Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR Very Silly Questions The more the children looked at the three questions on the blackboard, the more they felt certain they could never answer them. Moon- Face turned to Connie. "Quick! Tell us the right answers. You said you were good at lessons." Connie read the first question. "Three blackbirds sat on a cherry tree. They ate one hundred and twenty-three of the cherries. How many were left?"

第四章 傻气十足的问题 孩子们盯着黑板上的三个问题看了又看，越来越确定自己根本答不上来。 月亮脸 转头看向康妮。 “快啊！ 快把正确答案告诉我们。 你之前说你功课特别好的。” 康妮念出了第一个问题。 “三只黑鹂停在一棵樱桃树上。 它们吃了一百二十三颗樱桃。 还剩下多少颗？”

"Well, how can we say, unless we know how many there were in the beginning?" said Connie, out loud. "What a silly question!" Joe read the next one out loud. "If there are a hundred pages in a book, how many books would there be on the shelf?"

“哎呀，我们连一开始有多少颗樱桃都不知道，怎么说得出来呀？”康妮大声说道。 “这问题也太傻了！” 乔大声念出了下一个问题。 “如果一本书有一百页，那架子上会有多少本书？”

"The questions are just nonsense," said Moon-Face, gloomily. "They were before, when we were here, said Joe. The third question was very short. Joe read it out. "Why is a blackboard?"

“这些问题全是瞎胡闹嘛。”月亮脸闷闷不乐地说。 “我们上次来的时候，题目也是这样的。”乔说。 第三个问题特别短。 乔大声念了出来。 “为什么是黑板？”

"Why is a blackboard!" repeated Silky. There is no sense in that question either. "Well- the questions are nonsense, so we'll put down answers that are nonsense," said Joe.

“为什么是黑板！”希尔琪重复了一遍。 这个问题也完全讲不通啊。 “哎呀——这些问题本来就没道理，那我们就写些没道理的答案就行啦。”乔说。

So they put down "none" about how many cherries were left on the tree. Then they read the book question again. And again they put down "none'.

于是关于树上还剩多少颗樱桃的问题，他们写下了“一颗都没有”。 接着他们又读了一遍关于书的问题。 他们又一次写下了“一本都没有”。

"We are not told that the shelf was a book shelf," said Joe. "It might be a shelf for ornaments, or a bathroom shelf for glasses and toothbrushes and things. There wouldn't be any books there."

“题目又没说这个架子是书架呀。”乔说。 它可能是放装饰品的架子，也可能是浴室里放杯子、牙刷这类东西的架子。 那种架子上才不会有书呢。”