12

By the time Dean's actual birthday rolled around, I'd already broken the robot's hand and lost the gun that came with it, so I skipped the party. I've felt guilty about that ever since, and today I didn't want to cheat Dean out of a gift for the second time. So when I got to school, I asked the secretary in the front office to call Mom and see if she could pick something up for me. And she came through just in time. The teacher started handing out the Secret Holiday Buddy gifts, and I got a jar of gummy bears. Finally, there was only one present under the tree, and it was the one for Dean.

等到迪恩真正的生日到来时，我已经弄断了机器人的手，还弄丢了它附带的枪，所以我没去参加派对。 从那以后我一直对此感到内疚，今天我不想第二次从迪恩那里骗走礼物。 所以当我到学校的时候，我让前台的秘书给妈妈打电话，看她能不能帮我拿点东西。 她来的正是时候。 老师开始分发秘密节日伙伴礼物，我得到了一罐小熊软糖。 最后，树下只有一件礼物，那是给迪恩的。

Unfortunately, Mom didn't understand that the gift was supposed to be ANONYMOUS, so it was totally embarrassing when the teacher read the card on Dean's present out loud. THIS ONE SAYS, "TO DEAN DELAROSA, FROM YOUR SECRET HOLIDAY BUDDY, GREG HEFFLEY." Dean looked like he wanted to crawl under his desk and hide, and I felt the same exact way. Saturday I always thought the only place in the world where you could get Drummies was at the Holiday Bazaar. But today me and Mom were at the grocery store, and you'll never BELIEVE what I found in the frozen food aisle.

不幸的是，妈妈不明白礼物应该是匿名的，所以当老师大声朗读迪安礼物上的卡片时，她感到非常尴尬。 这张写着“致迪安·德拉罗萨，你的秘密度假伙伴格雷格·赫夫利” 迪恩看起来像是想爬到桌子底下躲起来，我也有同样的感觉。 星期六我一直以为世界上唯一能买到Drummies的地方就是假日集市了。 但是今天我和妈妈去了杂货店，你绝对不会相信我在冷冻食品区发现了什么。

DRUMMiES! Now I know that I can have Drummies whenever I want and that they're TOTALLY ripping us off at the Holiday Bazaar. You can buy a whole BOX at the store for what they charge for three or four individual Drummies at school. In fact, now that I could get my own Drummies, I realized I could run my OWN Holiday Bazaar. But first I had to buy up the grocery store's supply before the school beat me to it.

敲帮问顶发声!现在我知道我想什么时候吃Drummies就什么时候吃，而且他们在假日集市上简直是宰了我们。 你可以在商店里买一整个盒子，价钱是学校里卖三四个鼓的价钱。 事实上，既然我有了自己的鼓，我意识到我可以经营自己的节日集市。 但首先，我得赶在学校抢在我之前把杂货店的货买光。

Other kids in my neighborhood have done this sort of thing before. Last summer Bryce Anderson and a bunch of his cronies set up a restaurant for all the neighborhood parents. I heard they pulled in almost three hundred bucks, and I know for a fact that one of Bryce's goons bought a brand-new BB gun with his share. I knew I couldn't run a Holiday Bazaar all by myself,

我家附近的其他孩子以前也做过这种事。 去年夏天，布莱斯·安德森和他的一群密友为所有邻居的父母开了一家餐馆。 我听说他们赚了将近三百美元，而且我还知道布莱斯的一个打手用他的那份钱买了一把全新的BB枪。 我知道我一个人经营不了节日义卖，

so I called Rowley and asked him to help out. We found some Christmas ornaments and some other stuff in my basement we could sell. But I figured if we were gonna compete with the school's Holiday Bazaar, we'd have to come up with better games than the beanbag toss and the ping-pong-ball bounce. Rowley suggested a dunk tank, but I told him I didn't think Mom would allow that in the house. Plus, we had a dunk tank when we ran a Fun Fair in Rowley's yard over the summer, and it was a DISASTER. We didn't know you were supposed to protect the guy in the dunk tank by putting him in a cage. Me and Rowley decided it would be really cool if our Holiday Bazaar had a video game arcade. We didn't

所以我打电话给罗利，请他帮忙。 我们在地下室找到了一些圣诞装饰品和其他可以卖的东西。 但我想如果我们要和学校的节日义卖比赛，我们就得想出比扔豆袋和弹乒乓球更好的游戏。 罗利建议用一个水槽，但我告诉他我觉得妈妈不会允许在家里用这个。 另外，夏天我们在罗利家的院子里办游乐场的时候，我们有一个扣篮箱，那简直是一场灾难。 我们不知道你应该把那家伙关在笼子里来保护他。 我和罗利觉得如果我们的假日集市有个电子游戏厅会很酷。 我们没有

have the money to buy real arcade machines, so we got a bunch of cardboard boxes out of the basement to make homemade versions. We started off with Pac-Man because we thought it would be pretty easy to make. In Pac-Man you've got a little character who goes around eating pellets while getting chased by ghosts. In our version we were gonna have Rowley on the inside of the box operating ghosts glued to pencils, while the person who was playing the game maneuvered Pac-Man from the outside with a popsicle stick.

有钱买真正的街机，所以我们从地下室拿了一堆纸板箱来自制版本。 我们从《吃豆人》开始，因为我们认为它很容易制作。 在《吃豆人》中，你有一个小角色，他在被鬼追赶的时候到处吃丸子。 在我们的版本中，我们会让罗利在盒子里面操作粘在铅笔上的幽灵，而玩游戏的人则用冰棍棍从外面操纵吃豆人。