Chapter 8

Chapter eight I stuck my hand in the air and waved it around wildly, trying to get Ms. Smiley's attention. At last, she noticed and came stomping over to me. "What is it now, young man?" she asked. "Do you have a blender I can use?" I asked. "There is a blender on the counter right in front of you," she snapped. "Oh, right," I said. "Sometimes I can't do two things at once—like think and look." "I suggest you concentrate," she said. "You're wasting precious time." She was right. I noticed that Judith Ann was already putting her meatballs into the pot.

我把手举在空中，疯狂地挥舞着，想把她拉过来。 笑脸的注意。最后，她注意到了，跺着脚向我走来。 “怎么了，年轻人？”她问。 “你有我可以用的搅拌机吗？”我问。 “你面前的柜台上就有一台搅拌机，”她厉声说。 “哦，对了，”我说。“有时我不能同时做两件事，比如思考和观察。” “我建议你集中精神，”她说。 “你在浪费宝贵的时间。” 她是对的。我注意到朱迪思·安已经把肉丸子放进锅里了。

I scooped up all the pieces of my chopped lunch and carefully dropped them into the blender jar. Then I pulled the straw from the carton of chocolate milk and poked it inside. Turning the carton upside down, I squeezed it and watched the milk squirt into the blender through the straw. I made sure I got every last drop out of the carton. "It's showtime!" I called to Judith Ann. With a big grin, I pushed the blender's start button. Oops! I had forgotten to put the top on. Chocolate milk and bananas and cookies and chunks of sandwich flew out the top of the blender and landed smack in the middle of my face. A few chunks sprayed on Judith Ann's counter.

我舀起所有切碎的午餐碎片，小心翼翼地放进搅拌器的罐子里。 然后我把吸管从巧克力牛奶盒里抽出来，戳了进去。 我把纸盒倒过来，挤了挤，看着牛奶通过吸管喷进搅拌器。 我确保把纸盒里的每一滴都喝光了。 “这是showtime !”我打电话给朱迪思·安。 我咧着嘴笑，按下了搅拌机的启动按钮。 哦!我忘了把上衣穿上。 巧克力牛奶、香蕉、饼干和大块的三明治从搅拌器的顶部飞了出来，正好落在我的脸上。 有几块溅到了朱迪思·安的柜台上。

"Henry!" she cried. "Turn off the blender and put the top on. Don't get your mess on my meatballs!" I switched off the blender and put as much of the goop as I could back inside. "Six-minute warning," Ms. Smiley called over the loudspeaker. I put the top back on the blender and turned it on. At least everything stayed inside this time. I stood there watching my lunch swirl around in the blender jar. The banana, the peanut butter

“亨利！”关掉搅拌机，盖上盖子。 别把你的脏东西弄到我的肉丸上！”我关掉了搅拌机，把尽可能多的浆糊倒回里面。 “警告六分钟，”斯迈利通过扩音器喊道。 我把搅拌器的盖子盖上，打开了它。 至少这次所有的东西都留在里面了。 我站在那里，看着我的午餐在搅拌器罐里打转。 香蕉，花生酱

and jelly sandwich, and the cookies turned to liquid, blending with the chocolate milk to make a thick, frothy smoothie. "Look at that," I said, pointing to the glass jar of the blender. "It's a work of art." "It's a mess," Judith Ann said. "Fine cooking is not throwing things into a blender and hoping for the best." "I'm not hoping for the best," I snapped back. "It is the best." Truthfully, I had no idea what my smoothie was going to taste like. It did turn a pretty ugly shade of mud brown, not a color that makes your taste buds stand up and say hello. I poured my smoothie into two glasses, one for each judge, and put each glass on its own little plate. "Psst, Hank," I heard Ashley call from the audience. "I watch cooking shows on TV all the time. The winners always make their dish look pretty. You need to dress those plates up." The only thing I could think of was the half- eaten box of gummy bears in my backpack. I

和果冻三明治，饼干变成液体，和巧克力牛奶混合在一起，做成了浓稠、多泡沫的奶昔。 “看那个，”我指着搅拌器的玻璃罐说。 “这是一件艺术品。”“真是一团糟，”朱迪思·安说。 “好的烹饪不是把东西扔进搅拌器，然后期待最好的。” “我不抱最好的希望，”我厉声回答。 “这是最好的。”说实话，我根本不知道我的冰沙会是什么味道。 它确实变成了一种非常难看的泥棕色，这种颜色不会让你的味蕾站起来向你打招呼。 我把我的冰沙倒进两个杯子里，每个评委一个杯子，然后把每个杯子都放在自己的小盘子里。 “嘘，汉克。”我听到观众席上的阿什利喊道。 “我一直在看电视上的烹饪节目。 获胜者总是把他们的菜做得很漂亮。 你得把这些盘子打扮一下。” 我唯一能想到的就是背包里那盒吃了一半的小熊软糖。 我

left my station and ran to get it. Of course, it wasn't where I thought I had put it. I had to unzip every little pocket until I found it buried beneath my crumpled-up spelling test. (By the way, I got a D-minus, which is better than an F.) When I returned to the counter, I emptied the box into my hand and spread the colorful gummy bears around the edge of the plates. Ashley was right. All of a sudden, my smoothies looked like a party on a plate. Now all I had to do was wait for the judges. When the buzzer rang, the two judges appeared. "Our first judge is Maxine Nosebomb, the head pastry chef at Café Sweetooth," Ms. Smiley announced. Ms. Nosebomb waved her hand at us.

离开我的工作岗位，跑去取钱。 当然，它不是我以为我把它放在的地方。 我不得不打开每一个小口袋的拉链，直到我发现它埋在我皱巴巴的拼写试卷下面。 （顺便说一下，我得了d -，比f好。）当我回到柜台时，我把盒子里的东西倒在手里，把彩色的小熊软糖铺在盘子边上。 艾希礼是对的。突然间，我的冰沙看起来就像盘子里的派对。 现在我要做的就是等评委们来。 当蜂鸣器响起时，两位裁判出现了。 “我们的第一位评委是Maxine Nosebomb， caf<s:1> Sweetooth的首席糕点师。” 笑脸宣布。鼻子炸弹女士向我们挥了挥手。

"Our other judge," Ms. Smiley continued, "is Bob Bones, master chef of one of our city's finest restaurants, Robert's Kitchen." He looked like he was going to be a strict judge. I stood at my station while the two judges went down the row, starting at kitchen station number one. They stopped and chatted with each junior chef, including Goggle Girl and Crying Onion Boy. At each chef's station, the judges took one bite of the dish and made notes on their clipboards. When they got to Judith Ann, I could see that her hands were shaking. She tried to smile, but her lips were

“我们的另一位评委，”斯迈利接着说，“是鲍勃·博恩斯（Bob Bones），他是本市最好的餐厅之一罗伯特厨房（Robert’s Kitchen）的主厨。” 他看起来要成为一个严厉的法官。 我站在自己的位置上，两位评委从第一排厨房台开始。 他们停下来和每一位初级厨师聊天，包括“眼镜女孩”和“哭泣的洋葱男孩”。 在每个厨师站，评委们尝了一口，然后在他们的剪贴板上做了记录。 当他们走到朱迪思·安身边时，我看到她的手在颤抖。 她试图微笑，但她的嘴唇