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"I hope we didn't sleep through breakfast," I said to my sister Ashley as we hurried down an elegant carpeted staircase.
"I hope we can find the dining room, Mary-Kate," Ashley said. "This place is huge!"
Ashley and I were spending Christmas in Washington D.C. at the home of the British Ambassador. Our Great-grandma Olive was a friend of Ambassador Jordan and he invited the three of us for the weekend.
Ambassador Jordan lived in a big three-story red brick house. The inside of the house looked like a museum. Portraits of kings and queens in gilded frames lined the walls. Chandeliers hung from...

"I can't believe a real-live panda is coming to live at our zoo!" our friend Tim Park said. "Is that cool, or what?" He pointed toward the zoo gate. A huge poster of Mei Ling, the famous Chinese panda, hung next to it.
"Way cool," I agreed.
"But Mei Ling isn't here yet, Tim."
"The directors of the Chinese zoo have to approve our zoo first," my twin sister, Ashley, reminded him. "That's why Mr. and Mrs. Tang and their son, Shen, came all the way from China. To take a tour of our zoo."
"They'll like it here for sure," our friend Samantha Samuels said. "Our zoo has the best animals in the world!"
Tim,...