1 Part 01

The farm next to ours is owned by Mr and Mrs Gregg. The Greggs have two children, both of them boys. Their names are Philip and William. Sometimes I go over to their farm to play with them. I am a girl and I am eight years old.

我们旁边的农场是格雷格夫妇所有的。 格里格夫妇有两个孩子，都是男孩。 他们的名字是菲利普和威廉。 有时我去他们的农场和他们一起玩。 我是一个八岁的女孩。

Philip is also eight years old. William is three years older. He is ten. What? Oh, all right, then. He is eleven. Last week, something very funny happened to the Gregg family. I am going to tell you about it as best I can. Now the one thing that Mr Gregg and his two boys loved to do more than anything else was to go hunting. Every Saturday morning they would take their guns and go off into the woods to look for animals and birds to shoot. Even Philip, who was only eight years old, had a gun of his own. I can't stand hunting. I just can't stand it. It doesn't seem right to me that men and boys should kill animals just for the fun they get out of it. So I used to try to stop Philip and William from doing it. Every time I went over to their farm I would do my best to talk them out of it, but they only laughed at me.

菲利普也8岁。 威廉比他大三岁。 他十岁。怎么啦？哦，那好吧。 他十一岁。上周，格雷格一家发生了一件非常有趣的事情。 我将尽我所能告诉你。 现在葛雷格先生和他的两个儿子最喜欢做的一件事就是打猎。 每个星期六早上，他们都会拿起枪，到树林里去寻找可以射击的动物和鸟类。 就连年仅八岁的菲利普也有了一支自己的枪。 我不能忍受打猎。我就是受不了。 在我看来，男人和男孩仅仅为了从中获得乐趣而杀死动物是不对的。 所以我曾经试图阻止菲利普和威廉这样做。 每次我去他们的农场，我都尽力说服他们不要去，但他们只是嘲笑我。

I even said something about it once to Mr Gregg, but he just walked on past me as if I weren't there. Then, one Saturday morning, I saw Philip and William coming out of the woods with their father, and they were carrying a lovely young deer. This made me so cross that I started shouting at them. The boys laughed and made faces at me, and Mr Gregg told me to go home and mind my own P's and Q's. Well, that did it!

我甚至对葛雷格先生说过这件事，但他从我身边走过，好像我不存在似的。 然后，一个星期六的早晨，我看见菲利普和威廉和他们的父亲从树林里出来，他们抱着一只可爱的小鹿。 这使我非常生气，我开始对他们大喊大叫。 男孩们笑着对我做鬼脸，格雷格先生叫我回家，管好自己的事。 好吧，我受够了!

I saw red. And before I was able to stop myself, I did something I never meant to do. I PUT THE MAGIC FINGER ON THEM ALL! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I even put it on Mrs Gregg, who wasn't there. I put it on the whole Gregg family. For months I had been telling myself that I would never put the Magic Finger upon anyone again – not after what happened to my teacher, old Mrs Winter. Poor old Mrs Winter. One day we were in class, and she was teaching us spelling. 'Stand up,' she said to me, 'and spell cat.'

我看到了红色。在我能够阻止自己之前，我做了一件我从未想过要做的事。 我对他们都施了魔法手指!哦,天哪!哦,天哪!我甚至把它戴在了格雷格太太身上，她当时并不在场。 我把责任推给了格雷格一家。 几个月来，我一直告诉自己，我再也不会对任何人使用魔法手指了——在我的老师温特老太太发生了那件事之后。 可怜的温特太太。有一天我们在上课，她在教我们拼写。 “站起来，”她对我说，“拼‘猫’。”

'That's an easy one,' I said. 'K-a-t.' 'You are a stupid little girl!' Mrs Winter said. 'I am not a stupid little girl!' I cried. 'I am a very nice little girl!' 'Go and stand in the corner,' Mrs Winter said. Then I got cross, and I saw red, and I put the Magic Finger on Mrs Winter good and strong, and almost at once… Guess what?

“这很容易，”我说。 “K-a-t。“你真是个愚蠢的小女孩!”温特太太说。 “我不是一个愚蠢的小女孩!”我哭了。 “我是一个非常漂亮的小女孩!”“去站在角落里，”温特太太说。 然后我生气了，我看到了红色，我把魔法手指放在温特夫人身上，又好又有力，几乎立刻……你猜怎么着?