18 Perfectly Rotten

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN PERFECTLY ROTTEN Entropy (noun). The randomness of molecules, like how many different ways they can totally rearrange themselves during a reaction. Sort of like all the different ways a bunch of kids can move their desks to confuse a substitute teacher. AFTER EVERYONE TOOK A BREAK, loud groans echoed from the lighting booth. Obviously, Elijah and his crew still couldn't figure out how to fix the lights. On the stage, which I'd been lighting with the flashlight from my emergency kit, two unicorns held their horns in place. The others had given up. A half dozen horns lay in a jumbled heap on the floor, like some unicorn horn junkyard. With a deep sigh, Mrs. Hansberry frowned at her watch. "Elijah, please turn on the house lights." Instantly, the theater was no longer dark, and the magical illusion of Unicornland disappeared. The hulking volcanoes were just giant cardboard

第十八章完全腐烂的熵（名词）。 分子的随机性，比如在一个反应过程中，它们可以以多少种不同的方式重新排列自己。 就像一群孩子移动课桌来迷惑代课老师一样。 大家休息了一会儿，灯光棚里传来了巨大的呻吟声。 很明显，以利亚和他的手下仍然不知道如何修理这些灯。 在我用急救箱里的手电筒照亮的舞台上，两只独角兽把它们的角固定在原地。 其他人都放弃了。六只角乱七八糟地堆在地板上，就像某个独角兽角的垃圾场。 汉斯伯里太太深深地叹了口气，皱起眉头看了看表。 “以利亚，请把屋里的灯打开。” 顷刻间，剧院里不再黑暗，独角兽世界的魔幻幻境也消失了。 巨大的火山只是巨大的硬纸板

rectangles. The rainbow was clearly only a cellophane banner. "I'm afraid I'm going to end rehearsal a tad early, before anything else breaks," said Mrs. Hansberry. "Everyone is on edge. Why don't you all run around the field for some good fresh air before your parents pick you up?" A bunch of kids went outside to play a game of pick-up soccer. Normally, I would have joined them, but I needed some space. Even though that only made me feel worse. Settling next to a sugar maple tree with golden and red leaves, I breathed in the cool October air. Sure, it was a bit nippy, but that would help me think more clearly. Underneath my legs, the bumpy knots from the roots of the maple made me feel like I wasn't alone. Actually, I wasn't. Birdie sat silently across from me with her sketch pad balanced on her knees. "What are you working on?" I asked. "You'll see." She wiggled her fingers in the air as if she were about to do a card trick. I opened up my biography about Marie Curie, who won two Nobel Prizes for science. It didn't take

矩形。彩虹显然只是一张玻璃纸做成的横幅。 “恐怕我得早一点结束排练，免得有什么东西坏掉，”汉斯伯里太太说。 “每个人都很紧张。在你们的父母来接你们之前，你们为什么不在操场上跑一圈，呼吸点新鲜空气呢？”一群孩子到外面去玩临时足球。 通常我会加入他们，但我需要点空间。 尽管那只会让我感觉更糟。 我坐在一棵红叶金黄的糖枫树旁，呼吸着十月的凉爽空气。 的确，天气有点冷，但这能帮助我更清楚地思考。 在我的腿下，枫树根部凹凸不平的结让我觉得我并不孤单。 事实上，我没有。伯迪静静地坐在我对面，她的速写本放在膝盖上。 “你在忙什么？”我问。 “你会看到的。”她在空中挥动着手指，好像要变戏法似的。 我打开了玛丽·居里的传记，她获得了两次诺贝尔科学奖。 它不需要

me long to get lost in those pages. Wow, Marie Curie was unstoppable. Back when girls couldn't study science in universities in Poland, she met with friends in secret locations that they called a flying university. They moved from building to building, so they wouldn't get caught. I tried to imagine my life if chemistry were off-limits. No more reading science books or watching Dr. Caroline. Worst of all, no more experiments. Whenever I got frustrated, my dad always told me to go outside and blow off some steam. Only sometimes you could be just as frustrated outside as inside. Like Birdie sitting next to me. With a frustrated grunt, she crumpled a sheet from her pad. "C'mon. It can't be that bad." I reached to pick up the paper, but Birdie grabbed it away. "Oh, it is. Trust me." "You working on arms again?" Birdie hasn't figured out arms yet, so she makes all of her people with their hands behind their back. "I'm drawing a unicorn. Mrs. Hansberry asked me to make one for the cover of the program." "Wow, Birdie. That's awesome. You're great at unicorns."

我渴望迷失在那些书页里。 哇，玛丽·居里是不可阻挡的。 当波兰的女孩还不能在大学里学习科学的时候，她和朋友们在一个被称为飞行大学的秘密地点见面。 他们从一栋楼搬到另一栋楼，这样就不会被抓到。 我试着想象如果化学是禁区，我的生活会是怎样。 不能再看科学书籍，也不能再看Dr。 卡洛琳。最糟糕的是，再也没有实验了。 每当我感到沮丧时，我爸爸总是告诉我到外面去发泄一下。 只是有时候你的内心和外在一样沮丧。 比如坐在我旁边的小鸟。 她沮丧地哼了一声，从便笺簿上把一张纸揉成一团。 “来吧。不可能那么糟糕。” 我伸手去捡那张纸，但伯迪把它夺了过去。 “哦，是的。相信我。”“你又在练胳膊了？”小鸟还没学会手臂，所以她让她所有的人都把手放在背后。 “我在画一只独角兽。汉斯伯里太太让我为节目封面做一张。” “哇,小鸟。太棒了。 你对独角兽很在行。”

"I just can't get the proportions right on this one." "You'll figure it out. I know it." I could see the hint of a smile. And some of the geese in the sky honked as if they agreed. Soon I went back inside the theater to check in with Mrs. Hansberry about the plans for tomorrow. Thursday was going to be the rehearsal where everyone was working very hard to be off-book. Mrs. Hansberry also told me that she expected the dress rehearsal to go much better on Friday. But not too much better. "In theater, the rule is if you have a terrible dress rehearsal," she explained in her calm soothing voice, "you'll have a wonderful opening night. And given that our opening night is also our closing night, that's a comforting thought." As she handed me a checklist of things to do, I tried to relax. Mrs. Hansberry placed her clipboard in her bag and grabbed her coat. "Expect the dress rehearsal to be a rather interesting day as we work out the wrinkles. Prepare for Murphy's Law." "Is that a science thing?" "Not exactly. More like folk wisdom created by a pessimist. According to Murphy's Law, whatever can go wrong will go wrong."

“我就是不能把这个比例调对。” “你会明白的。我知道。” 我能看到一丝微笑。 天空中的一些鹅叫了起来，好像它们也同意了。 不久，我回到剧院，向汉斯伯里太太确认明天的计划。 周四将是彩排，每个人都非常努力地工作，以脱离剧本。 汉斯伯里太太还告诉我，她预计星期五的彩排会顺利得多。 但也好不到哪里去。“在剧院，规则是，如果你有一个糟糕的彩排，”她用平静舒缓的声音解释说，“你会有一个精彩的首演之夜。 考虑到我们的开幕之夜也是闭幕之夜，这是一个令人欣慰的想法。” 当她递给我一张要做的事情清单时，我试着放松下来。 汉斯伯里太太把写字板放进包里，抓起外套。 “预计彩排将是相当有趣的一天，因为我们会弄出皱纹。 准备好接受墨菲定律吧。” “这是科学的东西吗？”“不完全是。 更像是悲观主义者创造的民间智慧。 根据墨菲定律，任何可能出错的事情都会出错。”

"Hey, that sounds like entropy. You know, the principle that everything will naturally become a mess." "They do sound similar, don't they?" As I started to grab my backpack to leave, Elijah emerged from the lighting booth. "Are things better?" I asked, although I figured with Murphy's Law they shouldn't be. "With Mr. Anderson's help, yes," he said. Mr. Anderson was a dad volunteering in the booth. "We figured out it was a frayed cord that made the whole thing go kablooey." "Like our nerves." "Yeah." "That's good it's all fixed." Actually, it was bad. I was the assistant director. I shouldn't have left to go outside, even though Mrs. Hansberry had encouraged me to do so. It was my job to make sure everything was okay. When I grabbed my backpack, I drew in a sharp breath. "Ah! Not again!" Sticky globs of glue clung to the outside of my zippered compartments. At least this time it was my bag and not my mom's. And I could tell it was the

“嘿，这听起来像熵。 你知道，一切都会自然而然地变得一团糟。” “它们听起来确实很像，不是吗？”正当我拿起背包准备离开时，以利亚从灯台里走了出来。 “情况好转了吗？”我问，尽管我认为根据墨菲定律，他们不应该是这样。 “在安德森先生的帮助下，是的，”他说。 安德森先生是位自愿在展台上做志愿者的父亲。 “我们发现是一根磨损的绳子导致了整个系统的爆炸。” “比如我们的神经。”“是的。” “太好了，都修好了。” 事实上，它很糟糕。我是副导演。 我不应该离开家到外面去，尽管汉斯伯里太太鼓励我这么做。 我的职责是确保一切正常。 当我抓起背包时，我深深地吸了一口气。 “啊!不了!”粘胶团粘在我的拉链车厢外面。 至少这次是我的包，不是我妈妈的。 我能看出来那是

theater glue. That's what I got for sticking horns on unicorns all afternoon. Later in my mom's minivan on the way home, I thought about all the stuff that went wrong and what I could do tomorrow to make it better. I tapped my chin quickly. Okay, more like frantically. "What's up, Kate?" asked Mom, who definitely could read minds. I didn't want to admit that it had been a really tough day. That somehow it felt a little bit like my fault. If I knew what I was doing as assistant director, I could have helped out more. It was the assistant director's job to keep the show together. To keep things moving as efficiently as an enzyme. Enzymes break down and build molecules snappy quick. And all I was doing was the first part. But I could do better. I knew I could. And I knew I would. First problem to tackle? Unicorn horn glue.

剧院胶水。这就是我整个下午给独角兽粘角的结果。 后来，在回家的路上，我坐在妈妈的小货车里，想着所有出了问题的东西，想着明天我能做些什么来改善它。 我迅速拍了拍下巴。好吧，更像是疯狂。 “怎么了，凯特？”妈妈问，她肯定能读心术。 我不想承认这真是难熬的一天。 这感觉有点像我的错。 如果我知道我作为副导演在做什么，我就能帮得更多。 助理导演的工作就是让这部剧保持完整。 让物质像酶一样高效运转。 酶分解并快速生成分子。 我所做的只是第一部分。 但我可以做得更好。我知道我可以。 我知道我会的。首先要解决的问题是什么？ 独角兽角胶。