for me, that book was forbidden now and I was really eager to get another book of that kind, and now it looks like it won’t happen in my wildest dreams. Sometimes, I envy those times of my childhood, when I didn’t really have to do anything and the only question that I kept thinking in those days was “What am I going to eat next?” It seemed so nice that I nearly wanted to kill my younger self for being so comfortable. Everyone couldn’t help it when the time is flowing rapidly like water. And I couldn’t help reading sentences like “He stood quietly behind her, and at that moment, the temperature went up in their eyes and there was wetness in those hands.” （他在她的身后安静地等着。在那一瞬间，眼神里有了温度，手心里有了潮湿。） Maybe my parents just need to understand my feelings sometimes and maybe I should just obey them since what they did was all for me. And man, this world is truly confusing.(1099 words)

Ginny WeaslyBy Wang Yifei (王怡菲), a 7th grader Zhengzhou Middle School Now I come to think of it, it has been two years since I finished reading Harry Potter and I should be reading it again since I kind of forgot some of the details which is totally not tolerable. So, despite of my busy working schedule, I managed to find time to squeeze seven heavy books into my daily life. Flipping through the pages, years of life flow away. As I began to drown myself once more into those fascinating pages of the most wonderful story I’ve ever read, I noticed a character that I had consciously ignored earlier, and that character is Ginny Weasly. The reason why I ignored her earlier was that I don’t think she really matched with Harry Potter and due to my liking of the main character, she was shunted aside because she got married with him. Sounds pretty amusing, huh, but that’s how my mind works. Anyway, as I was determined to see everyone from a new angel, I found that Ginny could be charming and intelligent in many ways. And now, let me reveal it to you. Ginny had been crushing on Harry Potter when they first met, and she had been acting like a little girl. Well she was fairly young, and then she began to have a crush on Harry Potter, but Harry never really considered her because he was busy crushing on other girls. Ginny was like this poor little girl that was walking behind Harry in the corridors and hall ways, sit across of him on lunch table, staring at Harry when he was not looking. This is cute, really. How could a girl change herself when a boy wants her to? And days just passed by, the relationship between her and Harry Potter got stranger because Ginny couldn’t even speak a full sentence in front of Harry. Then there was Hermione, she stepped in and told Ginny and she had to be confident in order to won Harry Potter’s heart, and she had to be more out going and put Harry aside for a while and see what happens. Ginny listened to her advise and really began be more confident. And she got lots of boyfriends and lots of boys had a crush on her since she was really pretty, but she never gave up on Harry. That also reminds me of something, a poem in ancient China, Dang dynasty describe true love like this: “If you really love each other, then it can not be destroyed or forgotten in a matter of days.” Which means, if you love, you have to let go. Because if you guys really meant for each other, there is nothing to stop you guys. And that’s what exactly happened to Ginny and Harry. Harry was always having crush on other girls and he ignored his true love that’s right beside him. When he finally realized that he loved Ginny, he was afraid to be too late, but since Ginny had never actually forgotten about Harry, they became together in the end. Not only did I learn that Ginny was a very smart girl, I mean of course she is. She is the best chaser and she was a excellent seeker too. She might not be so good on her school work, but she was brave enough and smart enough to blast half of the department of mysteries out of the way. She would do anything for Harry. I also learned determination from Ginny. If you think what is right, then you should work hard to achieve your goals even if it seems impossible. The things is, on many occasions, we haven’t even tried before denying ourselves from it. This is an very irresponsible act not only to ourselves but to those who we love as well. Hardships could appear at every corner and on every street. What we need to do is to face them standing bravely and watching them with calm eyes then think of a solution. We can not let our hopes die in the waves of disappointment. We should be like Ginny, she got what she wanted because she was brave enough to pursuit what she love and she had done it in the end. We should all be perseverance, because this is essential to achieve our goals. No matter if its in love affairs or in our daily life, we should never give up on our hopes. In the end, I’m sure there will be an “Happy ever after all” ending waiting right there just for you. (776 words)[imgid=1]

The Best Thing We Can Give Others Is Not ‘GIVE’ But ‘HOPE’By Wang Yifei (王怡菲), a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle School We are always talking about how we should give more and ask less. And everyone acts like if everyone gives enough to others, then this world will become a better place. But there is also a problem that lies between this happy dream and the cruel reality: sometimes, what we think is awesome doesn’t really suit the others, and subsequently in this way, you give more and you hurt more. I once had an experience like that. We were asked to finish an essay about technology and my friends found out a brilliant one online. She made like twenty copies and started giving them out, free. Of course, we were all very troubled about this essay and when the due date was coming nearer and nearer, we were all eager to get our hands on one of the copies. As for me, I have always kept a close relationship to her and I became one of the luck people to have one of the copies. We made some changes about the essays so they wouldn’t be the same, and then we turned them in, feeling this should at least earned an A. Three weeks later, I was called to the teachers office for copying and being disrespectful to what the teacher had said. And mind you, I was extremely confused at the whole time when the teacher started talking about how important it was to listen to her all the time and then she started complaining about how we were ungrateful and our actions should be punished severely. I got a feeling that this conversation had something to do with those twenty copies, and sure enough, she pulled out my essay and started scolding me with a pained expression on her face, “Sunny, this is totally unbearable, please remind me what the essay should be about?” “Uh, isn’t it about technology?” I answered timidly. “Yes, and look at what you’ve done?” She handed me my essay and I looked down and nearly got a heart attack, the title was alright, but the essay below was killing me. I read it through for the first time and found out that it was all about how to protect dogs. “I don’t know what you were thinking, but this is very irresponsible for you to do this.” She was still blubbering endlessly and I was completely frozen on the spot. But how could it be, my friend looked so sure when she gave me that essay, there could be one explanation… I found her and it turned out she had mistaken about the essay because of that title and so we had to get punished together with the other eighteen people that had got the copies. So this might explain that in some circumstances, giving much doesn’t really do good things to this world… In my opinion, the best thing we could give others is ‘hope’. Hope might not worth a thing in some people’s opinion, but it’s actually priceless. Hope can bring the dead alive, and it’s the only thing that could last. Sometimes, we were out there in the dark and we could see anything. We’ve lost our faith and lost our goals. Then at this time, all we need is a warm sentence, a light to help us get out of this darkness, and that thing is hope. It could be a small action or sometimes only a caring glance. Hope, is truly the master of this world. This world could not function without hope, and without hope, people could not work properly and that would only lead to the death of one specie. Just keep this in mind and strut down, and just don’t forget to give out hope. (650 words)

Looks Aren’t Really That ImportantBy Wang Yifei (王怡菲), a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle SchoolNow I come to think of it, I spent half of my life studying in school and that is not a short time. It means that at least half of our habits and personalities are formed in schools. I am studying in Zhengzhou Middle School where the students come from all parts of the city, some of them from other cities. It was quite impossible for all the students to arrive at school at seven o’clock. As a result, almost all the kids have to live in the school. It is not a bad thing, of course, because I am totally 100% supportive of my wonderful school though something does remind me of why some parents are totally 100% against letting their kids live in school. I used to not get the point of this idea because I think that staying at school, far from parents’ reach, is awesome. But staying beyond parents’ reach might be a bad thing sometimes. Why? It goes like this: One of my friends is quite popular at class. She is the only one who can have her long hair while we have to cut ours for the excuse that she’s an expert on dancing which makes her stand out. I had thought that she would have nothing to complain about in this world of short-hair, but just the other day, she dragged me one day to the bathroom only to let me identify if her nose is too flat to be pretty. It was hard to keep a straight face since the scene there was so weird and ridiculous. So there I was, standing side by side with my friend, I was bending over her face to check if her nose was too flat. Of course, that didn’t happen. I was saying this only because I thought this would be the most reasonable scene if I did check her nose. In fact, the truth is, I laughed and laughed for nearly ten minutes, completely ignoring my friend’s worried expression. You might say that I was not being very kind to my own best friend, but what would you do if you were in a situation like that? Luckily, my friend was quite patient. She just stood there with a hilarious expression on her face, watching me laughing my heart out. I was also pretty thankful that she made me think of what I used to be and what I am now. Maybe somewhere between fifth grade and sixth grade, I got into this huge emotional circle of wondering if I am pretty. Perhaps it was because everyone around me was fussing over it so much that I was in it too. I was in America at that time and like I said, every grade was ruled by one or a group of popular girls. They put on necklaces, and earrings, and nail polish. They dressed in fancy clothes, cool shoes and decorated with a perfect hat. Their idea of fashion was just what the whole grade was talking about. Now I come think of it, it was totally and entirely meaningless trying hard to decide which pair of shoes or which color of nail polish I should put on tomorrow. This is a pursuit of beauty, only in a wrong and idiotic way. The true meaning of beauty lies in our everyday life. The first sign of spring, a warm welcome at the end of a long and tiring journey, a smile, or a glance all means something at a certain time or area. On our way of life, things could get really hard and sometimes we would think of giving up, but beauty was always there, helping us to find confidence, leading our way, decorating our lives to make it more colorful. To get beauty isn’t hard at all: we just need to have a pair of eyes, eyes of discovery, eyes of enjoy… We not only need eyes to praise the beauty of other things and other people, we also need eyes for praising our own beauty. Everyone was born to this world with a destiny, this destiny might be large, and it might be small. Everyone is good at something and is bad at something equally, no one is perfect. It will be as hard journey if you keep comparing these qualities that you don’t have to others because that would only weaken your strength. You have to truly see what you are good at and dig that awesome quality of yours up. You might find that a scientist is a terrible cook, and a farmer might be wonderful in making the crops grow. These things seem to be isolated from each other, but they are closer than we think, which is to make our own life better, and to make this world a better place. I looked up at my friend when I finally stopped laughing, but the urge of laughter still swarmed over me as I tried to explain to her that looks aren’t really that important, what truly matters is how you treat everyone, how your grades are, and how you battle through the grounds of life. “Even if you don’t have a pretty face, you can treat everyone warmly and then they will feel your warmness. See, every mistake could be replaced by another good thing, so why should you fussing over a flat nose when you could use this opportunity to read a few pages of a book?” “No one is perfect, but we have to live in that imperfect way. That’s how things work in this strange but strict world. Besides you can’t change what have been already done, like your looks, so you have to try hard on those things you can change. So, wipe your tears clean and strut towards the great unknown!” That’s all I’ve been able to say. (997 words)

My Exploration of “China Dream”(找寻“中国梦”)By Wang Yifei (王怡菲), a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle School Since I was very young, my teachers and parents were always talking about some sort of thing called the China Dream. I ‘didn’t know what it meant at first, only that it’s very important and we should keep it in mind all the time. August 24th 2016, I became a proud middle school student, dreaming about all the things I can do as a middle school student while I couldn’t when I was in elementary school. And then I realized that all I can do is do more homework, accept more bad grades and have more exams. Maybe my disappointment in middle school life brought me back to the question I had years ago, “What is the China dream？” Of course, a lot of things had happened during the time, and the poster on our classroom wall changed from “Hard-working” to “Keep the China Dream in mind!” Our politics teacher always says, “The China Dream is very important, it is related to every Chinese, so you must remember this paragraph here. It is going to be on your exam papers, so focus.” And that basically means nothing. So I started to research what are people’s views about the China Dreams. If we view it as our personal dreams, then there can be millions of China dreams and there is really no point of deciding what really it is. However, I decide not to give up until I find the answer. Sadly, as I have asked many people about this, they tell me about their plans, their dreams and their points of views of this world. And that’s when I began to question myself, what is my opinion of the China Dream? That’s when I found that my answer is the same as every one else’s. As a student, I wish that my grades could be better, and I wish that I could have a wonderful life. In this winter vacation, I searched on internet and books, trying to find the answer. But still no luck, my mind is as dry as a cracker. One day, my friend asked me a question, “Do you like China better or America better?” The answer came out of me before I even know it, “I like China better. This is obvious, isn’t?” “And why would you like China better, you see, America’s air quality is better than China’s and most people think that the life there would be wonderful.” “Yeah, that’s great, but I was born in China and China is my mother country…” At that moment, I suddenly realized what the China dream is. The China Dream means that no matter how good the other country is, we love our country and are willing to devote our lives to our country. We are working hard now because we want to do something to our country to make it a better place. In other words, everyone has their goals and their dreams, and they are going to work very hard on it. But I realized that we are working so hard because we want to make our country a better place. And every dream of ours will stick together to create the China Dream. It’s like this from the beginning, I’ve worked so hard trying to get the true meaning of the China dream, and my perseverance got paid at last, which is a part of the China dream too. The China dream concludes all the good qualities of people, and we are expecting people to do their best at everything. That’s what a China dream really is.(608 words)

HeartbeatBy Yifei Wang（王怡菲）, a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle School7 . A Scared Talk With Cao CaoA few minutes after I close the bathroom door behind me, I wear myself something which an ancient girl should be wearing. With my hair in sort of a puffy way, and wearing a long tight dress, well I can only describe it as a dress but it’s actually not. “Are you going to a fashion show or something?” Akeva puts down his water bottle. “No, that’s what girls were supposed to wear at that time. This cloth thingy is my ten’s birthday present, thank god I still fit in.” I tuck my sleeve a little, “You need to change too, and we won’t want people to stare at us either. Just so you know, Chinese boys and men are all long hair.”Akeva groans, “Does that mean I have to wear a wig or something?” “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t have one, but you do need to change into this sort of robe thingy.” I hold up a dark purple clothes. “Gosh, these people are crazy.” Akeva walks towards the bathroom while taking the clothes.Maybe three minutes later, Akeva and I are all ready for the big time. “How long will this machine take to get to the Han Dynasty?” I ask impatiently. “Well, it has to take some time.” Akeva answers slowly.“But Racheal, why don’t you let me pretend that I’m a Chinese too?” Akeva asks, making his cloth a more comfortable shape. “Because we will need that to get attentions.” I answer. “And about your mother, the Three Kingdom is very dangerous. So basically there were three kingdoms, and they wanted to get the whole China under its control. So there were often wars.”“Get that, I don’t get why my dad will choose this place to send my mom.” Akeva looks up at the scene. “And let’s see which part of this history we will be in, I know this part of history quit well.” I say.Then the machine comes to a halt. “Finally, we are here!” Akeva cried. My heart however, is very down. “What’s wrong with you, Racheal?” Asks Akeva. “You don’t know what you are going to face,” I sign, “The three kingdoms are extremely dangerous, and if your mom really is here, then she will be in big trouble. And maybe I should just introduce you to some key people in this part of the history.”“Go on” Akeva says. “So, the three kingdoms are Wu, Wei, Shu,” I explain slowly, and try to make my pronunciation of these Chinese word easy for Akeva to understand. “Okay, Wu Wei Shu. Got that!” Akeva snaps a really loud one. “And the king for Wu is called ‘Sun Bofu’,” “Okay, that’s a weird name. That’s how Chinese names are.” I say impatiently. “And the king for Wei is “Cao Pi”. But his father ‘Cao Mengde’ did the most of the work for him before he dies, anyway.” I stop a little, to look outside the window, “Where are we anyway?”“Somewhere in a forest, I don’t know, just go on with the story.” Akeva answers. “Okay, and the third kingdom, its king is ‘Liu Xuande’. So these three kingdoms, they often have fights and stuff. None of them got all the lands of China though.” I say. “Maybe we should just list the names easier, like king A or king B or something like that.” Akeva pleads. “That sounds a great idea.” I think about that for a while and at last agree.Thank god I brought pen and papers with me:King of Wei, Cao Mengde = King CMKing of Wu, Sun Bofu = King SWKing of Shu, Liu Xuande=King LW“I thought you said that this King CM’s son was the king.” Akeva stares down at the paper and asks. “Yeah, but I doubt it that we have traveled that far, we would probably only in CM’s time.” I explain.“Oh, that’s complicated” Akeva says, “Plus, can I please change into my own clothes? This thingy is really uncomfortable.” “Nope, that’s what you should wear. And look at me, this fabric is killing me, I’m not even wincing a bit.”I say shortly. “Okay, then, let’s not waste any time, and go!” Akeva is about to rush out, when I pull him back again. “What now?” Akeva groans, rubbing his arm. “There are like killers in the mountains, and thieves, and bunch of other dangerous people,” I warn him seriously, “And do you have any protection like when we get into trouble and will get killed, you just need to do some simple thing and let the machine appear near us?” “Yep, all in my pocket,” Akeva shows me a small blue controller, “I found this in my dad’s drawer, and from what I know about it, it can not only do what you ordered, and also it can protect you from harm. Like it can cast a wall between you and the danger whatever, and save your life. All you need to do is to press the button here.” Akeva says proudly.“Okay, now I think it is safe to go.” I say. Giving Akeva the bag. I’m not about to carry it myself, since it’s so heavy. Akeva groans as I help him to get the bag on his shoulders, because the ancient clothes are just not our type.The sun is shining high above us, which light shines through the leaves and falls to the ground. The birds are singing happily, but we are not. “I believe that we are lost.” I say. Before Akeva can say anything, I lift up my waist and tap my “TDH” three times.Lizzy pops up. She looks around and says quite confused, “Hello Racheal, are you in the woods of the suburbs?” “No, we are actually in the woods of nearly two thousand years ago.” I smile.Lizzy still looks really confused for a second before she clenches her face just like what Benny did. “Oh, no, Oh no no no no!” She cries, “Why did you come here, and you too, Mr. Cardamone, this is out of bound, I’m going to tell Mr. Cardamone. This gotta to be taken care of!” “Jeez, calm down Lizzy, we are in the Three Kingdoms.”I say quietly, trying to make Lizzy reasonable. “What on earth you guys are in the Three Kingdoms, you do know there are lot of wars going on, and murderous, thieves.” Lizzy shouts. Her voice sounds really loud in the quiet woods.“Oh just shh!” Akeva holds up a hand to stop Lizzy. “But, this is defiantly not right!” Lizzy’s eyes are full of tears. “Actually I always have a question for you, Akeva,” I turn around,＂For all I know, you can’t just give someone feelings, like Lizzy and Benny, they are like living creatures.” “Well, they are not just images,” Akeva says, “They are actually, how do you call it, a living thing and dad just let them become is, you know, give them ability to speak and think, making them the smartest brains in the whole world. I stare down at them, “But it’s not allowed!”I say,＂You can’t just catch a thing and then turn them into images.” “They ask to do that, and the rules are that they can’t obey their creator and master’s orders, they can’t like do things themselves. And last, they will have to make sure that their masters don’t get a hit of the time machine’s secret.” Akeva says calmly.“Oh, and what if they bent the rules?”I look down at Lizzy, who is now sobbing, “They lose their jobs. In another words, they are nothing, nothing useful, no anything in the space” Akeva says shortly. “That’s a good thing, who will want to be locked up all the time right, Lizzy?” Lizzy shakes her head. “You see the problem then.” Akeva shrugs.“Okay. Just tell us the way to get out of here!” I order. Lizzy looks up at me with wary eyes. For a second, I think she is going to just pop back and never comes out again, but she disappears, and a big red point begins to show. “What a good, kind elf!” Akeva says sarcastically.We begin to walk through the woods, “I don’t get Chinese.” Akeva says, pulling his cloths upper. “First, this dress-like thingy is really not for me, and second, I don’t feel like walking in this pair of grassy shoes, either.”Akeva groans.＂Live with it, the faster we find Ms. Cardamone, the faster you will change back into your clothes.”Just as we talk, a sound of horse riding comes near. “Wow, is it really cheap to have a chance riding horses in ancient China? Akeva says very excitedly. “Er, not exactly, there was no cars here. So basically if you want to go somewhere, you have to ride a horse.” I explain. The horse stops in front of us, the man riding it asks, “Who are you?”Because it’s ancient Chinese, so it takes me a while to understand it, “Ah, we are just harmless children, yeah, right. Totally.” I say extremely slowly, trying to say as normal as possible.The man stares at Akeva for a while, his eyes full of surprise. “Is this your brother?” He asks. “Ah, no, we are just um,” I stop a little to search for the word ‘Friend’ and how to say it in ancient Chinese, but fail, “classmates.”“What’s ‘classmates?’” The man asks, he is showing great interest to Akeva. “Ah, you need to learn more, do you like even go to school?” I ask.“Are you guys like friends or something?” The man asks. Crud, if only I knew that he can understand what ‘friend’ means, I wouldn’t make a fool of myself.“Ah, yeah, exactly.” I answers. “Can he talk?” the man asks. “Hey, of course I can.” Akeva suddenly says. I look at him with great surprise. “Since when you can understand Chinese?” I ask him in English. “Well, I only know ‘Can’t’ and ‘Talk’ and he was looking at me so I just said that.” “You have to see my master, come on, up on the horse.” The man says.Akeva helps me up to the horse, and we begin to move quickly through the woods. Honestly, I have to say, I hate horse riding. The whole way is so bumpy. But Akeva seems to be alright with the uncomfortable ride. “The sky is so clear two thousand years ago,” Akeva says, pointing at the clear blue sky. “Yeah, because there was no cars at that time.” I says quickly, and then keep my mouth shut. I’m afraid that I might throw up. “Horse riding seems to be really fun,” Akeva says, “But I don’t think I like how people just bring swords with them everywhere.”I nod, the man looks back at us, and we fall silent. We arrive at the city. It’s so crowded with people, and sedans pulled by horses are running alone the dusty road.“Lord, that looks disgusting.” Says Akeva, he is pointing at a cake-look thingy. “Coming out so soon, Zhan?” A man with his sword says to the horse-riding man. “Yeah, gotta take these kids to master.” The man on the ground stares at us for a while, then he opens his mouth, and closes it again. At last, he nods and lets us go. “Ah, may I ask who is your master?” I say, holding my voice long, so my voice doesn’t seem so weird. “Cao Mengde.” The man says shortly, not looking back. “That’ the king CM, right?” Akeva whispers, “Yep, that’s exactly in my plan.” I whisper back and smile at the setting sun.The horse stops at a huge mansion. “The king must be rich,” Akeva compliments, “But I don’t think much of his taste though, this house looks so ugly.” “That’s what houses used to look like in China. And this one should be the fanciest one in the whole city” I answer calmly. We follow the man into the house. The house has a huge yard in front and around it, with a lake, gardens and all that luxury stuff. “When you guys come and see my master, must do the usual thing, you know?” The man says to us. “Ah,“ I nod knowingly as I’m actually one of the rich people’s family or something and then failed to act anymore,” wait, what is the ‘usual thing’” I ask. But it’s too late, the man has already pushed us into the house.Okay, I have to admit that King CM does look kind of different from my imagination. “My master.” The man kneels to the ground and bumps his head on the floor. “Is this the ‘usual thing’” I say disbelievingly. “Arise, please.” The king says. His glance, however, falls on us, “How dare you!” He shouts.“What did we do?” Akeva asks. “Master,” The man does this weird thing with his hands that look kind of like a fist, “These children, whom I found in the forest, are quite different, especially this one.” He pulls Akeva in front of the king.CM looks at Akeva for a long time. “Umm, it does seem really strange how human can look like this.” CM murmurs. “Where are you from?” He asks. Akeva just stands there, saying nothing. “Is he a deaf?” CM asks the man. “No, but for now, he doesn’t speak anything that we can understand.” The man answers.“Umm, interesting. Maybe something wrong with his brains. This does happen quite a bit, when your brains isn’t normal, you can’t look normal.” CM touches his mustache. His hand does this flip thing that I take it as a sign to let me come front. “Ah, nice to meet you sir!” I say slowly, wondering whether I should do the same greeting thingy the man just did. “Can you talk to him?” CM asks. “Ah yes of course.” I nod extremely slowly. Akeva lets out a sound that’s between a cough and a laugh.“Show me then.” The king says. I walk up to Akeva. “Hello, Akeva my friend, how’s things about your dad?” I say. “Um, fine about him, I guess.” Akeva says uncertainly. I guess he has no idea what just happened.“Good, where are you from?” CM, asks. “From… um … this really good place.” I answers. “What about him?” CM ASKS, JERKING HIS FINGER AT Akeva. “He is from,” I stop and look around, I don’t know if these ancient people know that the world is more than China, “From the place outside your heaven and earth.” I answer with great difficulty.“Ah, I see, Zhan takes them to the house you know which one for them, and let them take a rest. These children look like they are from some wealthy family, [probably brothers and sisters. Keep them well, and we won’t want anything happened to them. Since we just moved here, I doubt killing some harmless, from the rich family kids who will do us any favor. We will discuss the rest of the things tomorrow.” The man takes us to a red building with a huge yard, a little smaller than the king’s though. “Ah, I would very much like a meal.” I say. The man looks like me as I’m some out-space monster.“Ah, what’s wrong?” I asks, honestly, I’m a little scared now. For all I know, ancient Chinese people just killed each other when they got angry. I see Akeva staring down at the sword which the man is holding, and swallowing loudly.I will ask my master.” He simply says. I sign, “Looks like we are going to have a rough time here.” “What kind of bed is this?” Says Akeva disbelievingly, “I mean, look at it, it’s so hard and without any covers.”“That’s what they sleep on, obviously,” I answer quit calmly, “I’ve seen worse on TV.” “Gosh.” Akeva groans. I’m not too happy with it either. What I want to do now is just to go back to my own time, and never travel back again. “Did you bring any food? I’m starving. Plus, I’m extremely not satisfied with their service here.” Akeva says. I zip open the bag and give him a pack of chips. “Do you get it, Akeva?” I say, “We are alone, in another time tunnel, with scary killers and wars, and plus we don’t have any money!”“The king has enough money, and it’s enough for us to live for like a thousand years. And it seems to me that we have been treated fairly, for they probably have mistaken us by some wealthy kids or something.” Akeva shrugs. The door suddenly opens, and Zhang something comes in, holding a plate with some meals on it. “His Master gives our guests all this.” He says quietly, “Tomorrow, we will have a war against the Wu, and the king wants you guys to follow.” “Ah, have you guys already tied the ships together?” Before I realize what I’m saying, the words just slip out of my mouth.Zhang’s hand holds his sword tightly, and stares at me. I look down at my feet, “Yes.” He says finally, and turns to leave. “No!” I shout behind him. But the gate closes, making a loud ‘bang’ in the silent night.“Why do you say that to him?” Akeva asks. He frowns at me, which makes me very uncomfortable. “Because this is the famous Red Cliff War!” I explains desperately, “So basically, Cao Cao, the king CM, brings eight hundred and thirty thousands of army and thousands of officers near The Yangtze River, and wants to have a war with the Wu for the aim of controling its land. But there is a really smart guy called Zhou Yu in Wu, and he made a plan.” I stop a little to see if Akeva is still with me. “Go on.” He urges. “Okay, and he uses his plan to make, of course, there are lot of stuff about how he make, Cao Cao to tie all the ships together. I’m just telling you the main parts. And Cao Cao tied his ships together, then Zhou Yu burned them. The Cao army was brought nearly all dead.” “Oh so that’s why you are trying to tell him.” Akeva nods. I nod back. We keep silent for a while, as the meal on the table is getting cold. “Uh, I hate this.” I say, picking up the chopstick. The meal is really simple, with soap and some vegetables. Except, that can’t be soup, it looks more like… “Does people in China drink wine even if they are a child?” Akeva asks. I stare down at the bowl too. It smells so bad. “Okay I guess you are right, but to keep living on this world, we’d better eat all this.” I say, rubbing my stomach.Thank God that there are two beds in the room. “Good night,” I say in the darkness. Then I hear a sound near me saying quietly, “Good night, Racheal.”(3223 words) (To be continued)

Seeing is NOT Believing（见非所见）By Yifei Wang （王怡菲）, a 7th Grader of Zhengzhou Middle SchoolAs the movie Now You See Me 2 came out, loads of people went to watch it, no exception for me either. The movie itself was full of mysteries and it was certainly a very good one. No one had even gone to the bathroom once during those fantastic two hours, because if you missed a second, you missed the whole show.Apart from the story, the point it tried to make was really impressing too. It totally led you to a world that you had never known, or noticed, before. But the very one point through the whole complicated story was “Seeing is not believing.”Looking back at the human history when there were first a community created, people had trusted, believed, or even worshiped the old saying “Seeing is Believing”, or in another way, we were always totally one hundred percent sure that our eyes tell us everything we need to know, and that everything is always the truth.It seemed really stupid arguing with such a “true” point like this, but this point had been provoked so many times in the movie. I have to say that I agree with it. There were so many times that we thought that we had known something, but in the end, we found out that we had been fooled. Sometimes, we saw a sign in our way of growing and thought it said, “Turn Left” but when we moved just a little bit closer, we found out that the right way should be the right.The magic tricks in the movie played by four stunningly professional magicians which called themselves “The Four Horsemen” had known this since they had started their career as wonderful magicians. Have you ever wondered why you had never figured out a magical trick played by a master? Well, that could be easily explained : you are paying close attention, in fact, too close for the case.When a master magician was playing a trick, he could always get you to focus on the wrong thing so that his trick could be played successfully. You always questioned yourself, “Had I paid less attention than to solve the trick?” The answer is no. You had paid much much more attention than solving the trick. The only problem is, you had been watching what the master wanted you to focus on the whole time, and that’s why you had been looking stupid all alone during the magical show. The closer you look, the less you will see.The point up there might sounds a little hard to understand, let’s give it an example. Suppose that a magician was trying to convince you that there was a hole on your table, and he could prove that by sending a solid paper cup right through it. You don’t believe it, of course, for you had just bought the table a week ago and there was no way that there could a hole big enough for a cup to fell through it on the table, so you asked the magician to show you. He wrapped a piece of tinfoil on the cup and started to perform. He had asked you to pay very close attention on the hole on the table, so you stared at the table where the cup was placed very carefully. Then, he slid the cup towards him to get a better shot, you watched the table as still as a rock, the magician smiled a little, and you looked at him puzzled for you could not see where this is going. He stood up and said, “Ha! I found the hole!” then he smashed the tinfoil, you excepted to see that the cup smashed under his hand, but instead, there was only the tinfoil.You know that there can’t be a hole on the table, so you would have to admit, you had been fooled. What you don’t know is that you had stared at the wrong thing during the whole show! When the magician slid the cup towards him, the cup fell at the edge of the table and onto his lap, because the tinfoil could be molded to whatever shape, so you were still convinced that the cup was on the table since the tinfoil stood up so firmly still. And when he stood up, the cup fell on the floor and he smashed the empty tinfoil.It seems very impressing, doesn’t it? This kind of tricks was used on purpose in the magical show, but in the real world, it could happen anywhere. Once, I skipped the afternoon time with my father, which made him very angry, to meet my best friend at the park. About ten minutes passed, her phone rang, I thought she would just skip it, for I had done so much to meet her there, she would have to be grateful. Instead, she talked on the phone for fifteen minutes before she hung up. I was furious at her behavior, and I walked right to her and gave her a piece of my mind, she looked very surprised. There was a mixture of angry, sadness on her face. I ran away from her and back home before she had a chance to explain. Later, I found out that her dad worked overseas and could only be on the phone a very few times in a month. If her dad calls, she would answer it at any rate. I felt so miserable for I had misunderstood my best friend so badly, luckily I still have a chance to make it up. But for those who don’t, the consequences would be terrible.Everyone living in this world has a veil on their face, so we see everything blurry and not clear, but we like it that way. Because if the veil was lift off, we see so many ugly mistakes that we had made when we had the veil on. Sometimes, on a very rare occasion, a wind blow off the edge of the veil and we caught a glimpse of the true side of the world, and for us, that three second peek was enough.Humans are such interesting creatures: their eyes don’t tell the truth, but they just believe it with all their hearts. They made mistakes, but they couldn’t see it. So next time, when something makes you really puzzled or angry, try to think it over, or do some research. It would be the best if you could made up your horrible mistake, but most of the times, you had just missed something wonderful for a life time.So, now I guess I had made it clear, sometimes our eyes could make mistakes of all kinds, and once again, bearing a good true sentence on your way of life could always do something good to your future, and in this case, the sentence would be “Seeing is not Believing”.（1178 words）Note: This composition was originally written on Aug 3, 2016， and published in my dad's QQ space with his introduction going as the follows: 7月31号下午菲儿和好友一起去看了青岛极地海洋馆，回来后又看了一集《Hannah Montana》,然后就百无聊赖起来。宾馆外面不算很热，但我高烧刚过，不很想动，大家也都无甚兴致，于是就那么在宾馆呆着。菲儿忽然说想写一下《惊天魔盗团2》的事，我说很好。她就十指如飞，在键盘上快速敲打起来。 这部电影是7月13号那天去电影院看的，之后又在电脑上看了它的第一部。菲儿倍感震撼，让她写感想，她却不愿意写。现在竟然主动要求写，且一挥而就，用了大约1个小时的时间就写好了。 文章紧扣“见非所见”这一主题，所举例子也和主题非常贴合，叙议结合，有历史深度，更有对人生的洞察，很有点儿哲理美文的范儿。值得一读。

The Birds Flying South--- A Chronicle of our Study Tour writen in a fiction way（岭南游学记事） By Wang Yifei (王怡菲)，a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle Schoool4Elisa’s first impression of the city was that it had lots of bridges and stairs and it was dreadful when they had so many luggage. Cray was eager to help Helen with the luggage, and it only added to Elisa’s uneasy feelings. Rachel and Elisa walked behind their team leader, Jack. And that’s when, Helen, with only a small backpack in her hands, caught up with them. “Guys, this place is awesome, don’t you think so?” “Yeah, it would be even better when we don’t have to carry our luggage.” said Rachel sarcastically. She and Elisa high-fived with some difficult because of the luggage. And Elisa couldn’t help but searching Cray behind them, and was not surprised to see that he was struggling with two huge suitcases.“I thought you said you let the boys join in to help us with our luggage.” Said Elisa. “Yeah, I did. But they are all so dump, so I decided to do it myself.” said Rachel, readjusting her cool hat. “Okay, whatever.” Elisa groaned as they went up the stairs again.The bus was quite comfortable, and Elisa sat with Rachel again. Helen sat next to the team doctor, who was probably around his twenties. Elisa felt a little woozy from the lack of sleep. She didn’t remember how she doze off, but when she woke up, they had already reached their first scenery. The Five-goat Park. “So this is the place where the most historical statue of Guangzhou stands,” said Elisa, scanning the park, “Not too impressing. It’s no better than the parks back home.” As Helen and Rachel both agreed, they only did a quickly look around and took a few pictures before returning to the place where they started. They were the first to return, and the reward they got from that was a very awkward conversation with Mr. M about how they thought of this place.“I think it’s such a dump place that I want to leave right now.” said Rachel under her breath after the teacher was gone. “It’s not that bad.” said Elisa, “It’s nice to see something green and smell the fresh air.” “Dude, are you kidding me?” said Rachel indignantly, “we are here in Guangzhou, and its air-quality is like, even worse. And it’s not like you can’t see something green back home.” They both laughed.Helen broke in, “Rachel, you’ve been here before, and we are basically new-comers. I agree with Elisa, since we had all paid to come here, we’d better enjoy it rather than denying it.” Elisa gave Helen a thankful look and she winked in return. At this time, all of the team had returned and they set off for a Biology Museum in some university.Elisa had always liked Biology, and she hang out mostly with Helen on the way. But it did spoil her fun a little when Helen complained about how weird it felt to sit next to the team doctor all the time. Rachel acted alone to take pictures with both of their phones and that afternoon went quite peaceful. On the bus, the leader announced that there had to be three people in one room since the girls’ number was an odd number.And Elisa, Rachel and Helen volunteered to take the room. 5The hotel they were staying that night was a three-star hotel, and it was actually quite comfortable. Except there were only two beds, and Elisa was wondering vaguely if two people were going to share one bed. Because of yesterday night’s experience, Elisa fell asleep pretty quickly. But not before she heard Rachel and Helen running to Cray’s room, pulling back pillows and covers and laughing hysterically.That night, Helen and Rachel shared a bed. And the next morning, it was Elisa’s turn to sit with the team doctor since Helen just couldn’t stop complaining. It was a bit awkward, felt like you had been kicked out from the group or something. “It’s alright,” Elisa said to herself, “Helen only sat here for one ride, and Rachel would be sitting here soon.” They were visiting that over sea dam that day and it was far more interesting that the first scenery. The waves splashed against the rock, and the ocean swished backwards and forwards and the ground looked as if it was made of gold. The sea wind sent people’s hair flying in all directions and it was a really funny picture looking from a distance.Elisa couldn’t find more of her classmates, so she and Helen stuck to each other. And since they couldn’t find Rachel, they set off on their own. Of course, Rachel had found them at last, and Helen almost lost her phone at the ice-cream place and things were getting on track again.But what’s still on Elisa’s mind was the sitting situation, so she brought that up again when they were getting closer and closer to the bus, “Guys, I really don’t like my seat, it’s a little awkward.” “What’s wrong with sitting next to the doctor?”asked Rachel. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” agreed Helen. Elisa felt that rage was boiling up inside her. After all, Helen did complain about it for the whole afternoon. And the fact that she was sitting next to Rachel now didn’t mean that seat wascomfortable!“Don’t worry, Elisa,” said Rachel smoothly, “there would only be on more ride, then I’ll sit there myself. We are going in rounds.” Elisa felt a tiny bit better, though she still felt being left out. The doctor remained quiet on the bus during the ride. Just thinking about it, Elisa had never seen him talk before. She began to wonder if he was a hard and cruel young man. She looked at Helen who was sleeping, and Rachel, who was watching cartoons. “At least they weren’t acting all close and all that.” thought Elisa.Lunch was pretty good, and Elisa’s desk mate back in school Chris was acting all funny. Chris was very tall, and he was the model student to many teachers. They were good friends. And on the lunch tables, jokes had been made and laughs kept erupting from their group. 6They were at Shenzhen now and things weren’t much different either. But what all of the students were expecting was the Window of the World. Since most of the students had never been abroad before, the idea of seeing famous sights from all over the world made them extremely excited. Elisa was looking forward to it too. In the sight, it was actually stunning. There were the white house, Easter Island, the golden pyramids. They went climbing and skating. Elisa turned to be quite good at it, while Rachel couldn’t even stand on the ice.Elisa kept expecting Cyril to come, but he seemed to be in somewhere else with his friends and Fiona. But even this could not spoil the fun of skating. They spent two hours on the ice and the team doctor turned out to be an extremely talkative guy, who was also very interested in gossiping. So Rachel and some other students took turns feeding him bits of information about this. Helen and Elisa, who found this embarrassing and boring since some of the information were about them, skated around and around. So that by the end of the day, they were both excellent while Rachel could barely skate on her own without falling.On that night, there was a closing show and every class ought to have two shows. And Elisa signed up for singing, and Rachel almost forgot the lyrics on stage. So it was a bit awkward. Their song was the last one to perform, and the team leader ordered the students to turn off the lights and turned on their phones’ torch to make them shin like stars in the dark. Elisa smiled and hoped that one of the shining stars belong to Cyril. It was a small wish, but it meant a lot.Looked like skating did improve the relationship between the doctor and the students. That night, they gathered around in Cray’s room and stayed there till 12 o’clock in the evening. They did some small tests on Elisa’s phone, to show how much money you would own after ten years. Rachel would get five million, Helen fifteen million, and Elisa five cents! The team doctor would be the richest man on this planet at least according to the phone. And that did send him into a really happy mood. Maybe that’s why he was willing to play truth or dare. But he lost and he happened to be choosing dare, and he had to kiss the window for ten seconds before retreating to the bathroom and spitting for three minutes.Cray was busy playing on his phone. According to him, he was against at least five people. But this came from a guy who said he had got into Harvard when he was two years old, so no one quite believed in him. Everyone didn’t really pay attention to him. And since this was the last night, every student was having fun. 7But it wasn’t too good for Elisa and Rachel. First, Rachel accused Elisa of taking the poker card. Elisa，who knew she hadn’t even touched that card once, denied it. Though Rachel was looking so sure, Elisa headed back to the room and double-checked, there was nothing. And Rachel was like, “Elisa, you wait, this is entirely your fault.” Elisa, who was sure that she didn’t do anything wrong, yelled right back. After a while, Helen found the card in her own suitcase, but Rachel didn’t apologize. The atmosphere was tense even though Cray and Helen were trying their best to make every one cheer up.“At least Helen was on my side.” thought Elisa. “At least Cray was on my side.” thought Rachel. The conversation between Elisa and Rachel couldn’t be called a fight, but it certainly did hurt both of their feelings. To cover up the awkwardness, the played cards with Cray in their room. And when they finally had the urge to see what time it was, it was already four in the morning. So Cray, unable to get back into his room, slept in their room. On the ground of course. None of them thought it was a big deal. And they slept till 7’o clock.That’s when Fiona rang the doorbell and came in. She saw that Cray was sleeping on a cover in their room and ran back to tell Mr. M. The thing sounded a thousand times worse being told by Fiona. The result of that was that they had to call their parents to school and write a five-hundred words passages saying that they were wrong. On the next day, things made up between Rachel and Elisa as they never mentioned last night’s story. They joked and laughed and everything was just like before. That’s when Elisa learned just how much Fiona was feeding the teacher bits of information about herself. It was all against her of course. No wonder why Mr. M was always looking at Elisa with a worried look on his face these days.Elisa’s parents had never been called to school because of Elisa’s bad behavior before, and they acted very seriously on that, including a five-minute long lecture and continuous scolding.Looking back at this trip, Elisa sighed. The birds were still singing, and why did this story have to end with a sad end? （The End. 3625 words in total）

The Birds Flying South--- A Chronicle of our Study Tour writen in a fiction way（岭南游学记事） By Wang Yifei (王怡菲)，a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle Schoool Winter is finally on its way. As the last swish of autumn wind swept the remaining dry yellow leaves from their branches, it took the memories with it.Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees, it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth, is like a diary with yellowish pages, carrying one joke after another, one secret after another, one mistake after another… And suddenly, someday when you thought you had long lost it, it came back to you again, with its warm yellow pages, waiting for you to open it again.1Elisa had always known that, when the sky was clear, the birds were singing, and you happened to be on a trip, then there got to be some story happening sooner or later. But she had to worry about it later since right now, fate had left her alone with an extremely heavy suitcase plus a heavy backpack, let alone dragging these to the third floor. It would be a miracle for Elisa if she could pick it up.Though it did take a lot of work including drugging, pushing, kicking to get the luggage on the third floor to her classroom, the warm sunshine could cure almost any bad mood. So Elisa’s expression lighted up considerably after reaching to her desk and watching everyone else struggling. Her eyes scanned the crowed and found her best friend Rachel, stumbling with a silver suitcase. Elisa raced to help her. It was kind of awkward that Elisa was in many people’s way, but at last they finally got everything settled down. Rachel smiled thankfully and said, “Mua, Love you!” to Elisa, which gave Elisa goose bumps all over, though it felt quite nice.Elisa and Rachel are both students from Zhuangyuan Middle School, a prestigious one in the monstrous provincial capital city. It’s the tradition of the school that every year, the students should go on a study trip to different cities. And this year, in this case, their destination would be Shenzhen and Guangzhou. When their head teacher, Mr. M came in, the clattering and whispering stopped, and fifty-one pairs of shining black eyes stared at him. Mr. M was satisfied with the effect and cleared his throat, “This study trip will last for five days and four nights. During this time, I hope you lot would all behave yourselves, and if you don’t, then you might not be able to come with us.” He smiled maliciously as the eyes blinked, once, twice, three times below him.Elisa and Rachel mouthed the same word “Suckers!” Rachel’s lips swung upward in a careless smile, she never cared about rules, and she liked to hang out with boys. Not that they have a special relationship or anything, it’s just that Rachel is different. She is popular and sunny, and her biggest pride is that she knows a lot about those things kids shouldn’t know, and she was not afraid to show off her knowledge of this kind to everyone. Her friends are nearly all boys, and they view her as a dude rather than a girl. Elisa wasn’t sure if it’s a good thing though, to have so many guy friends.But Elisa is happy enough. She too have a lot of friends, and of course, most of them are girls. She had always been a bit unsure about Rachel since she let three boys join their group. And Elisa isn’t really the kind who just goes up and chats with some unfamiliar guys. Just like when Rachel had absolutely no trouble swinging her arm around a boy’s shoulders, Elisa had. But at least all the boys in their group was pretty funny, and Elisa was okay with them. One of them even wrote a love letter to her a few weeks ago, but that was all history.Elisa’s eyes darted across the classroom and located on the other girl in her group, Helen. Helen was the only girl in the class who could have long hair since she studied dance. She is not exactly pretty, but her long ponytail surely makes her look special, at least to some of the boys. Rachel and Helen weren’t very close before, and Elisa doubt if Rachel is going to hang out with girls much on this trip. After all, for someone like Rachel, this was a good chance to hang out with the “Old Driver” Cray.Thinking about this, Elisa winked at Helen and was relieved that she winked back. “At least there is still someone in our group who is a bit normal.” Elisa thought. She crossed her legs and made herself comfortable in her seat.Mr. M was still talking about the rules of this trip, while Elisa turned her head and found herself locking eyes t at Cyril. Cyril was good-looking and his math was always the best in the whole grade. Now, under the warm winter sun, his hair was a nice shade of brown. Elisa’s breaths quickened and as she hastily dropped her gaze, feeling stupid all again. 2Somewhere far away, a whistle had been blown and they set off down stairs. That’s when Elisa felt like a total idiot about heaving all the luggage upstairs. She sat with Rachel and they watched a Japanese Cartoon on the whole bus ride. There was a lot of fun. The train station looked just the same as ever when the students arrived, big and crowd. Just as Elisa predicted, Rachel walked along side with Cray, who had a soft spot for Helen. Unfortunaly, the same thing didn’t work out so well with Helen, who liked Cyril since the first day of school.Elisa wasn’t planning to join Rachel and Cray since that would make her look like a light bulb, and luckily Helen was thinking the same thing. She caught up with Elisa and brought up some topics that were catchy. And they walked right after Rachel and Cray. Elisa and Helen stared at their backs and Helen murmured, “’Old Driver’, ‘Old Witch’ an old couple.” Elisa laughed and couldn’t stop picturing what life would be like if Rachel really became together with Cray.After their tickets checked, they were allowed to the waiting area, though not too much waiting was needed since they immediately set off for the platform. Elisa’s group found a compartment with six bunk beds and they all made themselves home on the train, enjoying the time without the restrain of parents and teachers.That afternoon, they started off as good students. Elisa went to bed at exact 10:30 and found that, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fall asleep. That’s when she heard movement above her and found herself sitting next to Helen, while on the opposite side was Rachel and Cray. Since no one could sleep, they started to play “Truth or Dare” It was a nice way to kill time and somewhere between two and three o’clock in the morning, things got pretty messed up.3It started when Cray asked Helen, “Do you like me?” And ended with the teacher scolding Rachel for being too close to Cray. Elisa quietly slipped back to her bunk bed. Her mind still didn’t allow her to drift to sleep. Staying up all night was a terrible idea for they still had a long way to go the next day. But Elisa pulled the covers above her head, trying to block out all the things happened tonight.The next morning, Elisa was woken by a couple of students at 5’o clock. She cursed under her breath since she had just fallen asleep less than an hour ago. Luckily, she didn’t have bags under her eyes while Rachel was looking more like a panda than ever. Elisa and Helen washed their faces and sat down to look at the scenery outside the train windows. They were getting closer and closer to their destination, but Elisa was starting to feel that maybe it was not such a good idea to team up with Rachel and Cray. From how she was acting last night, Rachel could use with a good scold.Cyril’s was at the end of this compartment. Elisa had felt uneasy about him teaming up with Fiona. Fiona was just like Rachel, who happened to be crushing on Cyril. That is kind of weird because, at the start of the school term, Fiona and Cray was acting all close and snogging between classes. Cyril had just woke up, and was standing near the window. According to Fiona, Cyril slept very quickly and very well last night, though Elisa was a little curious about how she knew that. Helen was tying up her hair when Cray and Rachel jumped down from their bunks and joined them.Rachel looked fine except her eyes were a bit splotchy, while Cray was looking as excited as ever. Elisa walked along the compartment and found most people complaining about yesterday’s sleeping situation and the noises. Elisa felt kind of guilty since most of the noises was made by them last night. And they seemed to forget all about the diary-writing, as the teacher specifically asked Rachel and Elisa to be the main writers.The broadcaster was broadcasting “Sugar” , which completely swept most of the students off their feet, and they started to joke about it. By the end of the voyage, the song had turned into something like this “I am, awesome, so come along and flirt with me. I’m right here, waiting, because I know I’m so stunning.” That went on for another hour when the train finally pulled to a stop at Guangzhou station. Elisa felt her ears might explode for hearing those songs. Guangzhou station didn’t look remotely different from Zhongyuan’s, and that was surely disappointing since Guangzhou is one of the first raid city in China.(1707 words)(To be continued)

HeartbeatBy Yifei Wang （王怡菲）, a 7th grader of Zhengzhou Middle School6. The Time Machine Finally Works Aria’s words make me freeze in the track. “How did you…” “Don’t care about that now, what you are…” the bushes beside us make a sound. Aria stares at them suspiciously. She finally calls out, “Akeva, quit hiding and come out!” Akeva just has to climb out of the bush. It’s just awkward.“I don’t have any time to listen to a lunatic.” Akeva leaves this icy cold words before turning away to leave. “LISTEN TO ME!” Aria cries loudly, “I KNOW WHERE YOUR MOTHER IS! SHE IS BACK IN THE HISTORY ABOUT A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR EVIL DAD! I KNOW WHERE TO FIND HER!”Akeva runs back to her, and says with shaking voice, “Really, you know? How can I go, I mean to find her?” “The only thing you can do is to travel back to the history, without telling you dad about it.” Aria’s voice stays calm and quiet again. “Racheal, we move tonight!” Akeva’s eyes shines with the light of bravery and love. “Okay,” It takes me a while to finally understand half of what’s going on, “We will need to prepare, at least.” My voice is full of uncertainty.“Wish you guys good luck then.” Aria walks away. “I don’t get it.” I lower my head and go upstairs again. “Anny, I have to go to my math lesson tonight. So you can stay here if you want, but my parents will be back soon, so…” “It’s okay, we will go.” Anny stands up from the couch, and pulls Jack up too. “Well, safety first!” I call out behind them.“Now, what we are going to do is to think of a way that can help you get out of here!” Akeva is so excited that he breaks a cup. “Jeez, calm down. Cardamone.” I say, eyeing him and the broken cup “Let me think for a second.”“You do still have your lesson right?” Akeva suddenly stops pacing around, and stares at me. “Well, yeah, But I’ve already told my parents that I’m ill.” “Tell them that you feel fine now then.” Akeva looks as if everything is perfect now. “But even if I do, I’m still going to be in the lesson, not in the time machine though.” I stare down at my feet. “You just sneak out then.”Akeva says quickly. “I dunno though.” I say unconcern. “I mean, we don’t even know if Liu XinYi said is the truth, so we’d better make sure of it, before just going back.”“C’mon Racheal.”Akeva pulls my sleeve. “Wait. We will need to plan for it though.” Ignoring Akeva’s angry glare, I sit down beside the table. Plans for going back to the History1. Go to my Math lesson, and pretend that I’m going to the bathroom, then sneak out in the back door. (Warning: must go there like forty minutes before the class.)2. After sneaking out the door, take bus 34 to the suburb. And sneak into the building.(Warning: If being found out, lives are gone.)3. …“But wait, you didn’t list a plan at all,” Akeva taps my shoulder from behind “You only wrote what we are going to do, but how exactly are we going to sneak into the building?” “I thought you know your father.” I put down my pen and raise my eyebrow. “Well, yeah, he usually goes out of the building for like an hour to have a walk on Saturday, and it’s usually the time where the building is almost empty except the servants.” Akeva scratches his head.“And then, we sneak into the building, and on to the third floor, say the passwords, and get to the machine. If it doesn’t succeed, we come back and try it another day. Deal?” I ask. “Deal.” Says Akeva finally. “we need to pack though.” I pull out my extremely large school bag. “I don’t want to be starved to death in the history, and if it’s winter, I will not be frozen to death either.” “Yeah, that’s fine. We do have some minutes.”Akeva says approvingly. And we get it all ready when my parents knock on the door.Honestly, I’m really nervous when my parents arrive at home. I let Akeva hide downstairs, so that my parents won’t think that I’m doing nothing at home. “How’s the day?” Mom asks, dad nodding behind her. “Fine,” I lower my head and focus on my tea, avoiding eye contact. “Is there anything you want to tell us?” Dad steps forward. “Well yeah,” I lie, “So there was a really hard problem, and I’m feeling better now, so I guess even though I missed the Chinese class, I can still go to the math. “Good girl,” Dad says, “Then I will send you there a bit earlier than usual, so you will have time to talk to your teacher. Besides, your mom and I are going out to our university too.” “Cool.” I turn around so that they cannot see the grin on my face.When we walk down stairs to get the car, I sign Akeva to come out. “What’s s…” I eye him, and Akeva quickly changes his words. “Hello Racheal, fancy meeting you here.” He is such a great actor that he pretends to be a perfect gentleman.“Oh, Racheal, this is your foreign friend, isn’t he?” Mom walks beside me. I nod. “Hello, Akeva Cardamone, nice to meet you.” They shake hands.“Racheal often talks about you.” Mom says, while my face is turning red again, “So how long will you be staying here?” “Exactly a year, Ms. Lin.” Akeva answers politely. “Good, what’s your father’s job again?” Mom asks. “A teacher.” Akeva answers. “Oh, that must be great. We are all teachers, how funny!” then my mom begins to laugh even though there is really nothing to laugh about. Akeva and I just stand there, very awkwardly. “Where are you going Akeva?” Dad walks up to us. “I really want to hear a Chinese math lesson, SO I WONDER IF…” Akeva stops a little to look at my parents.“Oh sure, of course, that will certainly be lovely.” My mom opens the door for us. “And Racheal, what’s that bag for? It looks really heavy.” “Um,” I quickly tuck in a sleeve of cloth that is showing, “Nothing actually, just books and stuff.” Luckily, mom just sits back in her seats, keeping silent. “Well done.” Akeva whispers. “Shut up.” I whisper back. At exactly forty minutes before the lesson, we arrive together. “Have a great time!” Mom calls out in the car. “Yeah, right.” I murmurs. “Now go to your classroom, hand in your homework, and I’ll wait for you beside the back door.” Akeva orders. He sounds a lot like commander in chief. I nod, and walk up to my classroom. My teacher is already there, “Hi Racheal, so early.”＂Yeah.” I say, wondering what he will ask me to do. “I have a hard question here, it’s in English, should be easy for you.” My heart sinks. Three minutes already passes. “Um, sure.” I take the question. Thank god it isn’t too hard. “Um, Mr. Wang, I have an upset stomach.” I say after I finish. “Help yourself.”I hurriedly come out of the classroom and head for the back door. When I finally open the back door, Akeva is already waiting for me for a long time. “What kept you?” He asks impatiently. Not waiting for an answer, we rush to the bus stop. Maybe because that God is helping us greatly, just a minute after we arrive, the bus comes. “Hurry up then.”I call. We hop on the bus, and the bus moves away from the city. “Thank God that your classroom is not far from the suburbs.” Akeva says, ＂Seriously though, what kept you for such a long time?＂ “It’s just my teacher who wants me to solve this English math problem, so it took some time.” I explain.“That makes sense.” Akeva shrugs, “We are coming nearer and nearer to the building, I can’t believe I’m finally going to meet my mom.” “No seriously, I have no idea about what is going on here, and I just have to warn you for the last time, Akeva, Liu XinYi might just be lying about it. She cannot be trusted” I say. “ But she knows the time machine, Rachel. There is no pretending that she doesn’t know anything, and she knows about my mom!” Akeva draws a big breathe and begins to talk, slowly and gently, “Three years ago, my dad’s first time machine was on the work. But he didn’t want other people to know about it until it was finished. But he needed a person to test it.”“So…” I start to understand which way this story will be going. “Yes, because I was too young, he sent my mother back a thousand years before this time. He knew that it would be dangerous, but he still did.” “But she can come back, can’t she?” I ask. “It’s planned that she would only be there for like an hour, but dad didn’t tell her the way back. The only thing he left her is the time machine, but she had no idea how to control it.” “That’s sad.” I comment. “It surely is.”“But if Aria Liu came from the history where your mom is now, and she can come back, why can’t your mom?” I suddenly think of this question and ask. “That’s the problem.” Says Akeva shortly, “The machine could only be used one time for each person. In another way, Aria isn’t going back if the new machine haven’t been invented.” “But if we go back, does that mean that we are not coming back?” “You can’t say that, no,” Akeva says as she is thinking, “The new machine, I remember dad tell me about that, he says that the machine has two chances for each person. It’s more convenient for him to move from one to another time tunnels. The more it’s being used, the more chances you will get.”“Okay?” I say uncertainly. “But I thought you had said that there’s basically no time passes in the history?” “That’s the case before, three days equals to one day in history because the machine can’t spin fast enough. And now, there is no time pass in current time, but time passes in the history.” “I don’t get it.” I conclude. “For example, you came to the history when you were eleven, and three years passed, and you are fourteen. Then when you come back, you will still be eleven.” Akeva explains slowly and clearly. “Got that one.” I snap with my fingers.We run through the suburbs as the bus stops at the last stop. “We have fifteen minutes still.” Akeva runs so effortlessly, but I’m already out of breath. “Okay… how much farther?” I ask. “Well, according the “TDH” it will still take five minutes or so.” Akeva holds up his waist so I can see the tiny number that is showing our speed and how many miles we still need to go. “I hate this.”I groan while sweeping sweats from my forehead. “That’s why you need to go to gym more often.” Akeva has basically no sweats at all, and he is talking like he just came back sitting on a beach and doing nothing at all!“Oh, shut up…” I say weakly, my lungs feel that they might burst. “We can’t stop here, Racheal,” Akeva looks at my painful face, with some of the pity shown “My mom is all alone in the history.” I suddenly notice a thing: the bag is still on Akeva’s bag. “Don’t… don’t you feel tired?” I ask. “No not at all.” Akeva answers, but his face is already turning sort of pink because of the weight of the bag. Ten minutes before the class is on, we arrive at front of the building. “Rose garden fills with thorns.” Akeva says. It’s really like what he had said, the building is almost empty, but there is someone walking on the floor above us. “C’mon, keep quiet.” Akeva whispers. Together, we sneak up the stairs. When we arrive at the second floor, which is filled with machines and papers, the whole hall is full of the smell of burning wax. “Wait, hurry up!” Akeva pulls me behind a shelf. Just as we are well hidden, the sound of footsteps comes near. “That’s Mr. Kazarosian,” Akeva whispers, as an elderly white man comes across the hall way, “He has been with my dad for like twenty years already. Really creepy how he looks at you. He scared me to death when I was young” Akeva explains slowly. We wait patiently as Mr. Kazarosian walks away. “All is clear.” I declared in a really soft voice.“Let’s keep moving then.” Akeva leads me to the third floor. “Do you remember which room it is?” I ask. We are lost, in my words, lost in a bunch of completely same rooms. “I only remember there was a star chart on its door. Here it is, come on!” Akeva pulls open the door. Thank god it isn’t locked. “Now what?” I ask. The room is so quiet that it’s not normal. “Now we go through the tunnels and get to the machine.” Akeva says. He walks up to the wall. “Let’s try it here.” He taps the wall three times and draws some kind of picture before saying confidently, “ patefacio sursum!” The wall splits open like it did before. I catch one of Akeva’s sleeve when he is trying to walk in. “We should lock the door.” I nod towards the half opening door. “Yeah, you are right.” After the door is locked. We walks through the tunnel.“I’m so excited now.” Akeva even smiles. “Really?” I ask disbelievingly, “I feel like I’m going to die here.” Not far before we stop walking, there is a really heavy trap door there. “Um, let me think how to say this one.” Akeva looks up at the ceiling, “Got it, tempus machina!” The trap door opens silently.“Now, this pass will probably lead us straight to the time machine.” I say. Akeva nods, we walk faster now. Soon we are in front of the time machine. It’s still covered in blue lights just like last time. “We will need a controller to stop the protection!” I say anxiously. “That’s a problem.” Akeva says. He looks at his “TDH”. “I don’t think it will help you.” I point at it. “Racheal it’s only three minutes to your class!” Akeva points at his watch. “That means we still have some time.” I say quit calmly. Actually I wouldn’t have been so sure if my teacher hadn’t texted me that he was going out for some dinner and would not come back until five minutes after class.Akeva taps his “TDH” three times, and the elf appears on the scene. “Mr. Cardamone, where…” the elf looks around the room. “Mr. Cardamone, you shouldn’t be here! Not without your father!” The elf squeaks. “We already know all about it, so now tell us how to get to the machine!” Akeva urges. “No, No Benny is going to be in big trouble!” Benny clenches his face. “Tell, us!” Akeva nearly shouts out. His voice echoes around the room. “Shhh,” I put a finger to my lips to silent him. “We already know, so the rule doesn’t work on it anymore!” Akeva whispers desperately. “But if it doesn’t work, Benny is going to get in big trouble!” The elf now begins to hit his head. Though he can’t do any damage to himself since he is transparent “This elf is a lot like Dobby the elf.” I say. “Yeah, dad made it.” Akeva smiles. ＂Tell us.＂＂No!＂ The elf doesn’t face Akeva. ＂Then you don’t obey your master, you are breaking the rule!” There are only three minutes left, and we are getting desperate.“Oh, move over!” I push Akeva aside. “Benny, what you are trying to do is not helping you!” I say quietly. The elf raises his head, his eyes full of blue tears, “But my master created me and let me obey his rules!” “But we are going to save your creator’s wife! If she is back, then your creator will surely award you!” The elf looks unsurely again. “I don’t know. Anyway, you shouldn’t go back, because…” It squeaks.“Whatever the reason is, there isn’t lot of time left, so hurry up, make up your mind!” I urge. “Ms. Cardamone is in the Chinese’s history, The Three Kingdoms.” Benny says and buries his face in his hands again “Oh, no, that’s bad, that’s very very bad!” I gasp. “What?” Akeva asks. “Tell you later. And how do we get the protection of this machine.”“Well, there is this password, and in English. It’s an urgent mission. And if you really want to know and to get it off, you have to say urgent missionem” Just as the elf finishes speaking, the blue lights suddenly disappears. “Great, hurry up, let’s go then. And thanks a lot, Benny, you are the best.” Akeva says.Somewhere far, there is a loud beeping sound, followed by footsteps and shouting. “What do we do now?” I cried. “We go back to the history! Benny just bent his creator’s rule, and people would know that we had broken into this machine!” Akeva shouts. Because suddenly this room is shining with red lights and the sound of emergency.The door opens as we approach. “Hurry up.” I sit down in a back seat, while Akeva takes the driver’s place. The shouting is coming nearer. “They are already in the tunnel!” I shout. “Wait, I’m trying to work it out!” Akeva’s hands tap quickly on the keyboards, and a list of names appears on the scene. “Come on, Racheal. Which one is it? I don’t get your country seriously!” I run to the screen and murmur under my breath, “The Yuan dynasty, certainly not, Tang dynasty nope, not that, the Zhou Dynasty, no it isn’t.” “Will you please hurry up?” Akeva urges. Just as I’m still looking, we all feels a bump from the door. “They are coming, hurry up!” Akeva shouts.Then just as exactly that moment, I find it --- the Han dynasty, and The Three Kingdom. “This is it!” and Akeva presses the button beside it. I have a feeling that we are moving very fast. “Now we can relax.” Akeva sit back down on his chair. “That went pretty well, right?” “I’m nearly scared to death.” I lay on my chair. “Do you have a bathroom in here?” “Yeah, we do, Akeva presses a yellow button, and a small room appears. “Thanks,” I carry the bag with me.（To be continued）（3171 words）