1.语文

一年级-上册

2.数学

3.英语

一年级-下册

日语

ドラえもん

英语 自然拼读

作者：Katherine Follett
插图：Ted Dawson

Written by Katherine Follett
 Illustrated by Ted Dawson

大致的了解
我知道这不是一个解释我的行为的好的理由，
但德尔从来没有对我非常好过。
他不是经常说话，当他说话的时候，
他通常是在开过分的玩笑。就在那天早上，
他叫我“带有细菌的人”而不是“杰米”，
当我走上公共汽车的时候。这个称呼是一个漫长而羞辱的故事。


A Quick Glimpse
 I know it isn’t a good excuse for what I did,
 but Del had never been very nice to me. 
 He didn’t talk a whole lot, and when he did, 
 he was usually telling mean jokes. Just that morning, 
 he’d called me “Germy” instead of “Jamie” 
 when I got on the bus. 
The name-calling was a long and humiliating story.

在上午课间休息的时候，
我和其他的一些女孩在教学楼附近的一个阳光明媚的角落闲逛。
透过窗户，
我瞥见德尔坐在校长的办公室里。
一个我不认识的女人正站在他和
一个坐在另一张椅子上的小一点的男孩中间。那男孩在哭着.


During morning recess, 
 I hung out with some other girls in a sunny corner near the building.
 Through the window, 
 I caught a glimpse of Del sitting in the principal’s office. 
 A woman I didn’t recognize stood between him 
 and a smaller boy in another chair. The boy was crying.

我对我看见的东西思考地越久，情况看起来似乎越糟。
哭泣的孩子不会比一年级生大，
或者甚至是一个幼儿园的孩子。
我想到了所有的德尔对我的朋友和我说的过分的话，
这让我生气。在这一天结束的时候，
我意识到德尔再也没有回到班上。


The longer I thought about what I saw, the worse the situation seemed. 
 The crying kid couldn’t have been any more than a first grader,
 or maybe even a kindergartner. 
 I thought of all the mean things Del had said to my friends and me,
 and it made me angry. At the end of the day, 
 I realized that Del had never returned to class.

特大新闻
我的朋友和我在我们的老地方秋千旁玩，
在第二天的第一声铃声响起来之前，
当从附近的足球比赛中滚过来一个球的时候。
“嗨，”我的朋友马特说着，在他跑过来
捡球的时候，“你们见过德尔吗？”
我意识到没有人叫我“带有细菌的人”，
在那天早上骑车上学的时候，说：“没有。为什么这么问？”


The Big Story
 My friends and I were at our usual spot around the swings before the first bell the following day 
 when a ball rolled by from the nearby kickball game.
 “Hey,” my friend Matt said as he jogged over
to pick up the ball, “have you seen Del?”
 I realized no one had called me “Germy” 
 on the ride to school that morning and said, “No. Why?”

每个人都喘着气，
我把我的脚埋到秋千下的沙子里。
那不可能是事实。
我没有看过任何黑眼圈或者缺失的牙齿。
德尔并不在学校，但是，因此他可能被开除了。
“你从哪里听说的？”我问。马特耸耸肩，说：
“整个学校都在谈论这件事。”


Everyone gasped, 
 and I buried my feet into the sand beneath the swings. 
 That couldn’t have been what actually happened—
 I hadn’t seen any black eyes or missing teeth. 
 Del wasn’t at school, though,so maybe he had been expelled.
 “Where did you hear that?” I asked. Matt shrugged and said, 
 “The whole school’s talking about it.”

“你怎么了，笨蛋？”
德尔对他旁边的男孩哼了一声。
“我希望你不要找我麻烦，”
孩子嘲笑道。一些人笑了。
“是的，我可能会的，”德尔说。
我可以看出他把这当成是一个笑话，
但是一些学生惊惶不已，
好像他承认了他确实打了某个人。


“What’s your problem, dork?” 
 Del snorted at the boy next to him.
 “I don’t want you to attack me,” 
 the kid taunted. A few people laughed.
 “Yeah, I might,” said Del. 
 I could tell he figured it was a joke,
 but some students gasped in horror,
 as if he was admitting he did beat up someone.

上午课间休息的时候，桑切斯先生叫德尔
留下来谈一会儿话。
一些孩子走出教室的时候嘲笑着他。
“他把某个人打得进医院了吗？”其中一个问道。
当德尔几分钟后加入课间休息的时候，
他立即想要加入足球比赛。
“没有队伍想要你，”其中一个球员说。
“你在说什么？”德尔问，
看起来很困惑：“我总是和你们一起踢球的。”

At morning recess, Mr. Sanchez asked Del
to stay and talk for a moment. 
 Some of the kids laughed at him on their way out. 
 “Did he put someone else in the hospital?” one of them asked.
 When Del joined recess a few minutes later, 
 He immediately tried to join the kickball game.
 “Neither team wants you,” one of the players said.
 “What are you talking about?” Del asked, 
looking confused. “I always play kickball with you guys.”

玩打电话游戏
当我们回到教室的时候，
每个人可以看到桑切斯先生的表情很严肃。
“每个人都把你们的椅子围成一个圈，”他说。
我们这样做了，但德尔身边空出了很大的空间。
桑切斯先生皱起了眉头

Playing Telephone
 When we returned to the classroom, 
 Everyone could see that Mr. Sanchez was in a serious mood.
 “Everyone arrange your chairs in a circle,” he said. 
 We did, but there were big spaces on either side of Del. 
 Mr. Sanchez frowned.

桑切斯在卡片上写了一些东西，
把卡片翻过来，
然后在赛伊德耳边低声说话。
赛伊德对下一个人低声说话，
她对下一个人低声说话。
当轮到我的时候，
它听起来像“双叶一切在你的耳朵里。”
“什么？那真是可笑！”我叫道。


Mr. Sanchez wrote something on the card,
 turned the card facedown, 
 and then whispered into Sayid’s ear. 
 Sayid whispered to the next person, 
 and she whispered to the next. 
 By the time it came around to me, 
 it sounded like “Double leaves everything in your ear.”
 “What? That’s ridiculous!” I exclaimed.

“现在，公布最初的信息。”他说道，他翻开卡片，展示给每个小组看。
它写着：“不要相信你听到的一切。”


“Now, here’s how the message began,” he said, turning over the card and showing the group. 
 It read, “Don’t believe everything that you hear.”

他是对的，我知道，这使我
感到可怕。我想我的朋友会像我一样感觉很不好，
他们会责怪我。
直到午餐时间之前我所能考虑的
都是他们会对我说的可怕的话。
我冲向我平时在食堂坐的桌子
低着头，但尽管听了桑切斯先生的教训，
德尔仍然是每次谈话的中心。


He was right, and I knew it, which made me
feel horrible. I thought my friends would feel just as bad 
 and that they would blame me. 
 All I could think about until lunchtime 
 were the awful things they would say to me.
 I slunk to my usual table in the cafeteria 
 with my head low, but despite Mr. Sanchez’s lesson,
 Del was still the center of every conversation.

“也许他们会把德尔送进监狱。”另一个人说。
“他们要把德尔送进监狱？”另一桌子的一个小孩小声说。


“Maybe they’ll send Del to prison,”said another.
 “They’re sending Del to prison?” a kid at another table hissed.

做公平的事
“我有什么可以帮助你的吗，杰米吗？”桑切斯先生问道，
当我坐在他的办公桌前的时候。
我试图想出一个办法来描述发生了什么
让自己看起来不像一个糟糕的人。
然后我意识到试图让自己看起来是个好人
就是整个混乱局面开始的原因。


Doing What’s Fair
 “What can I help you with, Jamie?” Mr. Sanchez asked 
 when I sat down in front of his desk.
 I tried to think of a way to describe what happened 
 without making myself look like a terrible person. 
 Then I realized that trying to make myself look good 
 was how the whole mess had started.

“我希望你不会告诉我
你听到了一些关于德尔的可怕的东西，”他说。
“已经有太多的谣言在流传了。”
“不，我知道它们不是真的，”我说,
深深吸了一口气，让自己稳定下来，
“因为是我开始传的。”
桑切斯先生的眉毛向上移动。


“I hope you aren’t going to tell me 
 that you heard something awful about Del,” he said. 
 “Too many rumors are going around already.”
 “No, and I know they aren’t true,” I said,
 taking a deep breath and steadying myself,
 “because I started them.”
 Mr. Sanchez’s eyebrows shifted way up.

“我和德尔不是朋友，”我开始说了。
“他经常调侃我，他总是在不断的惹麻烦。
我只是认为他这一次也是惹麻烦了。”
桑切斯先生看了我一会儿，
我想我是真的有麻烦了。然后他说：
“我敢打赌，我们今天玩的游戏
真的引发了你脑袋里面的一些东西。”


“Del and I aren’t friends,” I began. 
 “He teases me a lot, and he’s constantly in trouble. 
 I just figured that he was in trouble this time, too.”
 Mr. Sanchez looked at me for a moment, 
 And I thought I was really in trouble. Then he said,
 “I bet that game we played today 
 really sparked something inside your head.”

我想了想他说的话，他是对的。
关于我爬过垃圾的谣言
可能是以一些人之间的笑话开始的，只是继续流传开了。
“我谈论着德尔，甚至不知道真正发生了什么”我说。
“那是不公平的，也是不好的，但我喜欢它开始的感觉
因为我感到我真的很受欢迎。人们对我要说的感兴趣，
我用过分的方式报复德尔。”


I thought about what he had said, and he was right. 
 The rumor about me crawling through garbage 
 probably began as a joke between some people and just continued to grow.
 “I talked about Del without knowing what had really happened,” I said. 
 “That’s not fair, or nice, but I loved the feeling when it started 
 because I felt really popular. People were interested in what I had to say, 
 and I was getting back at Del for being mean.”

“你要做什么，当你知道了一个事实
那就是某件事情是真的时候？”我问道。
“通常最好不要谈论某个人
当他不在你身边的时候-
除非你在说好的东西。”他说。
“让人们自己说，
让别人决定他们是否会相信。”


“What do you do when you know for a fact 
 that something is true?” I asked.
 “It’s usually best not to gossip about people
 when they’re not around—
 unless you’re saying nice things,” he said. 
 “Let people speak for themselves, 
 and let other people decide what they want to believe.”

诉说真相
在外面，德尔独自坐着，看着足球比赛。
我是如此得紧张，以至于我几乎不能说话。
“嗨，”我说着走向他。  
“你想要什么，带细菌的人？”
德尔突然说，没有把他的眼睛从比赛移开。
我几乎要放弃了，
但他的声音里有些东西听起来相对于生气似乎更受伤。

Telling the Truth 
Outside, Del sat alone and watched the kickball game. 
 I was so nervous that I could hardly talk.
 “Hey,” I said as I walked up to him. 
“What do you want, Germy?” 
 Del snapped without taking his eyes off the game. 
 I almost retreated,
 but something in his voice sounded more hurt than angry.

“他没事吧？”我平静地问道。
德尔愤怒的脸色柔和下来一点。
“是的。我弟弟只是太害怕了。”他耸耸肩。
“没有任何人会相信真相，因为他们认为我打了他。”
愤怒悄悄地回到他的脸上。
“我很抱歉听到你爸爸的事，
我很高兴他没事。”


“Will he be okay?” I asked quietly. 
 Del’s angry face softened a bit.
 “Yeah. My brother was just scared.”He shrugged. 
 “Not that anyone will believe the truth, 
 now that they think I beat him up.”
 Anger crept back into his face.
 “I’m really sorry to hear about your dad, 
 and I’m glad he’ll be okay.”

“你说那个孩子看起来像被打了。”
梅反驳道。“那是你告诉我们的，”凯西说。
“是我说的，”我说：“那是错误的。
我不应该做那些假设，
因为它们中没有一个是真的。
我跟德尔说话，是因为我在对他道歉，
因为我在不知道真相的时候说他的闲话。”


“You said the kid looked like he’d been beaten up,” 
 May retorted. “That’s what you told us,” Cassie said.
 “I did,” I said, “and that was wrong. 
 I shouldn’t have made those assumptions 
 because none of them were true. 
 I was talking to Del because I was apologizing
 for gossiping about him when I didn’t know the truth.”

去年夏天，在快结束的时候，我因为很严重的流感住进了医院，
一些孩子开始了谣言。
我不知道谁想出了“带有细菌的人，”这个绰号，但德尔仍然没有让这件事过去。
尽管我尽可能地忽略他，这件事仍然困扰着我。

Last summer, I ended up in the hospital with a really bad flu, 
 and a few kids started a garbage. 
 I don’t know who came up with the nickname “Germy,” 
 but Del still hadn’t let it go.
 Try as I might to ignore him,it still bothered me.

所以当我们的校长，斯格罗夫夫人，
把她的头伸进我们的教室，悄悄地叫德尔去她的办公室的时候，
我自然而然地认为他肯定是对谁做了很过分的事。
毕竟，这不是第一次了。

So when our principal, Mrs. Cosgrove, 
 Poked her head inside our classroom and quietly asked Del to come to her office, 
 I naturally thought that he’d done something mean to someone. 
 After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time.

女人试图安慰他而德尔却皱起了眉头。
“你看到了吗？”我问我的朋友，
但是就在那一刻，斯格罗夫夫人拉上了百叶窗。
“什么？”梅问。
“德尔在斯格罗夫校长的办公室里，
他和校长似乎都很生气。

And the woman was trying to comfort him while Del scowled.
 “Do you see that?” I asked my friends, 
 but just at that moment, Mrs. Cosgrove snapped the blinds shut.
 “What?” asked May.
 “Del was in Principal Cosgrove’s office, 
 and he and the principal both seemed angry.

一个小孩子和一个女人也在那里，
但我之前从来没有见过他们。”
“德尔总是在斯格罗夫的办公室里，”梅说。
“也许他对那个可怜的小家伙说了些过分的话，”
我说着，努力思考着。“听起来像是德尔会做的事，”
凯西耸耸肩，说。

A little kid and a woman were in there with them, 
 but I’ve never seen them before.”
 “Del’s constantly in Principal Cosgrove’s office,” May said.
 “Maybe he said something mean to that poor little guy,” 
 I said, thinking out loud. “Sounds like Del,” 
 Cassie said as she shrugged.

在我赶上我的朋友们的路上，
我再次偷偷从校长的窗口看进去，但办公室空无一人。
我看见了凯西，跑向她。“德尔今天再也没有回来上课。
他肯定已经被送回家了，”我低声说，
提出我的第一个结论。凯西睁大了眼睛。
见到她对我说事这么感兴趣，我感觉很高兴。
“我敢打赌他对那可怜的的孩子做了一件真的很糟的事。

On my way to catch up with my friends, 
 I peeked through the principal’s window again, but the office was deserted. 
 I spotted Cassie and ran over to her. “Del never came back to class today. 
 He must have been sent home,” I whispered, 
 jumping to my first conclusion. Cassie’s eyes widened. 
 It felt good to see her so interested in what I said. 
 “I bet he did something really terrible to that poor little kid.

现在想起来，我记得那孩子的脸浮肿着，
像是也许德尔打了他！”凯西看起来更加震惊了。
就在这时，梅跑到我们身后，问我们在谈论什么。
“杰米认为德尔可能打了幼儿园里的小孩，
因为他被送回家，再也没有回来，”凯西说。
梅的嘴张得很大，我想也不想地点头同意。

Now that I think about it, I remember the kid’s face looking puffy, 
 like maybe Del hit him! ”Cassie looked even more shocked. 
 Just then, May ran up behind us and asked what we were talking about.
 “Jamie thinks Del might have beat up a kindergartner 
 because he was sent home and never came back,” Cassie said.
 May’s mouth fell open, and without thinking, I nodded in agreement.

马特走上来，低声说：
“我听说斯格罗夫校长开除了他，
因为他打了幼儿园里的小孩，”他说：
“我猜他打掉了
孩子的牙齿，把他的两只眼睛都打肿了。”

Matt stepped closer to whisper. 
 “I heard Principal Cosgrove expelled him 
 for beating up a kindergartner,” he said. 
 “I guess he punched out
 the kid’s teeth and gave him two shiners.”

“杰米，你是对的！”凯西说，每个人都点了点头。
我喜欢这种感觉，当了解到
这么多人听取了我的假设，
并把它传开了。这都不重要，
尽管他们改变了故事的某些部分，因为我们都很开心，
我无法想象，德尔是否会在乎。

“Jamie, you were right!” Cassie said, and everyone nodded.
 I loved the feeling that came with knowing
 so many people had heard my assumptions 
 and passed them on. It didn’t really matter 
 that they had changed parts of the story because we were all having fun, 
 and I couldn’t imagine that Del would even care.

当我们我们坐下来准备上课的时候，
每个人都在低声讨论德尔被开除的事，
所以当他走进门的时候我们很惊讶。
所有孩子们陷入了沉默，盯着他，
当德尔走到教室后面他的座位上的时候。
他低头看着地，直到他坐下来，他旁边的孩子们把他们的桌子移开了。

By the time we sat down for class,
 everyone was whispering about Del’s expulsion, 
 so we were surprised when he walked through the door. 
 All the kids fell silent and stared 
 as Del made his way to his seat at the back of the classroom. 
 He looked at the ground till he sat down, and the kids next to him shifted their desks away.

他们忽略了德尔，重新开始踢球。
当他走开时，他很生气，有人叫道：
“我们不想你输了以后打架。”
德尔独自坐在教学楼边的长椅上，
而其余的同学们在他周围享受课间休息。
我不想，但我开始对德尔感到抱歉。

They ignored Del and started playing again.
 As he walked away, sulking, someone called, 
 “We don’t want you to lose and start a fight.”
 Del sat by himself on a bench against the building 
 while the rest of the school enjoyed their recess around him.
 I didn’t want to, but I was starting to feel sorry for Del.

“我们要玩打电话游戏。
我会在这张卡片上写下一个句子。
我会把这个句子小声地说给赛伊德听，
然后他将他所听到的小声说给下一个人听。
记住要把你认为你所听到的准确地传递给下一个人。”

"We’re going to play Telephone. 
 I’m going write down a sentence on this card. 
 I’ll whisper the sentence into Sayid’s ear, 
 and then he’ll whisper what he hears to the next person. 
 Remember to pass on exactly what you believe you hear.”

“只是准确重复你听到的东西”
桑切斯先生指示道。所以我继续传下去，
最终,消息
又传回到桑切斯那里。
他宣布他所听到的。
“在你的耳边响起涂料倾向，”他说着。
每个人都突然咯咯地笑了。

“Just repeat exactly what you hear,” 
 Mr. Sanchez instructed. So I continued, 
 and eventually the message 
 made its way around to Mr. Sanchez again. 
 He announced what he had heard.
 “Dope leaning ringing in your ear,” he said,
 and everyone burst into giggles.

“这是一个很好的经验，”桑切斯先生开始说话。
因为看起来好像关于一个或另一个人的谣言总是在走廊上嗡嗡作响。
我希望这个游戏能让你们明白传递谣言，或开始一个谣言，
就像喂养一个大怪物-它一点点变异，慢慢变大直到
它完全跟它刚开始的时候不一样。它通常变得更过分，更丑陋，
对那个每个人都在谈论的人有更多的伤害。
语言是有后果的，而一旦一个流言怪物诞生了，
它几乎是不可能停止的。”

“This is a good lesson to learn,” Mr. Sanchez began, 
 “since it seems as though rumors about one person or another 
 are always buzzing around the hallways. 
 I hope this game makes you see that passing on a rumor, or starting one, 
 is like feeding a monster— it mutates a little and gets bigger until 
 it’s completely different from when it started. It usually gets meaner, uglier, 
 and more hurtful to the person everyone is gossiping about. 
Words have consequences, and once a gossip monster has started, 
 it’s almost impossible to stop.”

全班都知道桑切斯先生在说什么，
尽管他没有特别提及。
几个人看了一眼德尔，他看起来相当尴尬。
尽管桑切斯先生不知道我在德尔的谣言里扮演的角色，
但感觉他好像是单独在对我说话。
我吞了口口水，感觉我满脸布满了火热的内疚。

The whole class knew what Mr. Sanchez was talking about, 
 even though he didn’t mention it specifically. 
 A few people glanced at Del, who looked pretty embarrassed. 
 Although Mr. Sanchez couldn’t have known my role in the rumors about Del, 
 it felt as if he were speaking to me alone.
 I swallowed, feeling the red-hot guilt all over my face.

“我希望我的学生们不会喂养流言怪物，
因为我教过我的学生们要互相尊重，”桑切斯先生结束了他的话。

“I hope that my students wouldn’t feed gossip monsters
 because I’ve taught my students to treat each other with respect,” Mr. Sanchez said with finality.

“我的妈妈是一个护士，她在医院里看到了那个孩子
他看上去好像是被一辆卡车撞了，”有人说。
“他们为什么还不开除他？
他们不担心
他会继续殴打幼儿园的孩子吗？”
有人问道。

“My mom’s a nurse, and she saw the kid in the hospital 
 looking as if he’d been hit by a truck,” someone said.
 “Why haven’t they expelled him already?
 Aren’t they concerned 
 that he’ll keep beating up kindergartners?” 
 someone else asked.

“昨天在休息的时候
从科斯格罗夫校长的窗口，
我看见德尔和一个小孩跟一个女人在那里，”
我开始说。桑切斯先生的表情
很快从和蔼和感兴趣变成了担心和疲惫。

“Yesterday during recess 
 I looked in Principal Cosgrove’s window, 
 and I saw Del and a little kid in there with a woman,” 
 I began. Mr. Sanchez’s expression 
 quickly changed from kind and interested to worried and tired.

谣言失去控制地流传开来。
我可以想象每一句话的连接，扩充
每一个假设变异成一只恶劣的野兽，细细咀嚼着德尔。
与此同时，我和我的朋友坐着聊着天，好像什么不适当的事都没有发生一样，德尔独自吃着午饭。有人扔了一卷东西，击中了他的后脑勺，
当他正要喝一口牛奶的时候。
每个人都笑了-除了我。我从没感觉这么糟糕过，
甚至比人们开始叫我“带有细菌的人”时更糟糕

The rumor was growing completely out of control. 
 I pictured each statement joining, growing,
and mutating with each assumption into a gross beast that nibbled on Del.
 Meanwhile,my friends and I sat around and talked as if there were nothing wrong, 
and Del ate lunch alone. Someone threw a roll that hit him in the back of the head 
 as he was about to take a drink of his milk. 
 Everyone laughed—except me. I felt worse than I had ever felt, 
 even worse than when people started calling me “Germy.”

我必须做点什么，但我不确定要做什么。
我可以向每个人解释我真正见到的东西，
但他们会听我的吗？
也许如果我只是忽略它，谣言就会消失
因为它几乎就像是人们说我喜欢爬过垃圾一样。
无所事事还是不太合适。
我放下午餐—反正我不饿了-
去和一个人谈谈，他会知道要做什么。

I had to do something, but I wasn’t sure what.
 I could explain to everyone what I had really seen, 
 but would they even listen to me? 
 Maybe if I just ignored it, the rumor would disappear
 as it almost had with people saying I liked crawling through garbage. 
 Doing nothing didn’t seem right. I left my lunch—I wasn’t hungry anyway—
 and went to talk to the one person I thought would know what to do.

“我看到一个幼儿园的小孩在哭，一个女人
试图安慰他。我告诉我的朋友
也许德尔因为打他而惹了麻烦，
现在谣言已经传遍了整个学校。”
“谣言往往像野火一样迅速传播，”
桑切斯先生说，然后他叹了口气，
他的手折叠着放在桌子上。
“关于德尔，为什么你会说如此可怕的话？”

“I saw a kindergartner crying, and a woman
trying to comfort him. I told my friends that
 maybe Del was in trouble for beating him up, 
 And now the rumor has spread all over the school.”
 “Rumors tend to spread like wildfire,”
 Mr. Sanchez said before he sighed 
 and folded his hands on the table. 
 “Why would you say something so awful about Del?”

我点了点头。“现在你知道在现实生活中
只需要一个人草草下结论，
做一个假设，或是讲一些善意的谎言
就可以开始一个真正伤人的谣言。”

I nodded. “Now you know that in real life
 it only takes one person jumping to a conclusion,
 making an assumption, or telling a little white lie 
 to start a rumor that becomes really hurtful.”

我讨厌承认这一点，但解释我的感受让我觉得我好像成了一个真正的怪物。
我因为完全自私的原因真正地伤害了德尔。
我一直认为德尔是个恶霸，
当我真的变成了恶霸-不是通过打任何人，
而是通过说闲话的时候。“这么做现在仍然让你感到如此愉快吗?
你让德尔伤心了？”桑切斯先生问道。
我摇摇我的头，我想他可以看出我感觉很糟糕。

I hated to admit it, but explaining how I felt made me feel as if I had become a real monster. 
 I had truly hurt Del for completely selfish reasons.
 I’d been assuming that Del was a bully, 
 when really I’d been the bully— not by beating up anyone,
 but by gossiping. “Does it still seem so enjoyable now 
 that you’ve hurt Del’s feelings?” Mr. Sanchez asked. 
 I shook my head, and I think he could tell that I felt terrible.

“人们过早地下结论是正常的，杰米。
我们看到某些事情正在发生，我们的思想开始
构建故事。我们必须意识到我们的假设
并不是事实。同样，当你听到别人在传谣言的时候-
你不应该相信你听到的每一个故事。”

“It’s normal for people to jump to conclusions, Jamie. 
 We see something happening, and our minds start to 
build stories. We have to realize that the assumptions we make 
 aren’t really the truth. The same goes for when you hear someone else gossiping—
 you shouldn’t believe every story you hear.”

“那么德尔在科斯格罗夫校长的办公室的真正的原因是什么呢？”
桑切斯先生话音刚落，我就脱口而出。
我脸红了，他笑了。这整个不说闲话事件
起了一些作用。
“如果你真的想知道真相，
最好找到起源。”他说。
“你应该问德尔，
但我想道歉可能应该放在第一位。”

“So why was Del really in Principal Cosgrove’s office?”
 I blurted out before Mr. Sanchez’s words had sunk in. 
 I blushed, and he smiled. This whole not-gossiping thing 
 was going to take some work.
 “If you really want to know the truth, 
 it’s always best to find the source,” he said. 
 “You should probably ask Del, 
 but I think an apology might be in order first.”

“我想道歉，”我简单地说。
德尔没有看我，但是他集中了注意力。
“当我昨天看见你在斯格罗夫校长的办公室里的时候，
我告诉人们，她把送你回家了，
因为你打了幼儿园的小孩。”
“打了一个小孩？”德尔说着，很气愤。
“那是我的妈妈和我的弟弟。”
我甚至不知道德尔有一个弟弟，
现在我感觉更糟了。

“I want to apologize,” I said simply.
 Del refused to look at me, but he was paying attention. 
 “When I saw you in Principal Cosgrove’s office yesterday, 
 I told people that she sent you home
 for beating that kindergartner up.”
 “Beating up a little kid?” Del said, disgusted.
 “That was my mom and my little brother.” 
 I didn’t even know Del had a little brother, 
 and now I felt even worse.

“哦，”我说：
“我只是想为我说的那些过分的话道歉。”
“我爸爸受伤了，”德尔说，最后看着我，好像他在盘问我。
“他被分配到海外的部队。
妈妈来告诉我们，他们要送他回家。”

“Oh,” I said, 
 “I just want to apologize for saying something so mean.”
 “My dad got hurt,” Del said, finally looking at me as if he was challenging me. 
 “He was deployed overseas in the Army. 
 Mom was telling us that they’re going to send him home.”

“好的，杰米，”他耸耸肩。
这是他几个月来第一次叫我的真名。
我几乎要笑出来。他转回去看比赛，
当我的朋友们把我拉走的时候。
“你为什么跟他说话？”梅问。
“你不会想跟一个孩子打手做朋友的。”
“那都不是真的，”我说：
“而且我们不应该继续传流言了。”

“Okay, Jamie,” he said with a shrug. 
 It was the first time he’d used my real name in months.
 I almost smiled. He returned to watching the game 
 as my friend pulled me away.
 “Why are you talking to him?” May asked.
 “You don’t want to be friends with a kid beater.”
 “None of that’s true,” I said, 
 “and we shouldn’t keep gossiping about it.”

凯西，马特，梅都羞怯得面面相觑，
我知道他们想到了
他们做的关于德尔的假设。
“然后发生了什么？”凯西问。
“如果你真的想知道，去问德尔，”我说，
感觉好多了。
“我不会再在别人背后谈论他了。”

Cassie, Matt, and May all looked at each other sheepishly, 
 and I could tell they were 
 thinking about the assumptions they had made about Del.
 “What did happen, then?” asked Cassie.
 “If you really want to know, ask Del,” I said,
 feeling much better. 
 “I’m done talking behind other people’s backs.”

到我们的科学实验室，我们必须要分组，
但没有人想要与德尔一组。
桑切斯先生最终不得不把德尔硬生生加入到一个小组里，
但他们看起来很不舒服。
上课的时候，我偷偷看了他们几次，
其余的组员完全无视德尔。
他只是坐在那儿用他的铅笔敲打着书桌。

For our science lab, we had to split up into groups, 
 but no one wanted to work with Del.
 Mr. Sanchez eventually had to force a group to include Del, 
 but they looked uneasy about it. 
 I peeked at them a couple of times during class, 
 and the rest of the group was completely ignoring Del, 
 Who just sat there tapping his pencil against the desk.

The Gossip Monster

Written by David Meissner
 Illustrated by John Kastner

Chapter 1: Hammock Life
 “Cammy, just try to say it once: Obrigada.
 It means ‘Thank you.’”
 “Dad, I already told you! I don’t speak
 Portuguese, and I don’t want to learn.”
 Cammy’s mom rolled her eyes. Most of the
 trip had been like this. 
 For some reason, 
 Cammy was not enjoying the adventure. 
 Most twelveyear- olds would think a boat 
 ride up the Amazon River was pretty cool.
 Cammy poked at her food. “This is the third
 lunch in a row they’ve served this same fish.
 I’m getting tired of it.”

“It’s a good thing we brought our own food,”said her dad.
 “Yeah, but too bad there are ants in our food,”
 continued Cammy. “They climbed right up the
 poles and into our stuff. How did they get on the boat anyway?”
 “They must have paid money like the rest of us,” responded her mom with a smile. Cammy laughed. 
 “And did the mosquitoes pay, too? 
 Because I’ve got a few bites here on my arm. See?”
 Cammy held out her tan and bumpy arm. “If I get malaria, I’m holding you two responsible. This trip was your idea.”
 “Is there anything that you do like about this trip?”
her dad asked.
 “Let’s see . . . that there are only three days left
 until Manaus? Come on, Dad, you know I like
 watching the sunsets. And yesterday Mom and
 I saw one of those cool pink dolphins. There!
 That was pretty positive, eh? Obrigada.”
 “Well, Ms. Smarty Pants,” her mom began,
 “tomorrow we’re going to arrive at a town called
 Santarém. That will be something new to look at.”
 “Do we get to get off?” Cammy asked.

“No, but you’ll get to see an Amazon town
 up close. And some new people will get on.”
 “What if I did get off? And slipped into the
 jungle and never came back?”
 “Then we’d just have to live without you,
 my dear,” said her mom with a smile.
 After finishing lunch in the cafeteria,
 Cammy and her parents walked back to 
 their covered sleeping area. 
 They each climbed into their own hammock.
 For three days now they had traveled upriver
 on this big boat. Every once in a while they
 passed little wooden houses on the bank of the
 river, but mostly it was just one thick, green
 jungle. Cammy reached for her travel journal to
 reread her first three entries.

March 24, 2002
 Today we left Canada and landed in a city called Belem. 
 My parents and I are going to travel up the Amazon River in a big three-story
 boat that carries mostly local Brazilians. Mom and Dad did it about 20 years ago. 
 (I think they’re trying to relive the olden days.)
 We’re going to sleep in big hammocks for six nights!
 March 25, 2002
 Today was our first day on the boat. My parents aretalking to people in Portuguese, 
 and I can’t understand anything. I couldn’t sleep very well in my hammock.
 Mom says I’m getting cranky already. But nobody here is my age! 
 I wish I was back in Vancouver with my friends. 
 Brian is having a party on Friday,
 and our soccer team has a tournament over the weekend.
 March 26, 2002
 Today was better. A Brazilian man had a soccer ball, so we played on the top deck. 
 It was fun until somebody kicked the ball overboard! Then we sat up top 
 and watched the sun set. It’s cool here because you can see forever. 
 And the air here is kind of sweet.Dad says to breathe it in deep now, 
 because it’s the best air in the world.

Chapter 2: The Canoe People
 On the following day the boat stopped in
 Santarém, a medium-size town on the bank of
 the river. A Brazilian family boarded and hung
 their hammocks in the sleeping area. There was
 a girl about Cammy’s age. She had curly black
 hair and a big smile on her face.
 “Hello, do you speak English?” the girl asked
 Cammy with a foreign accent.
 “Yes,” answered Cammy. “And you are
 Brazilian? How did you learn English?”

“My family live for one year in Toronto, Canada. So I go to school with Canadian kids
 and learn English. My name is Gabriela.”
 “Cool. My name is Cammy. It’s nice to meet you. Hey, do you want to check out the boat?”
 Gabriela smiled. “Yes, sure,” she said. “Let’s go see.”
 The two new friends explored the boat from front to back. 
 When they finally reached the top deck, 
 Santarém was already out of sight. 
 As they gazed out over the wide river, 
 Cammy spotted two little canoes paddling toward the boat. 
 A man was in one canoe and two young boys were in the other. 
 Their skin was dark brown. When they reached the side of the boat, 
 they slapped their paddles hard against the water.
 “What are they doing?” Cammy asked.
 “They are asking for things, like food,” Gabriela answered. 
 “It is kind of like a tradition.Those people are very poor. 
 So the people on these big boats help them out.”
 Just then somebody from the lower deck threw a white plastic bag into the water. 
 It landed near the two boys. They paddled over to the bag and picked it up before it sank.

Cammy rested her elbow on the railing and stared out at the canoe family. 
 “I wonder what their lives are like,” she said. 
 “Do you think we could make a bag to throw to them?”
 “Do you want to?” asked Gabriela. “Yeah, let’s go.”
 The two girls raced back to Cammy’s hammock.
 Cammy emptied two plastic grocery bags and
 shook out the ants. They quickly filled each bag
 with fruit, crackers, and a can of soda. Cammy also
 put in a bracelet that she had made. Then they ran
 to the lower deck.
 “Hey, look,” pointed Gabriela, “there’s another canoe coming.”
 A young boy and an older girl paddled hard to reach the big boat.
 Then they slapped their paddles against the water and stared up at the two girls.
 Cammy and Gabriela threw their bags in close proximity to the canoe. 
 The older girl paddled while the young boy scooped them up.
 He handed the bags back to the older girl.
 Cammy could see her pull out the bracelet. She held it in her palm and carefully examined it.
 Cammy squinted to see her face, but the canoe had already drifted too far away.

Chapter 3: While the Boat Slept
 The following day was one that Cammy
 would never forget. The swaying of the hammock
 somehow woke her up early. She rolled over to
 see what time it was. The sky was almost totally
 black, but she could tell that it was dawn. There
 was a hint of fuchsia in the black and a faint
 streak of orange below.
 Everyone else was still asleep, rocking quietly
 back and forth. Cammy’s tan feet slipped into her
 sandals, and she walked up to the top deck.
 The air still smelled like fresh rain. Cammy
 took a slow, deep breath, inhaling through her
 nose. Everything was silent except for the chug
 and hum of the boat’s engine.
 The sky grew lighter purple, and Cammy
 could see where the sun was going to rise. As she

looked across the water toward the trees, she
 spotted a small person paddling a canoe toward the boat.
 Cammy ran downstairs and quietly filled up
 another plastic bag. Then she ran to the lower deck,
 but the canoe was still not close enough. 
 Then she climbed to the upper deck. Maybe if she threw it
 hard enough, the canoe person could reach the bag before it sank.
 Cammy stood up on the middle rail and pressed her knees into the top rail for support. 
 She cocked her arm back, and then swung it forward with all of her might. 
 The plastic bag flew out into the river. But Cammy’s body leaned too far forward, 
 and her knees pivoted over the rail. She fell down, down, down, into the Amazon River.
 Cammy’s body sank deep underwater. When she finally surfaced, the boat was already fifty meters away. “Heeeeelp!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Somebody help me!”
 Cammy frantically swam in the direction of the boat. 
 But it continued to chug upstream while the current carried her farther downstream. 
 Nobody was standing on the decks. Nobody had seen her fall. The sun was not even up yet. 
 The passengers were still asleep in their hammocks.

Chapter 4: The Little River
 Cammy felt two hands grab onto her shoulders. 
 Before she knew it, they had pulled her up and into a canoe.
 Suddenly she was resting on a huge fish,
 almost as big as herself. It was cold, slimy, and
 still breathing. “Ahhhhhh!” she screamed, and
 jumped away from the fish. 
 A little giggle came from the back of the canoe.
 Cammy turned around. The canoe’s paddler
 was a little boy no more than eight years old.
 He had dark brown skin and straight black hair.
 He wore a red shirt and blue shorts, 
 and his feet were bare. The boy stared at Cammy like 
 she was from another planet. 
 Then he looked at the fish and laughed again. 
 Cammy studied him distrustfully.

The little boy paddled the canoe toward the shore. 
 There were no houses in sight, but Cammy did spy a narrow tributary winding back through the jungle. 
 The boy expertly steered the canoe into that opening,
 and soon they were traveling deeper into the rainforest.
 Tree branches and leaves formed a thick green canopy overhead. Vines hung down to the water.
 The little river narrowed. The loudest sound was the light splashing of the boy’s paddle in the water. 
 Bird and animal chatter echoed throughout the forest like background music.
 After another hour of paddling, they arrived at a small house. 
 It was all made of wood: the roof, the walls, the porch, 
 and the steps leading down to the little river. 
 There was no glass in the windows and no door on the entrance. 
 They were simply open. When the little boy shouted up to the house, 
 three kids appeared in the doorway. 
 They stared at Cammy for a moment and then disappeared back inside. 
 She could hear them whispering and giggling. 
 Finally, a boy in cut-off shorts ran down the stairs and tied up their canoe. 
 He touched Cammy’s blond hair and stared at her as if she were an alien. 
 Then the two brothers picked up the big fish and quickly ran into the house.

Cammy suddenly felt very afraid. Besides the house, 
 she could not see any other signs of human existence. 
 And the jungle was so thick that she could hardly see the sky. 
 A big mosquito landed on her arm and started sucking her blood. 
 She slapped at it frantically. “Ahhhh!” Another one landed on her neck. 
 “Malaria!” she screamed, as her hands spun like an out-of-control windmill,
 slapping her body up and down.
 Giggles came from the direction of the house.
 Four curious faces peaked out of the window.
 But when Cammy looked up, they ducked down.
 Their giggles turned into loud laughter.
 That’s when Cammy started to cry. 
 She lay down on the ground in a ball and sobbed until her whole body trembled.
 Everything was different here, her parents were far away, and these weird
 kids didn’t even speak her language. She was lost in the middle of the Amazon rainforest! 
 Cammy closed her eyes and everything went blank.

Chapter 5: The First Night
 When Cammy felt a hand on her forehead, the
 sky was almost completely dark. Rain had started
 to fall. She could hear it dripping through the
 trees. Cammy’s tears had dried, and she was
 starting to feel cold and wet.
 The hand she felt was that of the oldest girl,
 maybe two years younger than Cammy. Her face
 was soft and round, with kind eyes that looked
 like those of an older woman. “Ixtola,” she said
 to Cammy. She put her hand on her chest and
 repeated, “Ixtola.”

Cammy looked up at her and smiled. “Cammy,”she said. “I’m Cammy.”
 Ixtola helped Cammy to her feet and up the wooden steps. 
 On the porch stood a short man with his arms crossed. His eyes studied Cammy distrustfully 
 as she ducked under the doorway.Inside it was dark except for a fire in the middle of the room. Shadows danced on the wooden walls.
 The two boys sat on the floor near the fire. 
 The littlest girl helped a woman peel vegetables over a table. 
 That woman had black hair with gray streaks in it. 
 Her eyes were a deep, dark coffee color.
 She smiled at Cammy and motioned for her to sit.
 Cammy sat on the floor next to her friend, the paddler.
 Ixtola’s mother handed them bowls containing something white that looked like soup. 
 It had vegetables, leaves, fish, and other stuff in it. There were no spoons. 
 Cammy closed her eyes and took a small sip. “Mmmm,” she sighed, opening her eyes. 
 The entire family laughed. They were relieved that she liked the food.
 After dinner, Cammy sipped her tea and watched everyone’s shadows dance on the walls.
 She also watched the smoke blow out of the window and into the Amazon sky. Wow, Cammy

thought to herself, 
 last night I fell asleep next to my parents on the boat. 
 Tonight I’m in the middle of the Amazon,
 getting fed by natives.
 Then Cammy slowly looked around the room.
 The family was softly talking and had stopped
 staring at her. She took the opportunity to study
 their faces, dirty fingernails, and bare feet. 
 These were the kind of exotic people 
 that she had only seen on television. 
 But tonight they did not seem very exotic. 
 This was just a family talking after
 dinner. Each person had a name, 
 just like in Cammy’s family.

Chapter 6: A World Away
 March 30
 This was my first full day here. My brain hurts from trying to communicate with them. 
 I feel really tired.Last night my body was really itchy. I think there are fleas in my bed. 
 And I kept thinking about my parents.
 March 31
 This morning Ixtola and I went to the garden and pulled up manioc roots. In the afternoon 
 we saw a group of little monkeys up close! And then we found some bananas 
 just growing on trees! Ixtola cut them down with her machete.
 April 1
 Today they gave me canoe lessons. Ixtola’s dad said 
 to give me one of their canoes to go to Santarém.
 From there I can get back on a big boat. We can’t really talk to each other,
 but we use our hands until we understand.
 Ixtola’s little brothers taught me how to count to ten.
 From her favorite tree, Cammy stared down the little river. 
 Tomorrow she would get in the canoe and paddle downstream. 
 She folded up the piece of paper that Ixtola had given her and looked back at the wooden house. 
 This place didn’t seem so strange anymore. Cammy would miss Ixtola’s family, 
 but she promised to return. Maybe she would show the rainforest to her own kids someday.

Chapter 7: Looking Up
 The big boat had reached Manaus, picked up
 new passengers, and turned around to chug back
 downstream. Johnnie and Jared were two of its
 new passengers. Their parents had brought them
 all the way from Australia to see the Amazon
 rainforest. They had already slept in hammocks
 for three nights. The big boat was getting close
 to Santarém.
 “What do you suppose their life is like?”
 Johnnie asked his older brother.
 “I don’t know,” Jared answered, “but they
 do get to canoe all day. Look, they just grabbed
 the bag of cookies you threw down!”

Johnnie and Jared watched from the top deck as a little boy with brown skin opened up the plastic bag. 
 “I wonder what kind of house they live in,”Johnnie wondered out loud.
 “It’s probably like that small wooden one,” 
 said a man who was leaning on the rail.
 Johnnie looked over at him and nodded.
 Next to the man was a woman. She clutched a plastic bag
 in her right hand. “Excuse me, but are you going to
 throw that too?” Johnnie asked.
 The woman looked at him and tried to smile.
 “Yes, but I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
 “What’s inside?” he asked.
 “A wish,” she said.
 “Hey look, there comes another canoe person now!” Jared exclaimed.
 From the upper deck they could see a person paddling hard toward the big boat. 
 It looked like a small girl. She slapped her paddle into the water and waved her arms.
 The woman stood on the middle rail and threw the bag as hard as she could.
 The girl paddled to the bag and put it in the canoe. She opened it up and peered inside.

Jared looked through his binoculars. “That’s strange,” he said. “It looks like she has blond hair.”
 The man excitedly tapped Jared on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he asked, 
 “but can I look through those for a second?”
 Jared handed him the binoculars.
 The man looked through them and started laughing out loud.
 “Is it her? Is it her?” the woman asked.
 The man laughed again. “It’s Cammy alright!”
 he exclaimed. “You threw that bag down to your
 very own daughter!”
 Something splashed so hard next to Cammy
 that it almost tipped her over. She regained the
 canoe’s balance and looked down into the river.
 A man’s face slowly emerged from the water.
 “Can you give me a lift, young lady?” he said.
 “Dad! What are you doing here?”
 “That’s what I wanted to ask you,” he said, out of breath. “But first help me into the canoe.”
 Cammy pulled her dad up into the canoe and gave him a big, wet hug.
 “I fell off the boat. I didn’t jump,” she wanted to make clear. “But I learned a lot of things.”

“Well, I jumped,” her dad said. “And I hope it was worth it.”
 Cammy looked up at the big boat as it chugged farther away. She could see her mom
 waving from the top deck. Cammy waved and
 blew kisses until she couldn’t see her mom anymore.
 Then she turned to her dad and said, “It’s only
 about ten hours to Santarém, you know.”
 “What do you have in the basket?” her dad
 asked. “Enough food for the both of us?”
 “Let’s see . . . I’ve got bananas, manioc bread,
 and lots of mangoes. There are um, dois, três,
 quatro, cinco, seis, sete, oito, nove, and dez.”
 Cammy’s dad smiled. 
 “So you could learn a foreign language from natives,
 but not from your own father, eh?”
 “No, Dad. Now I want to learn from you, too.
 Could you teach me to count up to twenty in Portuguese?”
 “That depends on how well you canoe, my dear,”
 Cammy’s dad said as he relaxed his handsbehind his head. “This trip was your idea.”

Adventure on the Amazon River

Introduction
 Every day, people around the world burn huge amounts of gasoline 
 as they drive their cars and trucks. As a matter of fact, in 2005, 
 more than 870 million gallons of gasoline were burned. 
 In the United States alone, people burned more than 380 million gallons, 
 or 44 percent, of the amountof gasoline burned in the world. Year after year,
 the amount of gasoline people consume just
 keeps increasing.
 But this gas-guzzling appetite can’t last
 forever. The world’s supply of gasoline is limited.
 Someday we will run out of the oil that is used to
 make gasoline. By some estimates, the world only
 has about 120 years of oil left. Some oil-supply
 experts estimate that after about 2050, oil production will
 begin dropping, and by 2125 oil will be scarce.

Running out of gasoline is not the only problem 
 our gas-guzzling appetites cause. The gasoline we burn to drive our cars 
 and trucks releases pollutants into the air. 
 Most scientists believe these pollutants trap excess heat near Earth’s surface. 
 This heat is the major cause of global warming, 
 which is slowly heating up Earth’s atmosphere, 
 changing weather patterns and melting Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers.
 This does not paint a very bright picture for people driving gasoline- powered cars. So inventors, with an eye toward solving the presentday problem 
 of global warming and the future
 problem of running out of oil, are looking for new
 ways to power cars and trucks. They are looking
 for alternative fuels and inventing cars that can
 run on these fuels. This book is about possible fuels
 of the future and vehicles that can use these fuels.

Solar-Powered Cars
 Most of the energy we use comes from the
 big star in our sky—the Sun. 
 Even coal and oil, because they formed
 from things that were once living, 
 got their energy from the Sun. 
 When we burn coal, oil, 
 and gasoline made from oil, 
 we are actually releasing energy 
 from the Sun—energy that has been stored in 
 these fuels for long periods of time. 
 It is also important to know that it took 
 millions of years for coal and oil to form. 
 For this reason, once these fuels are used up, 
 supplies cannot be replaced quickly.

Scientists have found a way to change radiant
 energy from the Sun directly into electricity. 
 That’s right—electricity can be made from sunlight. 
 This electricity can then be used
 to light cities and power cars.
 All of this is possible because of solar cells. 
 You have probably seen solar cells on calculators. 
 They are also used to supply electricity to spacecraft 
 and to devices found where no source of electricity exists. 
 Solar cells do not get used up as batteries do.
 Instead, they keep on supplying electricity as long
 as there is light energy for the cells to absorb.

Do You Know?
 The sunlight falling
 on just one square meter
 (10.8 sq ft) of land
 can produce enough
 electricity each day
 to light ten 100-watt
 lightbulbs.

A group of solar cells placed together is 
 a solar panel. Solar panels are placed 
 on the roofs of buildings. 
 They can also be attached to satellites
 and space stations. A solar-powered car is
 covered with solar panels. All these panels
 produce enough electricity to
 run a special motor in a solar car, 
 light homes, and supply a space station 
 with all its energy. 
 And all of this energy comes without 
 releasing pollutants into the air.

Do You Know?
 The most common solar
 cells are made from one of
 Earth’s natural elements.
 The element, silicon, is the
 same element that makes
 up sand.

So why aren’t we powering all of our cars with
 solar cells, you may ask? The first reason is the
 cost of manufacturing solar cells. Scientists have
 not found a way to inexpensively manufacture
 solar cells that can produce adequate amounts of
 electricity. So while sunlight as a fuel is free, the
 cost of manufacturing the solar cells to convert
 this free energy to electricity offsets the savings.

Math Minute
 The fuel used to power Car A is made up of
 90% nonrenewable gasoline and 10% renewable
 ethanol. The car’s gas tank holds 20 gallons of fuel.
 The fuel used to power Car B is 100% nonrenewable
 gasoline. It also has a 20-gallon tank. How much
 nonrenewable gasoline is saved with each tank of
 fuel in Car A when compared to Car B?

Energy output is another issue. While newer solar cells produce
 far more energy than the first models did, they still cannot equal 
 the energy produced by burning gasoline in an engine. The
 top speed of a typical solar-powered car is about
 60 mph (96.6 kph). Even then, it takes hundreds
 of solar cells to generate enough electrical 
 power to reach this speed.Then, of course, 
 there is the issue of night driving 
 and low-sunlight days. For cars to operate 
 around the clock, there has to be a way
 of storing the energy produced during daylight
 hours for use when there is no sunlight. 
 Or there has to be a backup power supply.

In time, all these problems may be solved, 
 and with oil supplies diminishing, 
 you can safely bet that an army of 
 scientists is working on 
 solving these problems. 
 In fact, every year,
 teams of students from colleges 
 in the United States and Canada compete 
 in a North American race 
 of solar-powered cars.
 It is events like these that
 continue to push advances 
 in solar-cell technology.

Hydrogen-Powered Cars
 Elements are simple substances from which all 
 things on Earth are made. There are just 92 natural 
 elements, and they combine to make thousands
 of other substances such as water, plastic, 
 and sugar. Hydrogen is both the lightest and the most
 abundant of these 92 elements. As a pure element,
 it exists as a gaseous state of matter. 
 You cannot see it, and it has no odor.
 Hydrogen is one of two elements that make up water, 
 and we all know how abundant water is, 
 since it covers almost 75 percent 
 of Earth’s surface. It is also found in
 all living things, including plants and animals, 
 as well as the remains of all living things.

Hydrogen reacts, or combines well, with other elements to 
 make new substances. When it combines with other elements, 
 it releases energy.It is the energy that hydrogen reactions 
 release that has scientists so excited. Scientists imagine 
 someday filling car gas tanks with hydrogen gas instead of 
 liquid gasoline. But hydrogen is not found in a pure 
 form on Earth. So where will we get this hydrogen? Well, 
 one of the most obvious places is from water.
 Water is made up of two elements, oxygen and hydrogen. 
 All elements are made of tiny particles
 called atoms. Atoms of hydrogen and oxygen
 are held together by a chemical bond that makes
 a new substance—water. Breaking these bonds
 produces pure hydrogen and oxygen. The
 hydrogen can then be used as a fuel.

There are several ways to break the bond between hydrogen and oxygen 
 atoms in water. One way is to use a charge of electrical energy to 
 break the bond. Another way is to use extreme heat.
 Other substances like methane, a natural gas,
 are made of hydrogen along with oxygen and
 another element called carbon. Heat from steam
 can break the bond between hydrogen atoms
 and the atoms of carbon and oxygen. This also
 produces pure hydrogen.
 Once you have pure hydrogen, you can use it to power cars and trucks. Pure hydrogen is used in one of two ways. 
 One way is to burn it in an engine in much the same way that cars burn gas. The other way is to use it to make electricity that can then power vehicles. Electric cars that use hydrogen have fuel cells that make electricity. 
 These fuel cells are somewhat like batteries.

Do You Know?
Some tiny invisible
 organisms, called
 bacteria, can produce
 pure hydrogen. Chemicals
 inside the organisms
 absorb energy from the
 Sun, which the organisms
 then use to split the bond
 between hydrogen and
 oxygen in water.

In a fuel cell, hydrogen is combined with oxygen to 
 form water. When the two elements join together, 
 they release energy in the form of electricity. 
 This energy can then be used to power all 
 kinds of vehicles.No matter how hydrogen is used, 
 it is combined with oxygen to release its energy 
 and pure water is the only waste product. 
 Since water is not a pollutant, 
 it does not harm the environment. This fact, 
 along with the abundance of water on Earth,
 makes hydrogen a great alternative fuel, 
 although a lot more research is needed to 
 make it work well.

Battery-Powered Cars
 Scientists are currently working on cars that are powered entirely 
 by rechargeable chemical batteries. If you look under the hood of one
 of these cars, you willfind an electric motor.
 Under the hood of a gasoline-powered car,
 you will find the hoses that carry water to
 cool an engine and exhaust pipes that carry away
 waste products. By contrast, there is a mass of
 wires under the hood of an electric car. In an
 electric car, there is no need to cool the engine and
 there are no exhaust gases produced that pollute
 the air.Instead of driving your car up to a gas
 pump to fill the tank with gasoline, you simply plug your battery- powered car into an outlet to recharge the car’s batteries. And
 instead of a fuel bill, you pay an electric bill.

Hybrid cars have an electric motor 
 and a small gasoline engine. 
 They both provide kinds of power 
 to run a car. The electric motor
 runs on batteries, but the motor has the ability 
 to draw electricity from the batteries 
 as well as to put electricity back into 
 the batteries. This means the batteries do
 not have to be plugged into an electrical 
 source for recharging. The electric motor, 
 when not powering the car, is putting energy back into the batteries.

Math Minute
 Gasoline costs $2.75 a gallon. 
 Connor drives an SUV that gets 
 12 miles per gallon. 
 Each week he drives 120 miles. 
 Sara drives a hybrid car that gets
 40 miles per gallon of gasoline. 
 She also drives 120 miles each week. 
 How much more does Connor spend
 for gas each week than Sara does?

Do You Know?
 Alternative-fuel vehicles are nothing new. Starting in the 1830s, 
 the first battery-powered vehicles were being produced alongside 
 steam-powered vehicles and gas-electric hybrids. 
 According to a poll from 1900,
 electric cars were actually preferred by drivers
 because they ran more cleanly and more safely than 
 their gasoline-powered counterparts. However, 
 technological innovations with gasoline-powered cars, 
 which could be made more cheaply than their electric 
 or hybrid counterparts, made these cars the cars of 
 choice for drivers by the 1920s. 
 Many companies stopped producing alternative-fuel 
 vehicles until a gas shortage in the 1970s
 brought renewed interest in them.

Ethanol-Powered Cars
 Ethanol is an alternative fuel that is gaining popularity 
 in many places around the world. What makes ethanol so popular is 
 that it is a renewable resource. Fuels like coal and oil cannot be renewed.
 Once they are used up, they are gone forever.
 Ethanol can be made from plant and animal
 material. Most ethanol is made from grain 
 crops like corn, barley, and sorghum. 
 Ethanol is also made from potatoes 
 and sugar cane.But it can also be made from
 ground-up wood and other plant 
 and animal materials. 
 So, if we want to produce more ethanol, we just have to plant more crops like corn and sugar cane. In a matter of months, the crop has grown, can be harvested, and then used to make ethanol.

To make ethanol from biomass means 
 changing the plant matter into sugar. 
 The sugar is then changed to alcohol 
 in a process called fermentation.
 The diagram below shows the steps 
 of one way of making ethanol from corn.

Ethanol Production from Corn
 1. The corn grain is ground into a fine powder.
 2. The powder is mixed with water to make a wet mash.
 3. A chemical is added to the mash
 to change it to sugar.
 4. Yeast (tiny living organisms) are
 added to the sugar to cause fermentation.
 5. Fermentation changes the sugar
 into ethanol and carbon dioxide gas.
 6. The ethanol is removed from the mash.
 7. Any remaining water is removed from the ethanol.
 8. A small amount of gasoline
 is added to the ethanol and it is ready to burn.
 9. The left-over mash grain is used
 as feed for livestock.

Pure ethanol can be burned in vehicles 
 with special engines designed 
 to burn it, or it can be mixed with 
 gasoline and then burned in 
 a regular engine. 
 When ethanol is mixed with gasoline, 
 it reduces the consumption
 of fossil fuels and reduces pollution.

Word Wise
 The combination of ethanol
 and gasoline is called gasohol.

Think About It
 If you were 10 years old in 2006, by
 the time you are 60 and it is 2056, you
 will begin experiencing fuel shortages. If
 you have children, by the time they are
 60 years old, oil for making gasoline will
 be in short supply.

What’s in the Future?
 One thing you will have concluded by now is that the supply of oil 
to make 
 gasoline won’t last forever. We can look at ways to make the current oil supply 
 last longer by conserving gasoline. This can be done by driving cars with greater
 fuel efficiency, car-pooling, or simply driving less. Whatever we do to conserve, we still have to plan for the day when there will be no oil for
making gasoline. Scientists are hard at work seeking alternative means for powering our cars and trucks. 
 Will the popular choice be ethanol,
 hydrogen, solar energy, or chemical batteries? 
 The alternative that wins out likely will 
 depend on economic factors. Two important economic factors will be the cost to produce the alternative power supply and the eventual 
 cost of the alternative fuel to the driver. 
What do you think you will be using to power your car when you are 70 years old?

Alternative Fuel Cars

Do You Know?
 Mesa Verde National Park is 
 located in the Four Corners 
 area, the only place in the 
 United States where the corners of 
 four states meet. The marker 
 indicating the point is a
 tourist attraction.

Evidence
The early people who lived in the Four Corners area are 
 called prehistoric because they left no written records. 
 We know about them because we’ve found many remains of 
 their culture buried in the ground.
 Mesa Verde is located in a high, flat desert surrounded 
 by mountains. The arid, or dry,
 conditions at Mesa Verde are ideal for 
 preserving skeletons, mummies, dwellings, 
 tools, and trash piles. These remains have 
 helped archaeologists to study the lives of 
 the early people who lived in
 the area. Other remains include pictographs, or
 paintings on stone, and petroglyphs, or pictures carved in stone.

Paleo-Indians
 To understand the story of the cliff dwellers, we need to go back in time. Scientists believe that at least 14,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, ancient people crossed a land bridge from northern Russia 
 to Alaska in North America. Hundreds of years later, some
 of their descendants traveled far enough south to reach the
 Four Corners area.The first Four Corners people were
 called Paleo-Indians, and they survived
 by hunting and gathering. Men used large spears 
 to hunt huge herd animals, including elephant-like 
 animals called mammoths and mastodons, and giant 
 bison. Women gathered nuts, berries, and other 
 wild plants. The Paleo-Indians did not have permanent 
 homes. Instead, they moved from place to place following 
 the animals they hunted. They camped in caves or built simple shelters.

Archaic People
 When the Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, temperatures became warmer, causing the extinction of many large animals and turning 
 large grasslands into deserts. The Four Corners people had to adapt
 to these changes and find new ways to survive.
 Archaeologists call these people the Archaic people.
 Like their Paleo-Indian ancestors, the Archaic
 people were hunters and gatherers. But the animals
 they hunted were smaller and provided less meat
 than the ones their ancestors hunted. The Archaic
 people began to rely more on plants for food.
 The Archaic people made different tools from
 those of the Paleo-Indians—smaller spear points for
 hunting deer and bighorn sheep, and nets and traps
 for catching rabbits and birds. Women used special tools 
 for chopping and grinding roots, seeds, nuts, and wild plants.

Early Tools
 The first grinding stones
 and bowls were made
 during the Archaic people’s
 time. Similar tools are still
 used by their descendants
 in the Southwest.

Ancient Puebloans
 By about 2,000 years ago, life in the Four
 Corners had changed in important ways. 
 People had learned to grow their own food 
 instead of relying on wild animals 
 and wild plants. Agriculture changed 
 their way of life. These people were 
 called the Ancient Puebloans. 
 The earliest Ancient Puebloans still 
 relied mostly on hunting and gathering. However, 
 growing their own food, such as corn and squash, on the open flat
 land allowed them to feed a larger group of people.
 It also gave them a source of food they could depend on.

Making Baskets
 As the Ancient Puebloans grew more food, they found ways 
 to store it. Women began to use plant fibers and tree 
 bark to make baskets. Some baskets held food, 
 while others were woven so tightly that they 
 could hold water. Because baskets could not be 
 placed over a fire, women cooked by placing hot 
 rocks into baskets filled with water. 
 The women also began making sandals from plant 
 fibers. As the Ancient Puebloans grew more crops 
 and made more tools and baskets, they moved around
 less. Even as agriculture became more important to
 the Ancient Puebloan way of life, men continued to
 hunt using spears and nets. During this time, they
 lived in caves along cliffs and canyon walls.

Over time, the Ancient Puebloans relied more on agriculture to feed
 their growing population. By about 1,500 years ago, they grew 
 beans in addition to corn and squash. Having a reliable food
 source from farming allowed them to stay in one place. 
 They built temporary houses, called pit houses, near their fields. 
 These houses were built on top
 of shallow pits dug in the ground. 
 The sides and ceilings were constructed 
 of tree branches, bark, and soil. 
 Archaeologists believe the Ancient
 Puebloans were a peaceful people because no
 weapons of war have been found. Also, the location
 of their houses suggests that they did not feel threatened 
 by enemies since houses built in the open are hard to defend.

Another important change during this time
 was the production of pottery. Tribes from
 Mexico taught the Ancient Puebloans pottery making.
 Although women continued to make baskets, using clay pots
 allowed them to cook over an open fire. 
 Clay pots also stored food better.
 Men started using bows and arrows during
 this time, which was easier and more successful
 than spear hunting. These changes allowed the
 population to continue growing as food 
 became more plentiful. The Ancient Puebloans 
 also used animal hair twisted with cotton 
 string to make warm socks and leg coverings. 
 Sometimes they also wove
 feathers and string made from yucca plants to make clothing.

Building Larger Houses
 Around 1,300 years ago, the population had
 grown so much that the Ancient Puebloans were
 living in larger groups. They built rectangular
 houses completely above ground. They used tree
 limbs and bark for a frame, then covered the wood
 with adobe (soil containing clay). Over time, they
 started building houses with sandstone blocks
 stacked and held together with adobe. The houses
 were built side by side, creating large buildings
 called pueblos. Pueblo is a Spanish word that
 means “town” or “village.” The Ancient Puebloans
 also built underground circular structures called
 kivas, which were used for holding ceremonies.

Do You Know?
 Chaco Canyon, in northwestern 
 New Mexico, was an important
 cultural center made up
 of 12 large pueblos. The
 largest, Pueblo Bonito,
 housed about 1,000 people. 
 Archaeologists believe that 
 Chaco Canyon was a trade
 center for surrounding communities.

The Ancient Puebloan culture thrived for several hundred years. 
 The people developed new ways to help their crops grow. 
 They built dams, reservoirs, and terraces 
 to manage water for their fields. 
 Successful crops allowed them to feed 
 their growing population. 
 The types of pottery they made changed.
 Women made everyday pottery that was 
 used for cooking and storing food. 
 Everyday pottery was gray with a rough 
 outer texture that helped heat the food inside. 
 They also made pottery that was
 rubbed and polished to create a smooth surface for
 decoration or trade. They decorated this pottery
 with complex, colorful designs using paint made from wild plants.

Moving to the Cliffs
 Around 900 years ago, the Ancient Puebloans moved from open land 
 to protected ledges on cliffs and canyon walls. The cliff dwellings 
 found at Mesa Verde and other places in the Four Corners area are
 typical of this time period. 
 These houses were up to five stories tall, 
 providing housing for hundreds
 of people. The cliff dwellers used 
 ladders and ropes to get to their homes. 
 They also cut finger and toe holds into
 the rocks for climbing up the walls.
 About 600 cliff dwellings are located in Mesa
 Verde National Park. Cliff Palace, the largest, had
 217 rooms and 23 kivas. The smallest rooms may
 have been storage rooms rather than living quarters.

Archaeologists were puzzled by the Ancient Puebloans’ move from 
 open areas to cliff dwellings. They believe that as the Ancient Puebloan population grew, more farmland was needed.
 Moving to cliff dwellings freed more flat land for
 growing crops. The Ancient Puebloans also may
 have needed to create new fields to replace old
 fields that were overused and had lost the ability
 to grow food well.
 Another possible reason for the move might
 have been for warmth during winter. The weather
 was getting colder during this time. Most cliff
 dwellings face south or southwest, where the sun’s
 rays could warm the rock walls of their homes.

A Safety Issue?
 Some archaeologists believe the 
 Ancient Puebloans were being attacked
 by other tribes and needed 
 homes they could easily defend. 
 Many cliff dwellings could only be reached with ladders. 
 The people in them could pull
 their ladders inside, leaving
 their enemies no way to enter.
 Although this idea makes sense, 
 there is little evidence
 that this was the reason for the move.

Building Dwellings
 Building the cliff dwellings was a huge challenge for the Ancient Puebloans, who lacked machines and used only stone tools. 
 They were skilled at designing structures that made the best
 use of the space. The builders made walls 
 from large stones chipped into shape and 
 held together with adobe. They covered 
 the walls with adobe, sometimes painting 
 designs on the insides of the walls.
 Builders made upper floors by laying large
 wooden poles across the tops of walls and 
 placing smaller poles across the beams. 
 Next a layer of sticks or bark was piled on.
 Then they added a thick layer of adobe to hold it together.

Daily Life
 The Ancient Puebloans probably spent most of their time outside 
 working together in groups. Women cooked, ground corn, 
 carried water, and made pottery and baskets. Men wove cloth, 
 farmed crops, hunted, and made tools out of stone, wood,
 and plant fibers. Children worked alongside their
 parents, learning adult roles by watching and
 practicing. They also took care of turkeys 
 and spent time at play. During the winter, 
 some work was done inside the dwellings. 
 Archaeologists believe that rooms were 
 used year-round for sleeping. Trade with 
 other tribes was an important aspect
 of Ancient Puebloan life. The map below shows
 some of the items they traded and where the items came from.

Spiritual Life
 Because modern kivas are still used by the descendants of the 
 Ancient Puebloans, we know they were used for religious ceremonies. 
 They were probably also used for family gatherings, as guest rooms, 
 and as workspaces in winter.People entered kivas with ladders. 
 Each kiva had a fire pit in the center 
 and a shaft providing fresh air.
 Half of the Mesa Verde kivas also 
 had a small hole in the floor called 
 a sipapu. The hole represented
 a doorway between the spirit world 
 and the real world. Archaeologists think 
 that the Ancient Puebloans, like their 
 modern descendants, believed that all living things have both a 
 spirit self and a physical self. They also believed in life after death.

Leaving the Cliffs
 Between 1280 and 1295, the Ancient Puebloans left the cliff dwellings and moved south to New Mexico and Arizona. No one knows for sure why they moved, but archaeologists believe that the climate kept changing and that this played animportant role. It got colder, causing a shorter growing season for crops. Watering crops became harder because there 
 were long periods of time with little or no rain. In addition, the soil may have been so overused that growing enough food for the large population became impossible.Perhaps by the time the Ancient Puebloans left Mesa Verde, they had cut down most of the trees for firewood and for building pueblos. Hunters may have killed so many wild animals that the meat supply was gone. Some people think that enemy tribes drove out the cliff dwellers. However, that is unlikely,because there are no remains of other cultures at Mesa Verde after the Ancient Puebloans left. Archaeologists find older remains deeper in the ground and newer remains closer to the surface.If enemies drove out the cliff dwellers, evidence of their culture would be found on top of the Ancient Puebloan remains.

Modern-Day Descendants
 When the ancient cliff dwellers left Mesa Verde,some moved south, settling along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. These are the ancestors of the modern Pueblo tribes. 
 Others moved to Arizona, eventually forming 
 the Zuni and Hopi tribes. Modern tribes 
 have continued many of the traditions of 
 the ancient cliff dwellers.
 The Pueblo, Zuni, and Hopi peoples 
 continue to farm, conduct ceremonies, 
 and perform rituals. They still honor their 
 connection with the land and the spirit world. 
 They are among the finest artists in the world, 
 creating exquisite pottery, jewelry, baskets, carvings, and weavings.

Protecting the Cliff Dwellings
 In the late 1800s, many people visited the cliff dwellings—some photographed, drew, and described the sites, but others took 
 artifacts from the dwellings to sell. Over time, people became
 concerned about protecting the cliff dwellings
 from damage and looting. The concern led to
 the creation of Mesa Verde National Park in
 1906. The National Park Service protects the 
 cliff dwellings, as well as allowing visitors
 to enjoy them. Educational exhibits at 
 Mesa Verde and other sites in the Southwest
 teach people about the Ancient Puebloan way of life.

Preserving the Past
 We must protect historic artifacts
 of ancient people. Follow these rules
 to preserve ruins and artifacts.
 1.Look, but don’t touch. It is against
 the law to keep artifacts.
 2.Do not touch or draw on walls,
 petroglyphs, or pictographs.
 3.Do not climb on walls. Many walls
 are fragile and easily damaged.

The Four Corners
 Mesa Verde National Park, founded in 1906,is the first national park 
 in the United States established to honor human accomplishments.
 Located where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet, the park contains many cliff dwellings that 
 are among the most striking examples of early 
 human architecture in North America. 
 The builders used great skill,
 creating these unusual dwellings without the 
 aid of modern tools or machines.
 Who lived in these structures, and how did 
 they live? Why did they make their homes 
 in the cliffs? Why did they leave, and where did they go? These are some of the questions we will explore.

Ancient Cliff Dwellers

Special Delivery!
 Imagine, if you will, a giant post office. Mail
 trucks enter at one end, gather new mail to be
 delivered, and then continue on their journey.
 The mail trucks drive along their designated
 routes, dropping off and picking up mail as
 they go. The trucks then return to the post office,
 and the whole process begins again.
 On a much smaller scale and in a much
 different way, this analogy describes your
 circulatory system! Your heart is like the main
 pumping station, or the main post office, and
 your blood vessels are the roads over which
 the mail trucks travel. And what are the mail
 trucks themselves? Your red blood cells!

Let’s continue with this mail-delivery analogy.
 You’ve probably heard the saying that 
the mail gets delivered, come rain or come shine. 
 Well, the circulatory system never rests, either. 
 Your heart is always pumping, even when you 
 may feel too exhausted to move. Your blood 
 is always rushing through blood vessels, 
 circulating the blood through your body.
 Circulation is the movement of something in 
 a circle or circuit, and essentially, 
 that’s how your circulatory system works. 
 Your blood travels in a circuit around 
 your body, starting and ending at your heart.

The Pumping Station
 Place your hand over your heart, and what
 can you feel? You can feel your heart in action!
 Your heart is like command central or the main
 pumping station for your circulatory system. The
 heart is a muscle, and it is about the same size
 as your fist, but the heart is unlike any other 
 muscle in your body. To move the muscles in
 your arms and legs, you send a message to your
 brain. Your brain then sends a message, which
 activates the muscles. But your heart
 muscle doesn’t need you to tell it what
 to do. Your heart muscle pumps on its own
 all the time—without you thinking about it!

Blood Bonus
 Your heart muscle contracts 
 about 100,000 times
 every 24 hours! That’s 
 700,000 contractions a
 week and 36.4 million 
 contractions a year. Imagine
 working around the clock 
 without taking a break!

The heart’s main function 
 is to pump the blood that flows 
 through your body, keeping the 
 blood constantly on the move. 
 The diagram below shows how the 
 blood pumps through the heart.

Vessel Voyage
 Blood that leaves the heart has been
 enriched with oxygen from the lungs, which
 then circulates to the very ends of your body, 
 supplying your body with oxygen.The blood then 
 makes its way back to the heart, its supply of 
 oxygen having been depleted. The heart pumps 
 the oxygen-poor blood to the lungs where it gets reenergized with fresh oxygen, and then the 
 journey through the body begins again. Blood 
 does not flow just anywhere it wants, nor does 
 it float around in a random pattern. Instead, 
 the blood in your body is confined to tubes called 
 blood vessels that act as roads to help blood cells 
 make their journey to all parts of your body.

Blood Bonus
 The largest blood
 vessel in your body
 is the aorta! It is the
 largest artery. The
 largest vein is the
 vena cava.

Your body has several types of blood vessels.
 One type of blood vessel is an artery, which
 carries blood away from the heart. The walls
 of an artery are thick and strong to handle the
 pressure of the heart’s pumping action. The
 arteries carry blood loaded with oxygen and
 nutrients to other parts of your body.
 A second type of blood vessel is a vein, which
 carries blood back to your heart. Veins are not
 as thick as arteries, because they are less at risk
 of bursting than arteries. Veins also have valves
 to prevent blood from flowing backward. The
 blood carried by veins does not have very much
 oxygen. This blood is on its way back to the heart
 and lungs to once again become oxygenated.

A third type of blood vessel is 
 a capillary, which is very small 
 and has walls that are very thin. 
 Capillaries transfer the oxygen and
 nutrients in the blood that flows 
 through the arteries to each living 
 cell in the body. At the same time, 
 the capillaries pass back nutrient-poor
 blood to the veins.

Blood Bonus
 If you connected the arteries,
 veins, and capillaries in your 
 body, end to end, they would 
 stretch across the United States—
 20 times! That’s 60,000 miles 
 or about 96,560 km!

What Is Your Pulse?
 Your pulse is actually the movement 
 of blood vessels beneath your skin. 
 When the heart pumps, it sends large 
 flows of blood through the arteries. 
 The walls of the arteries expand to 
 accommodate this surge of blood.
 You feel the expanding artery
 wall as your pulse. When you are
 resting, you should be able to count
 about 60 to 80 pulse beats a minute.

Try This!
 Count how many times your pulsebeats 
 in 10 seconds and multiply that number 
 by 6. The answer you get is called 
 your heart rate. Now try it again,
 but first hop on one foot for one 
 minute before you count the number 
 of beats. What happened to your heart 
 rate? Exercise gives your heart a
 workout as well as the other muscles 
 of your body. Raising your pulse 
 keeps your heart healthy!

All About Blood
 So what, exactly, is blood? If you’ve ever scraped 
 your knee, you’ve probably seen the red stuff that 
 oozes from below the skin. To the naked eye, blood 
 might look like nothing more than a thick, red liquid. 
 Upon closer inspection, however, blood is 
 a complicated substance, loaded with cells 
 that are tiny and cannot be seen until you 
 look at them using a microscope. There are
 two main types of blood cells—red and white. 
 A soft tissue inside certain bones, called 
 marrow, creates new red blood cells. A small 
 organ near your stomach,called the spleen, 
 is responsible for destroying old blood cells 
 and for creating new white blood cells.

The most common blood
 cell is the red blood cell, which gives blood its red color. Your 
 body has more than 25 trillion red blood cells, and each lives for 
 about four months. Your blood also has white blood cells. The white 
 and red blood cells flow through the body in a yellow liquid called 
 plasma. Your red blood cells look a little
 bit like donuts, with the holes not fully 
 punched out. Red blood cells are the 
 part of the blood that carries oxygen 
 throughout your body and also carries the 
 nutrients that your body gets from the 
 foods you eat. As red blood cells pass 
 through the lining of your intestines, 
 they absorb the nutrients from digested food. Red blood cells also 
 remove wastes from cells throughout your body.

White blood cells also have an important
 job—they keep your body healthy by fighting
 off diseases. Essentially, white blood cells
 maintain your body’s health by gobbling up
 harmful germs such as bacteria and viruses!
 The most common white blood cell is called
 neutrophil (NEW-tro-fill). These white blood
 cells are the lookouts, the guardians, of your
 body. They are always searching for harmful
 germs that will make you sick. When they find
 these germs, they wrap themselves around the
 germs—then they eat them!

Another type of white blood cell is called
 the lymphocyte (LIM-fo-site), which produces
 antibodies to help your body combat viruses 
 and bacteria. An antibody is a chemical that
 helps destroy harmful bacteria and viruses. 
 So, instead of eating the germs, the 
 lymphocyte tries to wipe them out using 
 chemical warfare. A third type of white blood 
 cell is called a monocyte (MON-o-site), which 
 works like the neutrophil, by killing unknown 
 particles in your blood by eating them.

Along with red blood cells, white blood cells, and plasma, blood has one more very important component—platelets. 
 Platelets are smaller than red and white 
 blood cells, but their job is crucial
 to the circulatory system. Platelets 
 help blood to clot. If you’ve ever cut 
 yourself, you might have noticed that 
 your blood eventually stops flowing.
 The platelets clot, or cause the blood 
 cells and plasma to clump together, 
 blocking the flow of the blood. Fibers 
 also form over the skin, further blocking 
 blood flow. Eventually, these fibers form a scab over 
 the cut, allowing the skin underneath to heal.

Many parts of your body are affected 
 by the flow of blood through the 
 circulatory system. Your intestines 
 provide the blood with nutrients 
 that you get from the foods you eat. 
 Your kidneys remove waste products 
 from your blood, and your liver 
 controls the amount of sugar in your 
 blood. The liver also keeps blood 
 clean by removing and filtering
 poisons and drugs.

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