Chapter 5

Chapter 5 BATS, PART THO: WHAT'S THEIR FAVORITE SUBJECT? AND DO THEY HAVE PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND? Po couldn't stop thinking about the Minecraft village. They'd all agreed there wasn't timeto explore it before the sun went down. So they'd logged off for the night and returned to their normal lives. Now it was the following day, and classes were moving painfully slowly.

第五章蝙蝠，第二部分：它们最喜欢的科目是什么？ 他们周末有安排吗？ 阿宝一直在想我的世界村庄。 他们一致认为在太阳下山之前没有时间去探索它。 所以他们晚上就注销了，回到了正常的生活中。 现在是第二天，课程进展得非常缓慢。

Po wanted to know what surprises awaited them in that village. There were certainly no surprises on Ms. Minerva's pop quiz on A Midsummer Night's Dream. When she'd announced it was time for a quiz, the rest of the class groaned—quietly. Although the bats had been confined to the gym and the classroom vents were sealed tight, Ms. Minerva's students still looked at the vents with distrust. No one wanted to risk setting off another hurricane of bats. Po didn't mind the quiz, though. He loved Shakespeare. He sometimes struggled with reading. His mind was always moving in three directions at once. He had trouble focusing on long passages about how butter was made, or poetic descriptions

阿宝想知道在那个村子里有什么惊喜在等着他们。 当然，奥巴马总统的竞选没有什么意外。 密涅瓦关于仲夏夜之梦的突击测验。 当她宣布测验时间到了时，全班同学都小声地呻吟起来。 尽管球拍被限制在体育馆里，教室的通风口也被封得严严实实。 密涅瓦的学生们仍然不信任地看着通风口。 没有人想冒险引发另一场蝙蝠飓风。 不过阿宝并不介意这个小测验。 他喜欢莎士比亚。他有时阅读困难。 他的思想总是同时向三个方向移动。 他很难专注于冗长的关于黄油是如何制作的段落，或者诗意的描述

of sunlight reflecting just so off a tin roof. But Shakespeare wrote plays. A Midsummer Night's Dream was mostly dialogue between characters, plus some speeches called monologues. There were cases of mistaken identity, and one character was transformed into a donkey. Po loved that stuff. He could imagine himself playing any of those roles. He could imagine giving those speeches and feeling what the characters were feeling. He approached gaming the same way. He didn't just play as himself, as a kid named Po Chen. He imagined himself as a warrior, or a wizard, or a superhero. It's why he was always

阳光反射在铁皮屋顶上。 但是莎士比亚写剧本。 《仲夏夜之梦》主要是人物之间的对话，加上一些被称为独白的演讲。 有认错人的案例，其中一个角色被变成了一头驴子。 阿宝喜欢这些东西。他可以想象自己扮演其中任何一个角色。 他可以想象自己在做这些演讲，感受剧中人物的感受。 他以同样的方式接触游戏。 他不只是扮演自己，扮演一个叫Po Chen的孩子。 他把自己想象成一个战士，一个巫师，或者一个超级英雄。 这就是为什么他总是

trying out new skins in Minecraft. Each one felt like an invitation to be a different personfor a little while. With basketball canceled until the bats were dealt with, Po wondered if he should try out for the school play. But would the drama kids accept him? Would the rest of the school? Sometimes Po worried that people only liked him because he was so good at basketball. What if he tried acting and he wasn't any good at it? "Pencils down, class," Ms. Minerva said softly. Another small groan rippled through the classroom. Po looked up to be sure, but the air- conditioning vent remained solidly in place. The bats were still in the gym, then. Po had another day off from basketball practice. Part of him felt guilty about how glad he was.

在我的世界里尝试新的皮肤。 每一个都像是一个邀请，让我在一段时间内做一个不同的人。 在球棒被处理掉之前，篮球取消了，阿宝想知道他是否应该参加学校的演出。 但是戏剧班的孩子们会接受他吗？ 学校的其他人会吗？ 有时阿宝担心人们喜欢他只是因为他篮球打得很好。 如果他试着演戏，却不擅长呢？ “同学们，放下铅笔。” 密涅瓦轻声说。另一声轻微的呻吟声在教室里荡起涟漪。 阿宝抬头看了看，但空调的通风口还在原地。 那时候球棒还在体育馆。 阿宝又从篮球训练中休息了一天。 他对自己的高兴感到有点内疚。

While the rest of the school was barely putting up with the bats, Doc Culpepper used them as inspiration for a lesson. "A huge part of a scientist's job is observing," she told the class. "You've all been around these animals. What have you observed about them? Ash?" "Well, they fly. Like birds do. But they have fur instead of feathers. They're obviously mammals." "That's right," said Doc, rubbing her hands together. "And like other mammals, they give birth to their live young and nurse them with milk. They don't lay eggs the way birds do. What else?" "They sleep all day," said Jodi. "Lucky!" Po said. "Correct," said Doc. "They're nocturnal. In other words, they're active at night and sleep during the day. If you were to wait in the school parking lot until dusk, you'd see the whole colony flying away from the gymnasium. They go out at night to hunt bugs to eat. What else? Morgan?" "They're blind," he said.

当学校里的其他人几乎不能忍受蝙蝠的时候，卡尔佩珀博士把它们作为一堂课的灵感。 “科学家工作的很大一部分就是观察，”她对学生们说。 “你们都接触过这些动物。 你对他们有什么观察？ 灰?”“嗯，它们会飞。就像鸟儿一样。 但是它们有皮毛而不是羽毛。 它们显然是哺乳动物。” “没错，”医生搓着双手说。 “像其他哺乳动物一样，它们生下幼崽，用奶喂养它们。 它们不像鸟类那样下蛋。 还有什么?”“他们整天都在睡觉，”乔迪说。 “算你走运!”阿宝说。“对，”医生说。 “他们夜间。换句话说，它们晚上活动，白天睡觉。 如果你在学校的停车场等到黄昏，你会看到整个群体飞离体育馆。 他们晚上出去捉虫子吃。 还有什么？摩根吗?”“他们是瞎子，”他说。

"Is that something you've observed?" asked Doc. "Well, no," Morgan said. "But there's that saying 'Blind as a bat.'" "Scientists have actually disproven that," explained the teacher. "Bats can see perfectly fine. But many species do use echolocation to navigate and to track down their prey. Does anyone know how echolocation works?" Harper raised her hand. "It's a natural form of sonar," she said. "Bats make sounds, and based on how the sound echoes back to them, they're able to perceive details of their environment. Even in complete darkness."

“这是你观察到的吗？”医生问。 “哦，不，”摩根说。“但俗话说‘像蝙蝠一样瞎’。“科学家们已经证明了这一点，”老师解释说。 “蝙蝠的视力很好。 但许多物种确实利用回声定位来导航和追踪猎物。 有人知道回声定位是怎么工作的吗？”哈珀举起了手。 “这是一种自然的声纳形式，”她说。 “蝙蝠会发出声音，根据声音的回声，它们能够感知周围环境的细节。 即使在完全的黑暗中。”