A Voice from the Past

Every year, volunteers in Brisbane, Australia, meet to clean up the beach. This year, John and his father joined the group. They worked hard all morning to pick up garbage. Near lunchtime, John noticed a glass bottle on the beach. The bottle was old and dirty. It looked like ( 26 ). John picked up the bottle and gave it to his father. His father opened it and took out a piece of paper. He told John that it was a message.

John’s father showed the message to John. It said, “My name is Paul, and I am 10 years old. I am from Canada. I am traveling to Australia on a ship called the Fair Star. Please ( 27 ).” On their way home, John and his father bought a postcard to send to Paul. A few weeks later, they got a reply. Paul said he was now 50, and it was amazing that John had found his message after such a long time.

Hungry Hikers

People are having a bigger and bigger effect on wild animals. As a result, new laws and special parks are being created to protect nature. Some changes have been very successful. For example, there were about 170 wild elephants in 1980 in Yunnan, China. These days, experts think that there are around 300 elephants there. However, the elephants have ( 28 ). As cities get bigger and more farms are needed to feed people, there are not as many places for animals like elephants.

Big animals can cause big problems for people. Because there is not enough food in protected areas, elephants often leave these areas to take food from farms. In fact, a group of about 14 elephants from Yunnan went on a 500­kilometer walk to look for food during 2020 and 2021. The elephants sometimes went through towns trying to find food. They appeared on the TV news and the Internet. As a result, they ( 29 ) China. People were interested to find out what would happen to them next.

Finally, the elephants returned to a protected area in Yunnan. However, to try to prevent similar adventures in the future, experts have designed a special “food court” for elephants. The food court cost $15 million to build and is about 670,000 square meters. It has five ponds where elephants can drink, and all the plants that elephants need to eat to stay healthy. The experts hope that it will be enough to ( 30 ).

E-mail

From: Alan Reznick <alanreznick@bmail.com>

To: Jeff Teanaway <jeff.t@wmail.com>

Date: October 9

Subject: Movie festival

___________________________________________

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for letting me borrow your DVD of Burning Fist. It’s such an exciting movie. I really liked the part when the hero is riding a cool bike and being chased by bad guys. After watching it last Saturday, my mom took me to a bookstore. I found a book about Burning Fist and bought it. It’s really interesting. I’ll lend it to you when I finish reading it.
While I was at the bookstore, I saw a poster for an action movie festival. It will be held next month at the Old Lawrence Theater, near the Elm Street subway station. It’s close to the Mexican restaurant that we went to on your birthday last year. The poster said that the director of Burning Fist will be at the festival. She’ll answer fans’ questions about her movies and talk about her next movie.
Eight movies are going to be shown over two days at the festival. They’ve all been chosen by the director of Burning Fist. Some of them are old action movies from the 1980s and 1990s. There will also be some new movies, too. I think it sounds great, so I’m definitely going to buy a ticket for the festival. Should I get one for you, too? Talk soon,
Alan