1-18

 

18.

The game required a bat, a tennis ball, and a total disregard for one’s physical safety. There werefour players: a bowler¹, a batsman, and two fielders stationed mid-corridor, each with one foot inthe corridor and one in a room. Not always our rooms. We often intruded² on other boys trying towork. They’d beg us to go away.

Sorry, we said. This is our work.

The radiator³ represented the wicket. There was an endless debate about what constituted acatch. Off the wall? Yes, catch. Off a window? No catch. One hand, one bounce? Half out.

One day the sportiest member of our group hurled⁴ himself at a ball, trying to make a trickycatch, and landed face-first on a fire extinguisher hooked to the wall. His tongue split wide open.

You’d think after that, after the carpet had been permanently⁵ soiled with his blood, we’d havecalled an end to Corridor Cricket.

We didn’t.

When not playing Corridor Cricket we’d loll in our rooms. We got very good at affectingpostures of supreme⁶ indolence. The point was to look as if you had no purpose, as if you’d bestiryourself only to do something bad or, better yet, stupid. Near the end of my first half we hit onsomething supremely⁷ stupid.

Someone suggested that my hair was a complete disaster. Like grass on the moors⁸.

Well…what can be done?

Let me have a go at it.

You?

Yeah. Let me shave it off.

Hm. That didn’t sound right.

But I wanted to go along. I wanted to be a top bloke. A funny bloke.

All right.

Someone fetched the clippers. Someone pushed me into a chair. How quickly, how blithely,after a lifetime of healthy growth, it all went cascading⁹ off my head. When the cutter was done Ilooked down, saw a dozen pyramids of ginger¹⁰ on the floor, like red volcanoes seen from a plane,and knew I’d made a legendary¹¹ mistake.

I ran to the mirror. Suspicion confirmed. I screamed in horror.

My mates screamed too. With laughter.

I ran in circles. I wanted to reverse time. I wanted to scoop¹² up the hair from the floor and glueit back on. I wanted to wake from this nightmare. Not knowing where else to turn, I violated thesacred rule, the one shining commandment never to be broken, and ran upstairs to Willy’s room.

Of course, there was nothing Willy could do. I was just hoping he’d tell me it would be OK,don’t freak out, keep calm, Harold. Instead, he laughed like the others. I recall him sitting at hisdesk, bent¹³ over a book, chuckling¹⁴, while I stood before him fingering the nubs on my newly barescalp.

Harold, what have you done?

What a question. He sounded like Stewie from Family Guy. Wasn’t it obvious?

You shouldn’t have done it, Harold!

So we’re just stating the obvious now?

He said a few more things that were immensely unhelpful and I walked out.

Worse ridicule¹⁵ was yet to come. A few days later, on the front page of the Daily Mirror, oneof the tabloids¹⁶, there I was with my new haircut.

Headline: Harry¹⁷ the Skinhead.

I couldn’t imagine how they’d got wind of the story. A schoolmate must have told someonewho told someone who told the papers. They had no photo, thank goodness. But they’dimprovised. The image on the front page was a “computer-generated” rendering¹⁸ of the Spare, baldas an egg. A lie. More than a lie, really.

I looked bad, but not that bad.

 

1 bowler   

n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手

参考例句：

• The bowler judged it well,timing the ball to perfection.投球手判断准确，对球速的掌握恰到好处。
• The captain decided to take Snow off and try a slower bowler.队长决定把斯诺撤下，换一个动作慢一点的投球手试一试。

2 intruded   

n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于

参考例句：

• One could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. 你简直会以为那是从来没有人到过的地方。 来自辞典例句
• The speaker intruded a thin smile into his seriousness. 演说人严肃的脸上掠过一丝笑影。 来自辞典例句

3 radiator   

n.暖气片，散热器

参考例句：

• The two ends of the pipeline are connected with the radiator.管道的两端与暖气片相连接。
• Top up the radiator before making a long journey.在长途旅行前加满散热器。

4 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

6 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

7 supremely   

adv.无上地，崇高地

参考例句：

• They managed it all supremely well. 这件事他们干得极其出色。
• I consider a supremely beautiful gesture. 我觉得这是非常优雅的姿态。

8 moors   

v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• the North York moors 北约克郡的漠泽
• They're shooting grouse up on the moors. 他们在荒野射猎松鸡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 cascading   

流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流

参考例句：

• First of all, cascading menus are to be avoided at all costs. 首先，无论如何都要避免使用级联菜单。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Her sounds began cascading gently. 他的声音开始缓缓地低落下来。

10 ginger   

n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气

参考例句：

• There is no ginger in the young man.这个年轻人没有精神。
• Ginger shall be hot in the mouth.生姜吃到嘴里总是辣的。

11 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

12 scoop   

n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出

参考例句：

• In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
• Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。

13 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

14 chuckling   

轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him chuckling to himself as he read his book. 他看书时，我能听见他的轻声发笑。
• He couldn't help chuckling aloud. 他忍不住的笑了出来。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

15 ridicule   

v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄

参考例句：

• You mustn't ridicule unfortunate people.你不该嘲笑不幸的人。
• Silly mistakes and queer clothes often arouse ridicule.荒谬的错误和古怪的服装常会引起人们的讪笑。

16 tabloids   

n.小报，通俗小报（版面通常比大报小一半，文章短，图片多，经常报道名人佚事）( tabloid的名词复数 )；药片

参考例句：

• The story was on the front pages of all the tabloids. 所有小报都在头版报道了这件事。
• The story made the front page in all the tabloids. 这件事成了所有小报的头版新闻。

17 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

18 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。