Off to Join the Circus

Off to Join the Circus. Written by Bertie Stark.

出发去加入马戏团。 作者：伯蒂·斯达克。

I'm back. My name is Birdie, and I just finished second grade. When school lets out for the summer, I'm off to join the circus. Okay, I'm really off to circus camp. I went last summer when I was seven. For ten days, we learned how to do things that I'd never done before. Then, at the end of camp, we put on a big show. It was so fun, I came back this year.

我回来啦。 我叫伯迪，刚上完二年级。 放暑假啦，我要去加入马戏团咯。 其实呀，我真正要去的是马戏团夏令营。 去年我七岁的时候去过一次。 那十天里，我们学了好多我从前从没做过的事。 夏令营结束的时候，我们办了一场盛大的演出。 太好玩了，所以我今年又来了。

Taiko. Our first class of the day is taiko, great drum in Japanese. We wheel out 13 large wooden drums to the center of the Marley. That's the type of floor we work on. Almost everything we do takes place on the Marley. With two or three kids to a drum, we do a drum roll with the tips of our index fingers, pretending they're drumsticks. Next, one of our teachers hands out the real botchy, the straight wooden sticks used to play taiko drums.

太鼓。 我们今天第一节课是太鼓，太鼓在日语里就是大鼓的意思。 我们把十三只大大的木鼓推到玛利场地中央。 这就是我们练习用的地板类型。 我们几乎所有练习都在玛利场地上进行。 一只鼓分给两到三个小朋友，我们用食指指尖假装鼓槌练习滚奏。 接着，老师给我们分发真正的鼓棒，就是敲太鼓用的直木棒。

When our teacher gives the command, Hi, we beat our drums in unison. 13 big drums with 30 drummers beating on them make a mighty sound. At the end of class, we bow to our teacher. Then it's on to something completely different.

老师一声令下“嗨”，我们就一齐敲起鼓来。 十三只大鼓，三十个鼓手一齐敲击，发出震耳的轰鸣。 下课的时候，我们向老师鞠躬。 接下来我们要去上完全不一样的课程了。

Aerial silks. Aerial means in the air and during silks class that's where we spend our time. The silks are pieces of strong black fabric that hang from the ceiling of the gym about 20 feet

空中绸缎。 空中就是在天上的意思，绸缎课我们全程都待在空中。 绸缎是结实的黑布条，挂在体育馆天花板上，离地面大约二十英尺。

Some kids, like me, can climb to the top of the silks. That's fun. But what we're learning to do is not just climb the silks, but also hang from them. There are lots of different ways to hang, by our feet, by our arms, but they all involve locking the silk around some part of our bodies. Once the silk is locked, it will hold us safely, whether we're 20 feet or 2 feet off the ground.

有些小朋友，比如我，可以爬到绸缎的最顶端。 可好玩了。 不过我们要学的不只是爬绸缎，还要吊在绸缎上。 吊的方法有好多种，用脚吊、用手臂吊，每种都要把绸缎固定在身体的某个部位。 只要绸缎固定好，不管我们离地面是二十英尺还是两英尺，都能稳稳托住我们。