EDWARD and SAM become my generations friends, because of the quiz answer of the ten birds and ten fishes.

EDWARD is 14 years old, SAM is 12. Both visited our garden centre one day. After some talking, we knew each other’s name, age, nationality, living town and so on. We have became friends each other.

"Boys, may I give you a quiz question?" I said to them.

"No problem, we’d like to try." Both agreed with me.

"OK, Listen, please! There were 10 birds rested at the tree branches, one boy used a stone to hit one bird down, the question is how many birds are left in the tree?" I asked.

"Nine!" SAM winked¹（眨眼） and looked at me.

EDWARD was looked at the fish and thinking, I kept quiet.

A few minutes later.

"I know! Eight." EDWARD said, he looked at me and SAM.

"Why?" I asked the reasons.

"Because use one stone to kill two birds, I learnt from a book." He was very confident with himself.

"No, all of the birds gone, left nil²（无，零） ." I let the cat out of the bag.

"Why?" both boys astonishingly looked at me.

"You can get the answer by yourselves and tell me next time. Now I liked to give you a second quiz. Are you ready? Listen!" I told them.

Both boys were waiting seriously.

"There are 10 fish in a fish pond, and one died, how many fish are left in the pond?"

"Nine!" SAM answered always first.

"Nine!" EDWARD echoed³.

"No! Still ten." I made the doubts clear up.

"No! Nine. Otherwise you are not a good staff." EDWARD persisted⁴.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, you as a member of staff should know if the fish died you have to take it out immediately, so there are just nine left, otherwise you show the dead fish to customers, you are not a good staff ".

"Child saying always is true, I am a not good staff."

I was rendered⁵（描绘，宣布） speechlessly.