10

The play is only a couple of days away, and I have no idea how we're going to pull this thing off. First of all, nobody has bothered to learn their lines, and that's all Mrs. Norton's fault. During rehearsal, Mrs. Norton whispers everyone's lines to them from the side of the stage. I wonder how it's going to go next Tuesday when Mrs. Norton is sitting at her piano thirty feet away. Another thing that's screwing everything up is that Mrs. Norton keeps adding new scenes and new characters.

离演出只有几天了，我不知道我们要怎么把这事办好。 首先，没人费心去背台词，这都是诺顿夫人的错。 排练时，诺顿夫人站在舞台的一边，对每个人低声说台词。 我不知道下星期二诺顿夫人坐在三十英尺外的钢琴旁会怎么样。 另一件把事情搞砸的事是诺顿夫人不断添加新场景和新角色。

Yesterday, she brought in this first-grader to play Dorothy's dog, Toto. But today, the kid's mom came in and said she wanted her child to walk around on two legs, because crawling around on all fours would be too "degrading." So now we've got a dog that's gonna be walking around on his hind legs for the whole show. But the worst change is that Mrs. Norton actually wrote a song that us trees have to sing. She said everyone "deserves" a chance to sing in the play. So today we spent an hour learning the worst song that's ever been written.

昨天，她带了一个一年级的孩子来演多萝西的狗，托托。 但是今天，孩子的妈妈进来说她想让她的孩子用两条腿走路，因为用四肢爬行太“丢脸”了。 所以现在我们有了一只狗，它将在整个节目中用后腿走路。 但最糟糕的变化是诺顿夫人写了一首我们树要唱的歌。 她说，每个人都“应该”有机会在剧中唱歌。 今天我们花了一个小时学习史上最烂的歌。

Thank God Rodrick won't be in the audience to see me humiliate myself. Mrs. Norton said the play is going to be a "semiformal occasion," and I know there's no way Rodrick is going to wear a tie for a middle school play. But today wasn't all bad. Toward the end of practice, Archie Kelly tripped over Rodney James and chipped his tooth because he couldn't stick his arms out to break his fall.

谢天谢地罗德里克不会在观众席上看到我羞辱自己。 诺顿夫人说这出戏将是一个“半正式的场合”，我知道罗德里克不可能打领带去参加中学的演出。 但今天也不全是坏事。练习快结束时，阿奇·凯利被罗德尼·詹姆斯绊倒了，因为他无法伸出手臂阻止自己摔倒，所以他的牙齿掉了下来。

So the good news is, they're letting us Trees carve out arm holes for the performance. Tuesday Tonight was the big school production of "The Wizard of Oz." The first sign that things were not going to go well happened before the play even started. I was peeking through the curtain to check out how many people showed up to see the play, and guess who was standing right up front? My brother Rodrick, wearing a clip-on tie.

好消息是，他们让我们这些树为表演雕刻手臂洞。 周二晚上是学校的大型演出《绿野仙踪》。 事情进展不顺利的第一个迹象甚至在演出开始之前就出现了。 我正透过帘子偷看看有多少人来看戏，猜猜谁站在前面？ 我弟弟罗德里克，戴着夹式领带。

He must have found out I was singing, and he couldn't resist the chance to see me embarrass myself. The play was supposed to start at 8:00, but it got delayed because Rodney James had stage fright. You'd figure that someone whose job it was to sit on the stage and do nothing could just suck it up for one performance. But Rodney wouldn't budge, and eventually, his mom had to carry him off.

他一定是发现了我在唱歌，他忍不住要看我出丑。 演出本该八点开始，但因为罗德尼·詹姆斯怯场而推迟了。 你会认为一个人的工作就是坐在舞台上，什么都不做，可以忍受一场表演。 但罗德尼不肯让步，最后，他妈妈不得不把他抱走。

The play finally got started around 8:30. Nobody could remember their lines, just like I predicted, but Mrs. Norton kept things moving along with her piano. The kid who played Toto brought a stool and a pile of comic books onto the stage, and that totally ruined the whole "dog" effect.

戏终于在八点半左右开始了。 正如我预料的那样，没有人能记住他们的台词，但诺顿夫人却随着她的钢琴保持着节奏。 扮演托托的孩子把一个凳子和一堆漫画书带到舞台上，这完全破坏了整个“狗”的效果。