Do you know Yuri Gagarin? He was the first1to go into space. He orbited（作轨道运行）the earth for 108 minutes. He was the first man to 2that the earth is round and it is made up of water.
Yuri Gagarin was born in a village3March 9, 1934. When he was a schoolboy, Yuri Gagarin was clever and hard-working. He4liked to play jokes on his classmates. His maths teacher5the army（军队）and became a pilot（飞行员）during the Second World War. The old pilot often told his6some interesting stories about flying. Yuri Gagarin7liked to listen to the stories.
Later, when he was in the technical school（技校）, he8to fly a small plane. He enjoyed flying and he spent9of his free time on it.
In 1960, Yuri Gagarin10one of the 20 astronauts for the space programme of the country. Then he had a chance to orbit the earth. Yuri Gagarin was one of the best astronauts.
Our nearest neighbour is the moon. In the sky, the moon and the sun seem to be of the same size because the moon is much nearer.
The moon makes the tides（潮汐）—the changes in the level of the sea. The moon and the sun together pull the sea. In some parts of the world, the difference between "high tide" (when the sea is very near to the land) and "low tide" (when the sea is far away from the land) is very big. This is very important to ships.
The moon is very different from the earth. Gravity（地心引力）on the moon is one-sixth of that on the earth. There isn't any air. During the day, the part of it that face the sun is very, very hot but at night it is very, very cold. Nothing can live on the moon.
If the moon goes between the earth and the sun, we have an eclipse of the sun（日食）. The moon stops the light from the sun and it is dark in the day.
If the earth goes between the moon and the sun, we have an eclipse of the moon. The moon goes into the shadow（影子）of the earth and it disappears for a few minutes.
When I was in Grade 9, a new boy came into my classroom. He was short and thin. He walked up to the teacher and told her, very seriously, that he was new. His name was Christian. He sat down, took a look at me, and then looked away. I didn't think he was very nice and I was sure he wasn't the type I would like to become friends with.
During that year, I didn't talk to him much but he smiled at me when our eyes met, always shyly. He never ate lunch with anybody, and he never talked to anybody but me.
But one day I joined those unkind kids who were making fun of him. We made fun of him though I thought it was wrong.
"Haven't you got any friends?" a kid asked Christian, who had walked past us alone, head down.
"No, he hasn't got any friends. He's too stupid and shy," I said. Then Christian looked up at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. I felt very sorry at that moment.
That night, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't get Christian's face out of my mind. In the weeks that followed, he never met my eyes in class and never smiled at me. It was really hard for me to decide to write him a note asking him to forgive（原谅）me. But I did.
The next day in class, I passed him a note. About five minutes later, I turned and saw tears in his eyes. "You will never realize what your apology（道歉）means to me, Jimmy," he said to me. "I hope we can become friends."
We had lunch together that noon and we had the best talk I had ever had. Over the years at high school, we were close friends.
Thinking back, I realize that, if I didn't apologized, I would never know what a lovely person he was.
Apologies can really change your life, so never miss the chance to tell somebody you are sorry.
