Richard, 14, said, “ I want to make friends, but I don’t know how. In my last school, my classmates often bullied(欺负) me and I didn’t have any friends. Children at this school look OK, but I just know I’ll also do something wrong. Please help me!”

   Perhaps the best way to make friends is to know what makes a friend. I asked some 13-year-old boys and girls to write down they liked about their friends. They said that good friends:

★go around with happy faces.   ★like to share.   ★stay and play together with others.

★invite people to do something  ★are humorous.  ★are good at organizing games.

★help others with work.       ★are kind.   ★ are good at thinking of something fun to do.

My grandparents can be good fun．They are retired，so they don’t work anymore．My grandfather is 68 and my grandmother is 67，but they are not too old to be active．They exercise by playing golf and they go out for meals and to the theater．Sometimes they take me out too．We have a good time．They also go on great holidays．Last year, they went to China and walked along the Great Wall!

Sometimes, my grandparents like to criticize（批评）me．They think that children today have an easy life．Life was very different when they were young and there are many things about my life that they do not understand．They tell me，over and over, how they had to start work at 16．They know that I will go on to university and won’t be getting a job until I am about 22! They also think that I have too many possessions（财产），such as mobile phones and computers．When they were young, they did not have anything like that．What they do not realize is that they cannot compare them with children today．They had the same kinds of things as the rest of people of their age-so do I．It would be very strange if I only had the possessions that they had when they were my age

1．Why do the writer’s grandparents not work anymore?

2．Why do the grandparents think the writer has an easy life?

3．What does the sentence“so do I”in the second paragraph mean?

4．The grandparents are still very active though they are very old，aren’t they’?

5．Do you agree with the grandparents’ idea that children today have an easy life? And Why?