03 Unicorns Don’t Wear Pants

Unicorns Don't Wear Pants The next day after school, Stink found Judy sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor of her room, flipping the pages of The Princess in Black lightning-fast. He was eating a slice of cold pepperoni pizza. "Want some?" Judy didn't look up. Flip, flip, flip. She kept turning pages. "Check this out," said Stink. He put down the pizza. He held out his new T-shirt for her to see. It said: I READ PAST MY BEDTIME. But Judy did not look up. He tried to get her attention with a fidget spinner. But Judy did not look up. He spun it in his hand. He spun it on his nose. She still did not look up. Not one fidget. Something was strange. Something was weird. Something was not right. Her eyes were going batty.

第二天放学后，臭臭发现朱迪坐在她房间的地板上，涂着苹果酱，正飞快地翻着《黑衣公主》。 他正在吃一片冷意大利辣香肠披萨。 “想要一些吗?”朱迪没有抬头。 翻，翻，翻。她不停地翻页。 “看看这个，”臭臭说。 他放下披萨。他拿出他的新t恤给她看。 上面写着：我在睡觉前看书。 但是朱迪没有抬头。他试图用指尖陀螺引起她的注意。 但是朱迪没有抬头。他在手里旋转着。 他把它绕在鼻子上。她仍然没有抬头。 一点也不烦躁。有点奇怪。 有些事很奇怪。有些地方不对劲。 她的眼睛发疯了。

Her eyes were going bonkers. Her eyes were going cuckoo-crazy. Judy seemed to be reading, but her eyes were darting up and down like a googly-eyed pet rock. She kept flipping pages like a mad scientist. "What are you doing?" Stink asked. He took another bite of cold pizza. "I'm trying to read three-and-a-half times faster than I do now," said Judy. "Speed-reading?" said Stink. "You mean you can learn to read supersonic fast? Just like that?" "Yep. Speed-reading is a real thing, you know. Lots of presidents were speed-readers. John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter could both read more than one thousand words a minute!" "I know for a fact that George Washington was not a speed-reader." "Why not?" "He must have been a super-slow reader because he had a library book that was overdue for two hundred and twenty-one years."

她的眼睛发疯了。 她的眼睛发狂了。 茱蒂似乎在看书，但她的眼睛却像一只大眼睛的宠物石头一样上下跳动。 她像个疯狂的科学家一样不停地翻页。 “你在干什么？”臭问道。 他又吃了一口冷披萨。 “我正努力以比现在快3.5倍的速度阅读，”朱迪说。 “速读？”臭臭说。 “你的意思是你可以学会超高速阅读？” 就这样吗？”“是的。你知道，快速阅读是真的。 很多总统都是快速阅读者。 约翰·f·肯尼迪和吉米·卡特每分钟都能读1000多个单词！”“我知道乔治·华盛顿不是一个读得很快的人。” “为什么不?”“他一定是一个阅读速度很慢的人，因为他有一本图书馆的书已经过期221年了。”

Judy cracked up. "What!?" "They said the late fine would have added up to three hundred thousand dollars." "See? George Washington could have saved himself a ton of money if he had just taught himself to speed-read." "Yeah, then it wouldn't have taken him more than two hundred years to read the book." "Guess what," said Judy. "There's a for-real speed-reading champ named Anne Jones who read Harry Potter Book Seven in forty-seven minutes." "That sounds made up," said Stink. "For real. No lie!" "Yeah, but I bet she's a grown-up. No way a kid could do that." "I heard about a fourth-grader who can read forty

朱迪大笑起来。“什么! ?”“他们说迟交的罚款加起来会达到30万美元。” “看到了吗?乔治·华盛顿如果能学会快速阅读，就能省下一大笔钱。” “是啊，那么他读这本书用不了两百年。” “你猜怎么着，”朱迪说。“有一个真正的速读冠军，名叫安妮·琼斯，她在47分钟内读完了《哈利·波特》第七部。” “听起来像是编出来的。”臭臭说。 “真的。没有撒谎!”“是的，但我打赌她是个成年人。 一个孩子不可能做到这一点。” “我听说一个四年级的学生能读四十字

one pages in thirty seconds." "Whoa," said Stink. "Pretty soon, I'll be reading at the speed of light. Then I'm going to teach Grandma Lou. That way, she can finally read the longest Harry Potter book and cross it off her before-she-dies bucket list." "Sweet," said Stink. "Can you teach me, too?" "Sure," said Judy. "So, right now you probably read a book word by word, one sentence at a time, right?" "Uh-huh. How else would I do it? Putting a book under your pillow and hoping the words fly into your brain sure doesn't work." "Don't read word by word anymore." "Huh?" "Read in 'jumps.'" "How does jumping up and down make you read faster?" "No, jumps are like chunks of words. It lets your brain take in more words all at once." "I don't get it," said Stink. "Think of a tree. When you look at a tree, do you see every leaf or a whole tree?" "A whole tree," said Stink.

30秒一页。” “哇，”臭臭说。“很快，我就能以光速阅读了。 然后我要去教卢奶奶。 这样，她终于可以读到最长的《哈利波特》，并在她死前把它从她的遗愿清单上划掉。” “太好了，”臭臭说。“你也能教我吗？”“当然，”朱迪说。 “所以，现在你可能是逐字逐句地读一本书，对吧？”“嗯。 我还能怎么做呢？把一本书放在枕头下，希望这些文字飞进你的大脑，这是行不通的。” “不要再逐字读了。” “嗯?”“阅读跳跃。’”“上蹿下跳是怎么让你读得更快的？”“不，跳跃就像大块的单词。 它可以让你的大脑一次吸收更多的单词。” “我不明白，”臭臭说。 “想象一棵树。当你看一棵树的时候，你看到的是每一片叶子还是整棵树？”“整棵树。”臭臭说。

"Speed-reading is like that. You look at a whole page at once instead of looking at one word at a time. Here, I'll show you. Take your finger and run it down the middle of the page. Make your eyes go down the page at the same speed as your finger. Whatever you do, don't go back. That will slow you down." Judy handed Stink her book. He took his finger and ran it down the middle of the page. His finger left behind a bright-orange greasy streak. "Stink! You just got pizza all over a library book." "Oops," said Stink. "This is worse than the time Ramona scribbled in Beezus's library book. You're going to have to pay for a whole new book, you know." Stink shuddered. "Here, I can fix this." He grabbed Judy's pencil with a troll doll eraser on the end. He started to erase the orange streak.

速读就是这样。 你一次看一整页，而不是一次看一个词。 来，我示范给你看。用你的手指从这一页的中间往下划。 让你的眼睛以与手指相同的速度浏览页面。 不管你做什么，都不要回去。 这会让你慢下来。”朱迪把她的书递给臭臭。 他用手指顺着这一页的中间划了下来。 他的手指上留下了一道鲜橙色的油迹。 “臭!你在图书馆的书里到处都是披萨。” “哎呀，”臭臭说。“这比拉蒙娜在比祖斯图书馆的书上乱涂乱画那次还糟糕。 你要知道，你得花钱买一本全新的书。” 臭战栗。“这里，我可以解决这个问题。” 他抓起朱迪的铅笔，铅笔末端有一个巨魔娃娃橡皮擦。 他开始擦掉橙色条纹。

"Stink! That's not an eraser. That's a troll pencil topper—" Rrrip! The page ripped. "Uh-oh," said Judy. "You just made it worse." "Uh-oh," said Stink. "There goes that two-dollar bill I just found. Unless... I could just never return the book and it would be overdue for like two hundred twenty-one years." Judy held her hand to her ear like a phone. "Hello, Jail," she said, "this is Stink."

“臭!那不是橡皮擦。 那是一个巨魔笔头——“呸！这页纸撕破了。 “哦哦，”朱迪说。“你只会让事情变得更糟。” “哦哦，”臭臭说。“我刚找到的那张两美元钞票不见了。 除非…我再也不能还书了，它可能会过期221年。” 朱迪把手放在耳朵上，像接电话一样。 “你好，监狱，”她说，“我是臭臭。”