23 Twenty-three

Twenty-three In a flash, everybody was up on top. 'Oh, isn't it beautiful!' they cried. 'What a marvellous feeling!' 'Good-bye, sharks!' 'Oh, boy, this is the way to travel!' Miss Spider, who was literally squealing with excitement, grabbed the Centipede by the waist and the two of them started dancing round and round the peach stem together. The Earthworm stood up on his tail and did a sort of wriggle of joy all by himself. The Old-Green-Grasshopper kept hopping higher and higher in the air. The Ladybird rushed over and shook James warmly by the hand. The Glow-worm, who at the best of times was a very shy and silent creature, sat glowing with pleasure near the tunnel entrance. Even the Silkworm, looking white and thin and completely

转眼间，所有人都到了山顶。 “啊，多美啊!”他们叫道。 “多么奇妙的感觉啊!”“再见，鲨鱼!”“哦，孩子，这才是旅行的方式!”蜘蛛小姐兴奋得尖叫起来，一把抓住蜈蚣的腰，俩人一起围着桃茎跳来跳去。 蚯蚓用尾巴站了起来，自己高兴地扭动了一下。 老绿蚱蜢在空中跳得越来越高。 瓢虫冲了过来，热情地握着詹姆斯的手。 萤火虫，在最好的时候是一个非常害羞和沉默的生物，坐在隧道入口附近高兴地发光。 即使是蚕，看起来又白又瘦又完全

exhausted, came creeping out of the tunnel to watch this miraculous ascent. Up and up they went, and soon they were as high as the top of a church steeple above the ocean. 'I'm a bit worried about the peach,' James said to the others as soon as all the dancing and the shouting had stopped. 'I wonder how much damage those sharks have done to it underneath. It's quite impossible to tell from up here.' 'Why don't I go over the side and make an inspection?' Miss Spider said. 'It'll be no trouble at all, I assure you.' And without waiting for an answer, she quickly produced a length of silk thread and attached the end of it to the peach stem. 'I'll be back in a jiffy,' she said, and then she walked calmly over to the edge of the peach and jumped off, paying out the thread behind her as she fell.

疲惫不堪的他爬出隧道，观看这奇迹般的上升。 他们越升越高，很快就升到大海上一座教堂的尖顶那么高。 “我有点担心桃子，”詹姆斯对其他人说，所有的跳舞和喊叫都停止了。 “我想知道那些鲨鱼对海底的海洋造成了多大的破坏。 从这里根本看不出来。“我为什么不从船边过去检查一下呢?”蜘蛛小姐说。 "我向你保证，一点儿也不麻烦。"不等他回答，她迅速拿出一根丝线，把丝线的一头系在桃茎上。 “我马上就回来，”她说，然后平静地走到桃子的边缘，跳了下来，一边掉下去，一边把身后的线甩了出去。

The others crowded anxiously around the place where she had gone over. 'Wouldn't it be dreadful if the thread broke,' the Ladybird said. There was a rather long silence. 'Are you all right, Miss Spider?' shouted the Old-Green-Grasshopper. 'Yes, thank you!' her voice answered from below. 'I'm coming up now!' And up she came, climbing foot over foot up the silk thread, and at the same time tucking the thread back cleverly into her body as she climbed past it. 'Is it awful?' they asked her. 'Is it all eaten away? Are there great holes in it everywhere?' Miss Spider clambered back on to the deck with a pleased but also a rather puzzled look on her face. 'You won't believe this,' she said, 'but actually there's hardly any damage down there at all! The peach is almost untouched! There are just a few tiny pieces out of it here and there, but nothing more.' 'You must be mistaken,' James told her.

其他人焦急地围在她走过的地方。 “如果线断了，那不是很可怕吗?”瓢虫说。 沉默了很长时间。 “你没事吧，蜘蛛小姐?”老绿蚱蜢喊道。 “是的，谢谢你!”她的声音从下面传来。 “我现在就上来!”于是她就上来了，一只脚又一只脚地沿着丝线往上爬，同时在爬过丝线的时候，巧妙地把丝线塞回自己的身体里。 “可怕吗?”他们问她。 “都吃光了吗?”是不是到处都是大洞?”蜘蛛小姐爬回甲板上，脸上带着高兴但又有些困惑的表情。 “你不会相信的，”她说，“但实际上下面几乎没有什么损坏!桃子几乎没动过!只有零星的几块碎片，仅此而已。“你一定搞错了，”詹姆斯告诉她。

'Of course she's mistaken!' the Centipede said. 'I promise you I'm not,' Miss Spider answered. 'But there were hundreds of sharks around us!' 'They churned the water into a froth!' 'We saw their great mouths opening and shutting!' 'I don't care what you saw,' Miss Spider answered. 'They certainly didn't do much damage to the peach.' 'Then why did we start sinking?' the Centipede asked. 'Perhaps we didn't start sinking,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper suggested. 'Perhaps we were all so frightened that we simply imagined it.' This, in point of fact, was closer to the truth than any of them knew. A shark, you see, has an extremely long sharp nose, and its mouth is set very awkwardly underneath its face and a long way back. This makes it more or less impossible for it to get its teeth into a vast smooth curving surface such as the side of a peach. Even if the creature turns on to its back it still can't do it,

“她当然搞错了!”蜈蚣说。 “我向你保证我没有，”蜘蛛小姐回答。 “可是我们周围有好几百条鲨鱼!”“他们把水搅成泡沫!”“我们看见它们的大嘴张着合着!”“我不管你看到了什么，”蜘蛛小姐回答。 他们当然没有对桃子造成太大的损害。“那我们为什么开始下沉呢?”蜈蚣问。 “也许我们不是开始下沉的。”老绿蚱蜢说。 “也许我们都太害怕了，只是想象出来的。”事实上，这比他们所知道的更接近事实。 你看，鲨鱼有一个非常长而锋利的鼻子，它的嘴非常尴尬地位于脸的下方，并且向后很长一段距离。 这使得它的牙齿或多或少不可能进入一个巨大的光滑弯曲的表面，比如桃子的侧面。 即使这种生物仰面朝天，它也做不到，

because the nose always gets in the way. If you have ever seen a small dog trying to get its teeth into an enormous ball, then you will be able to imagine roughly how it was with the sharks and the peach. 'It must have been some kind of magic,' the Ladybird said. 'The holes must have healed up by themselves.' 'Oh, look! There's a ship below us!' shouted James. Everybody rushed to the side and peered over. None of them had ever seen a ship before. 'It looks like a big one.' 'It's got three funnels.' 'You can even see the people on the decks!' 'Let's wave to them. Do you think they can see us?' Neither James nor any of the others knew it, but the ship that was now passing beneath them was actually the Queen Mary sailing out of the English Channel on her way to America. And on the bridge of the Queen Mary, the astonished Captain

因为鼻子总是碍事。 如果你曾经见过一只小狗试图用牙齿咬进一个大球，那么你就能大致想象它是如何对待鲨鱼和桃子的。 “这一定是某种魔法，”瓢虫说。 “这些洞一定是自己愈合了。“哦，看!”我们下面有一艘船!詹姆斯喊道。 每个人都冲到旁边，往那边看。 他们谁也没有见过船。 “它看起来像一个大的。“它有三个漏斗。”“你甚至可以看到甲板上的人!”“我们向他们挥手吧。” 你觉得他们能看见我们吗?”詹姆斯和其他人都不知道，现在从他们下面经过的船实际上是玛丽女王号，正驶离英吉利海峡前往美洲。 在玛丽皇后号的舰桥上，船长惊呆了