Karen worked in a small company. One day, the manager asked Karen to come into his office. He told Karen that everyone was pleased with her work and then asked Karen to do a special job for him. He said he had to go to an important meeting where he had to give a speech about their company. He asked Karen to write the speech for him. He told her it had to be exactly twenty minutes long and should be interesting. It had to be ready by the next morning.

Karen asked the manager some questions about what should be in the speech, and then she went to other members of the company and talked to them as well. Soon she had enough information to write the speech. She worked on it all night and in the morning she gave it to the manager. The manager thanked her and rushed off to the meeting with the speech.

The next day Karen came to work and found a note from the manager on her desk. “Come to my office immediately,” it said. Karen was worried. Was something wrong with the speech?

She went to the manager’s office. As soon as she entered the office, she could see that the manager was unhappy. She could see her speech in his hand.

“I thought I asked you to write an interesting speech that would last for twenty minutes”, he began. “This speech,” he continued, “lasted twice that long! The beginning was interesting, but by the second half, people got up and left. It was so boring! How could you do this to me? This was very important for the company!”

Karen couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.

“I’m sure that it was only twenty minutes long,” she replied. “I did everything you asked. I’m sure. I even gave you two copies.”

One morning, Thomas was woken from a deep sleep by a loud roaring(咆哮) noise. It sounded like a wild animal walking around under his bedroom window.

Thomas rushed over to the window. His eyes bulged(凸出) like basketballs ─   There, in the middle of the backyard, was a lion! “Amazing!” cried Thomas.

Suddenly, a giraffe poked(戳) its head through the window. It munched(大声咀嚼) the leaves from a plant by Thomas’s bed. Next, Thomas saw an elephant walk past the swimming pool and squirt(喷出) water all over Dad’s car. “Cool!” cheered Thomas. “Now I don’t have to wash Dad’s car today.”

Thomas grabbed his camera and rushed down the stairs. “ Dad, Dad, you were right!” he shouted.

“The backyard has become a jungle(丛林). Come and see! It’s amazing!” Thomas rushed outside and started taking photos of the animals.

Dad poked his head outside to see what happened. “Oh, my god!” he cried, spilling(溢出) his coffee as a rhinoceros(犀牛) ran past him. “No, no… this can’t be happening,” he cried. “It’s a disaster!”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Thomas. “It’s only spilled coffee. We can clean it up later.”

“Thomas, this is your fault(过错). If you mowed(割) the lawns, we wouldn’t be stuck(困在) in the middle of a jungle!” Dad shouted.

Thomas shrugged his shoulders(耸肩). “In fact, Dad, I think it’s really cool. Think of all the money we’ll save on trips to the zoo.”

Thomas’s father left angrily, while Thomas got a group of chimpanzees(黑猩猩) to pose for a photo.