Kula Lives in Hawaii

Kula lives in the state of Hawaii on the island of Oahu in the city of Honolulu. Honolulu is the capital of Hawaii. One Tuesday morning Kula says good-by to his dog and walks to school. Pupils and teachers are decorating the schoolyard with flowers. Then Kula remembers. Today is Lei Day, the first day of May. A bugle sounds. The flags of the United States and the state of Hawaii are raised. Then everyone goes to pledge allegiance to the flag. Boys and girls bring chairs outside. Kula looks at the leis his classmates are wearing. They celebrate Lei Day with songs and dances. Then all the pupils return to their classrooms. It is a busy day. After school Kula is thirsty. He stops to buy a cone of shaved ice. Then he feels hungry. At a friend's house he picks a sweet mango. Something is happening in the park. There are flowers and busy people everywhere. Kula watches a lady make a white ginger lei. Kula hurries home. "Mother, make a lei for me, please," he asks. "Of course, Kula," she replies. "Come and watch how I do it." Together they pick plumeria blossoms. Mother makes a chain of flowers with a needle and thread. Then she ties the ends together. After school on Wednesday Kula's mother takes him into downtown Honolulu. They visit the state capitol building. At a shopping center Kula watches carp in a pool. "I want to have a big carp of my own," he thinks. Thursday is a rainy day. After school Kula works on a model car. Later his father takes him to the fish market. Kula sees many fish from the ocean around Hawaii. After school on Friday Kula does all his homework. So he has the whole weekend to play. On Saturday he meets his friends at the school playground. They play football. Later at the lagoon they catch crabs in a net. Then Kula's parents take them to the beach. The beach is their favorite place. The children swim in the water and play with a surfboard. This evening Kula and his parents take a picnic supper to the beach. They eat American fried chicken, Italian salad, Japanese fish cakes, and Portuguese sweet bread. And they drink chilled juice.

THE VAIN GOSLING

The white gosling was very proud of his feathers. All the other geese were either grey or speckled. He alone was pure white. "I am of a different stock," he would boast to his friends. "My people come from another county." All the geese soon grew tired of his bragging. "What's so amazing? You're not the only white goose in the world, are you?" they said. The white gosling noticed after all that all the geese admired the cock. "How black he is!" they would say. "Only a cock can have such black feathers." The white gosling heard all these admiring remarks and was envious. One day he found a heap of soot dumped by the fence. It had come from a chimney which had just been swept. "I'll dye my feathers with it," he thought. He left the flock of geese and went to the pond alone. He had a good swim to wet his feathers, then ran to the heap of soot by the fence and rolled and wallowed in it. The soot stuck to his feathers and the gosling became as black as tar. "Now those sillies won't be able to deny that I'm the only goose with black feathers. At any rate they can't say they have ever seen a goose blacker than me." He strutted about, flaunting his new black plumage, and ran to the field to join the other geese. When they saw him they started to raise a din: "Look over there! There's a black goose coming. It must be the devil himself disguised as a goose. Let's run!" And away they ran. At first the white gosling was amused to see the geese were so scared at the sight of him. He gave chase to them and scared them to his heart's content. But finally he grew tired of chasing the other geese and he called to them: "Don't be afraid, you sillies! It's me, the white gosling." "Don't try to fool us!" said the geese and ran away as fast as their legs could carry them. "Didn't I tell you the white gosling was odd?" cackled the old grey-winged goose. "It might be him, after all. If it isn't him, then where has he disappeared to? But he's evil all the same. Keep well away from him!" Nothing was of any avail, neither cries nor entreaties - the geese kept the white gosling at a safe distance. What could he do? He ran to the pond and swam around there, dipping and diving, until the soot washed off. Then he went back to the others. The geese were glad to see the white gosling again and they asked him where he had been. When the white gosling told them how he had dyed his feathers, the geese laughed loud and long and often afterwards recalling the story they had a good laugh at the white gosling and at themselves.

The Lady or the Tiger?

Many, many years ago there was a king in a far country. He was famous, he was strong and he was very clever. But in his country he had many wrongdoers. The King was unhappy about this but how can you stop people from doing wrong? It is not easy. He thought about this difficult question for a long time but he could not find the answer. Suddenly, one day, he had a good idea. He spoke to his people and told them to build a big stadium in the centre of the city. 'It must be very big and very beautiful,' he told them. So the people worked hard for many months. One day, the building was finished. The stadium was ready. Inside it, there were places for five thousand people. Everyone was very excited about this beautiful new building. Some wanted to watch games in the stadium. Others wanted to have dancing and singing. But what did the King want? No one knew. The day of the opening came. Everyone ran to the stadium to get a place inside. The people got more excited when the King arrived. They were all quiet, waiting. First, he took his place. Then, he stood up and spoke. 'My people, my friends,' he said. 'Firstly I want to thank all the workers for their good work. We now have a beautiful stadium and it is very well built. Secondly, I know that many of you want to see games and dancing here. But this stadium is going to be different. It is not going to be a place for having a good time. It is going to be a place for wrongdoers. If one of you does something wrong, we are going to bring him to this place. There he must stand in the middle of this stadium in front of us all. 'Now, do you all see those two doors, coloured blue, at the far end of the stadium? They look the same, perhaps. But they are not. Behind one door, I am going to put a dangerous animal, a tiger. Behind the other door, there is going to be a beautiful lady. The wrongdoer must choose one of these doors. If he opens the wrong door, he finds the tiger. It jumps out and kills him. If he opens the other door, he finds the beautiful young woman. She is to be his wife. They must marry immediately, right here in the stadium before our eyes. After that, they can live happily with us as husband and wife. So each wrongdoer must choose very carefully. Before he chooses, he and we cannot know if he is going to live or die. As soon as he opens one of those two doors, we all know immediately. That is my idea. So tell me, my friends, is it a good idea or is it not?' 'It is good, O King, it is very good,' the people answered. But they were quiet. They were afraid. 'Thank you,' said the King. 'Now go home. Come to the stadium again at the same time next week. Then you can watch the first wrongdoer make his choice. Every week from now on, a different man is going to choose: to live, if he is lucky, or to die, if he is not.' From that day, the people came every week to the stadium to watch a different wrongdoer. Sometimes, he opened the right blue door and the beautiful lady came out. Then there was singing and dancing. Everyone threw flowers down to the lucky people and went home happily. But at other times, the wrongdoer opened the wrong door. Immediately, a big tiger ran out into the stadium and jumped on the unlucky man. In a few minutes, the tiger killed him in front of all the watching people. When he lay dead in the centre of the stadium, the people went home sadly. They took their flowers with them. It is interesting that in a short time the number of wrongdoers in the country got much smaller. No one wanted to stand in the middle of the stadium and make that difficult choice.

Volcano. The Eruption of Mount St. Helens

On March 20, 1980, a strong earthquake shook Mount St. Helens. The earthquake was a sign that the volcano was waking after a long sleep of 123 years. On March 27, the volcano exploded, with smaller explosions coming in April and May. But the big blast, the most destructive one of all, came on May 18. Here is the true account, just as it happened. The May 18 eruption began with an earthquake that triggered an avalanche. Shaken by the quake, the bulge was tearing loose. It began to slide, in a huge avalanche that carried along rock ripped from deep inside Mount St. Helens. Normally water cannot be heated beyond its boiling point, which is 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. At boiling point, water turns to a gas, which we call steam. But if water is kept under pressure, it can be heated far beyond its boiling point and still stay liquid. (That is how a pressure cooker works.) If the pressure is removed, this superheated water suddenly turns, or flashes, to steam. As steam it takes up much more roomit expands. The sudden change to steam can cause an explosion. Before the eruption Mount St. Helens was like a giant pressure cooker. The rock inside it held superheated water. The water stayed liquid because it was under great pressure, sealed in the mountain. When the mountain was torn open, the pressure was suddenly relieved. The superheated water flashed to steam. Expanding violently, it shattered rock inside the mountain and exploded out the opening, traveling at speeds of up to 200 miles an hour. The blast flattened whole forests of 180-foot-high firs. It snapped off or uprooted the trees, scattering the trunks as if they were straws. At first, this damage was puzzling. A wind of 200 miles an hour is not strong enough to level forests of giant trees. The explanation, geologists later discovered, was that the wind carried rocks ranging in size from grains of sand to blocks as big as cars. As the blast roared out of the volcano, it swept up and carried along the rock it had shattered. The result was what one geologist described as "a stone wind." It was a wind of steam and rocks, traveling at high speed. The stone wind was traveling so fast that it overtook and passed the avalanche. On its path was Spirit Lake, one of the most beautiful lakes in the Cascades. The blast stripped the trees from the slopes surrounding the lake and moved on. Meanwhile the avalanche had hit a ridge and split. One part of it poured into Spirit Lake, adding a 180-foot layer of rock and dirt to the bottom of the lake. The slide of avalanche into the lake forced the water out. The water sloshed up the slopes, then fell back, into the lake. With it came thousands of trees felled by the blast. The blast itself continued for 10 to 15 minutes, then stopped. Minutes later Mount St. Helens began to erupt upwards. A dark column of ash and ground-up rock rose miles into the sky. Winds blew the ash eastward. Lightning flashed in the ash cloud and started forest fires. The sky turned so dark that street lights went on at noon. Ash fell like snow that would not melt. This eruption continued for nine hours. Shortly after noon the color of the ash column changed. It became lighter, a sign that the volcano was now throwing out mostly new magma. Until then much of the ash had been made of old rock. At the same time the volcano began giving off huge flows of pumice and ash. The material was very hot, with temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and it traveled down the mountain at speeds of 100 miles an hour. Finally, there were the mudflows, which started when heat from the blast melted ice and snow on the mountaintop. The water mixed with ash, pumice, ground-up rock, and dirt and rocks of the avalanche. The result was a thick mixture that was like wet concrete, a mudflow. The mudflows traveled fast, scouring the landscape and sweeping down the slopes into river valleys. Together their speed and thickness did great damage. When the sun rose on May 19, it showed a greatly changed St. Helens. The mountain was 1,200 feet shorter than it had been the morning before. Most of the old top had slid down the mountain in the avalanche. The rest had erupted out as shattered rock. Geologists later figured that the volcano had lost three quarters of a cubic mile of old rock.

The Reformation
Henry VIII was always looking for new sources of money. His father had become powerful by taking over the nobles' land, but the lands owned by the Church and the monasteries had not been touched. The Church was a huge landowner, and the monasteries were no longer important to economic and social growth in the way they had been two hundred years earlier. In fact they were unpopular because many monks no longer led a good religious life but lived in wealth and comfort. Henry disliked the power of the Church in England because, since it was an international organisation, he could not completely control it. If Henry had been powerful enough in Europe to influence the pope it might have been different. But there were two far more powerful states, France, and Spain, with the Holy Roman Empire, lying between him and Rome. The power of the Catholic Church in England could therefore work against his own authority, and the taxes paid to the Church reduced his own income. Henry was not the only European king with a wish to "centralise" state authority. Many others were doing the same thing. But Henry had another reason for standing up to the authority of the Church. In 1510 Henry had married Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his elder brother Arthur. But by 1526 she had still not had a son who survived infancy and was now unlikely to do so. Henry tried to persuade the pope to allow him to divorce Catherine. Normally, Henry need not have expected any difficulty. His chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, hoped that his skills, and his important position in the Church, would be successful in persuading the pope. But the pope was controlled by Charles V, who was Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, and also Catherine's nephew. For both political and family reasons he wanted Henry to stay married to Catherine. The pope did not wish to anger Henry, but eventually he was forced to forbid Henry's divorce. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head of the Church in England. Henry was now free to divorce Catherine and marry his new love, Anne Boleyn. He hoped Anne would give him a son to follow him on the throne. Henry's break with Rome was purely political. He had simply wanted to control the Church and to keep its wealth in his own kingdom. Between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was still Catholic. Once England had accepted the separation from Rome Henry took the English Reformation a step further. Wolsey's place as the king's chief minister was taken by one of his assistants, Thomas Cromwell. Henry and Cromwell made a careful survey of Church property. They closed about 560 monasteries in order to make money, but Henry also wanted to be popular with the rising classes of landowners and merchants. He therefore gave or sold much of the monasteries' lands to them. Many smaller landowners made their fortunes. Most knocked down the old monastery buildings and used the stone to create magnificent new houses for themselves. Other buildings were just left to fall down. Meanwhile the monks and nuns were thrown out. Some were given small sums of money, but many were unable to find work and became wandering beggars. The dissolution of the monasteries was probably the greatest act of official destruction in the history of Britain. Henry proved that his break with Rome was neither a religious nor a diplomatic disaster. He remained loyal to Catholic religious teaching, and executed Protestants who refused to accept it. Henry died in 1547, leaving behind his sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and his three children. Mary, the eldest, was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Elizabeth was the daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, whom he had executed because she was unfaithful. Nine-year-old Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, the only wife whom Henry had really loved, but who had died giving birth to his only son.

The Substitute Teacher

Sometimes in the summer I think about school. I'll be in a new grade this fall. But I don't think any year will be as exciting as last year was. We had this nice teacher, Miss Lavender, and we had a lot of boys and girls, of course. We were all very sad when Miss Lavender broke her arm. She fell on the ice, and she had to stay home for a week. So we had a substitute teacher. Her name was Mrs. Graybee. Mrs. Graybee did things in a different way. At the end of the day Mrs. Graybee gave us homework. "Miss Lavender doesn't give us homework on Monday," said Sharon. We all went home angry. The next morning Mrs. Graybee began to read a story about a boy of faraway Australia. Miss Lavender had read it to us the month before. But we all folded our hands politely. Mrs. Graybee read awhile. Then she put the book down. She said, "You can't imagine how strange and empty the middle of Australia is. It's so lonely. You can travel hundreds of miles and never see a house at all. If you need a doctor, he has to come by airplane." Richard raised his hand. Mrs. Graybee nodded to him. "How does the doctor know you need him?" he said. Mrs. Graybee said, "People who live in the empty part of Australia have radio sets. They send a radio message to the Flying Doctors. The doctor gives advice over the radio. If it's an emergency, he comes in his plane. One time my sister broke her leg. Her husband sent for a Flying Doctor. He arrived very quickly." Sharon said, "Have you been to Australia?" "Yes," said Mrs. Graybee. "I've been there a few times. My sister and her husband raise sheep in Australia." That morning Mrs. Graybee told us a lot more about Australia. She told us how the kids go to school in the lonely part. They don't! They have a teacher who talks to them over the radio. She gives them their work. They can talk to her by radio too. It is all very interesting. After lunch we were still interested in Australia. So Mrs. Graybee told us about the different animals there. There are kangaroos, wallabies, koalas and platypuses. After recess we played having school over a radio. Mrs. Graybee sat behind a screen. She told us lessons to do. We had to listen hard. Then we did the lessons and gave her the answers. It was funny not seeing the teacher. But Mrs. Graybee had quite a nice voice behind a screen. That afternoon went very quickly. We were glad when Thursday came. We were going to make a big map of Australia and paste things on it. At three o'clock we all stood back and looked at our map. It was very good, and it had bright colors. "What shall we do tomorrow about Australia?" I said. "Oh, I think we'd better not do any more about Australia," said Mrs. Graybee. "We have to do math and reading and science. We haven't done those for two days." We all groaned. "Well, if you work quickly on those things," said Mrs. Graybee, "maybe we will have time to learn an Australian song." We all said, "Yippee!" On Friday we all worked hard. At two o'clock Mrs. Graybee said, "Miss Lavender will be back on Monday. This is my last day with you. Do you want to learn the Australian song now?" We all did. Mrs. Graybee taught us "Waltzing Matilda." It has a ghost in it, so we sang it lots of times. Then the bell rang to go home. Nobody got up.