8. The Universe Is Boring

8 The Universe Is Boring I had to admit the girls won the campfire contest fair and square. When both fires died down a little, Miss Blake got hot dogs from her backpack, and we cooked them. Yum! Then she got out a bag of marshmallows for us to toast. Double yum! I ate so

我不得不承认女孩们光明正大地赢得了篝火竞赛。 当两团火都稍稍熄灭时，布莱克小姐从背包里拿出热狗，我们把它们煮了。 Yum !然后她拿出一袋棉花糖给我们烤。 双yum !我吃了这么多

many marshmallows, I thought I was gonna throw up. It was the greatest night of my life. It was getting dark out. Miss Blake said she was going to rest in her tent, but we could spread our sleeping bags on the ground and talk for a while. We were all lying on our backs looking at the sky. It was filled with stars. And it was weirdly quiet. There were no cars. No TVs. No noise. "Isn't this peaceful?" asked Emily. "Yeah," everybody replied. "What do you see when you look up at the stars?" asked Andrea. "I see stars," said Ryan. "Maybe we'll see a shooting star," said Michael. "Just think," said Andrea. "Those stars are billions of miles away. If the sun

棉花糖太多了，我都快吐了。 那是我一生中最美好的夜晚。 外面天黑了。布莱克小姐说她要在帐篷里休息，但我们可以把睡袋摊开在地上，聊一会儿天。 我们都仰面躺着望着天空。 它布满了星星。而且出奇地安静。 没有汽车。没有电视。 没有噪音。“这不是很平静吗？”爱米丽问。 “是的，”每个人都回答。 “当你仰望星空的时候，你看到了什么？”安德烈问。 “我看到星星了，”瑞恩说。“也许我们会看到一颗流星，”迈克尔说。 “想想看，”安德烈说。 “那些恒星在数十亿英里之外。 如果太阳

exploded, we wouldn't know it for eight minutes. That's how long it would take for the light to reach our eyes." "I'm scared," said Emily. "The universe is so big," said Alexia. "Where do you think it ends?" asked Neil.

爆炸了，我们八分钟后才知道。 这就是光线到达我们眼睛所需要的时间。” “我很害怕，”艾米丽说。“宇宙太大了，”亚历克西亚说。 尼尔问：“你认为它在哪里结束？”

"Nobody knows," said Ryan. "Maybe it never ends," said Michael. "It can't go on forever," said Andrea. "It's got to end somewhere." What a snoozefest. All this talk about the universe was boring. "Hey, let's tell ghost stories," I suggested. Ghost stories are cool, way cooler than talking about the universe. "I'm scared," said Emily. "Don't be scared," said Andrea. "Ghost stories are just stories. They're not real." "I'll start!" I said, sitting up so everybody could see me. I picked up my flashlight and held it under my chin, pointing up at my face.* "Okay," I said. "Here's the story. There was this boy..."

“没人知道，”瑞恩说。 “也许永远不会结束，”迈克尔说。 “不可能永远这样下去，”安德烈说。 “总有一天会结束的。” 真是个懒虫。所有关于宇宙的讨论都很无聊。 “嘿，我们来讲鬼故事吧，”我建议道。 鬼故事很酷，比谈论宇宙要酷得多。 “我很害怕，”艾米丽说。“别害怕，”安德烈说。 “鬼故事只是故事。 它们不是真的。”“我要开始了!”我说着坐了起来，好让每个人都能看到我。 我拿起手电筒，举在下巴下面，对准自己的脸。“好吧，”我说。 故事是这样的。有个男孩……”

"Yeah?" everybody said. "And he was out in the woods on an overnight," I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. "Like us." "Yeah?" "And it was pitch-dark. Just like now." "Yeah? "What happened next?" asked Andrea.

“是吗？”大家都说。“他在树林里过夜了。”我压低声音说。 “像我们这样的。”“是吗?”当时一片漆黑。 就像现在一样。”“是吗?“后来发生了什么事？”安德烈问。

"A ghost came along and murdered him," I said. "The end." "That's your story?" asked Andrea. "It's a short story," I told her. "I cut out all the boring parts." "Dude, that ghost story was lame," said Michael. I said that if nobody liked my ghost story, they could tell a ghost story of their own. And somebody would have. But that's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. There was a noise behind us. We turned around. It was a bear!

“一个鬼魂来了，把他杀了，”我说。 “结束”。“这就是你的故事？”安德烈问。 “这是一个简短的故事，”我告诉她。 “我把所有无聊的部分都删掉了。” “老兄，那个鬼故事太逊了，”迈克尔说。 我说如果没人喜欢我的鬼故事，他们可以讲一个他们自己的鬼故事。 有人会这么做的。但就在那时，世界历史上最奇怪的事情发生了。 我们身后有声音。 我们转过身来。那是一只熊！