Pyramid Surprise
Nellie and I were born only a few days apart, so every year we plan a birthday party together. This year, our birthday theme was "Discover the Pyramids".
"What about inviting Mary?" Nellie asked.
Mary was a loner, and hadn't made many friends, but she was better at math than anyone else in class.
"Hmm, she wears the same old trousers every day. How could she even afford a party dress?"
After school the next day, Nellie handed me a box. "What's that?" I asked.
"My birthday gift from my aunt. I thought it would be nice to give this to Mary, "Nellie said.
I opened the box. Inside was a gift certificate (礼品券) for our favourite clothing store.
"Wow," I gasped. We both knew how many cute clothes that would buy.
"So, are we going to just hand it to her?"
"How embarrassing(尴尬的) that would be!" Nellie answered.
She was right. Mary would be totally embarrassed if we gave her money for clothes.
"What if we ask our teacher … "
"Wait a second. I have an idea." Nellie said.
"What? What?"
"I'm not going to tell you!"
On the day of our party, Mary arrived, with—no surprise—the very old brown trousers.
We sang, danced and ate biscuits." And now for the big prize game, "Nellie said. Big prize? My mouth dropped. This was not in the plan.
"The big prize game is like this: Tom and Sam were building pyramids ... If their pyramids had to be 60 feet high, who would finish first?"
A math game. Of course! Nellie winked (眨眼示意)at me. No one was surprised when Mary came up with the answer before anyone else and walked off with the box.
The next week, Mary wore a new pair of trousers, and even a new dress. The whole time she had a big smile on her face.
And so did we.
