今天豹豹想重温一下bbc的英剧《月亮宝石》所以就更一章，选的是这本书中比较有名的米饭三明治。
A Rice Sandwich
The special kids, the ones who wear keys around their necks, get to eat in the canteen. The canteen! Even the name sounds important.
那些脖子里套着钥匙的孩子，离家远的孩子都吃食堂，哇，食堂。听起来就是一个不得了的地方。
cantee多指学校或公司附属的食堂餐厅。与cafeteria不一样，后者更高级一些，也更多是商业性质的。cafe就是其简写，上面有个小撇。
The canteen! Even the name sounds important.是因为canteen来自于法文，小孩子会觉得听起来很洋气(此注释来自译本)
My home isn’t far but it’s not close either, and somehow I got it in my head one day to ask my mother to make me a sandwich and write a note to the principal so I could eat in the canteen too.
小主人公实在是太羡慕了，突然有一天就有了也想在学校餐厅吃饭的经历。于是缠着妈妈要去。
Next thing you know everybody will be wanting a bag lunch—I’ll be up all night cutting bread into little triangles, this one with mayonnaise, this one with mustard, no pickles on mine, but mustard on one side please. You kids just like to invent more work for me.
妈妈永远是家里最操心最辛苦的一个。"今天你要去吃食堂，明天每个人都要嚷嚷带盒饭了"家里妈妈忙着做三明治，有的要蛋黄酱，有的要芥末酱，，有的不要泡菜但要一面抹上芥末酱。太难伺候了。
但是小主人公马上讲道理，妹妹不会喜欢在学校吃饭的，她自己说过。她喜欢回家和Gloria玩，她家有个大彩电(a big colour T.V.)，家里的两个男孩子在童子军团，他们喜欢在户外的冷风里呆着，因为他们要学斯巴达三百勇士。They think suffering is good for you ever since they saw that movie 300 Spartans.
说起斯巴达，想起偶然听的一个片段，配上背景乐太好听了。但是电影评价不高。
Spartan! -Yes, milady? -Come back with your shield or on it. Yes, milady.
"Goodbye, my love."He doesn't say it.
There is no room for softness,not in Sparta.No place for weakness.
Only the hard and strong may call them Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong.
We march. For our lands, for our families, for our freedoms. We match.
这一段剧本加进来有点怪怪的，不过这一段的确很悲壮，豹豹忍不住就打下来了。当然电影是悲剧。(电影真的不好看，不推荐。)
I’m no Spartan and hold up an anemic wrist to prove it. I can’t even blow up a balloon without getting dizzy.
我没那么强壮，你看我的手臂都是苍白的，吹气球都觉得缺氧头晕。
anemic本身还有贫血的意思，在了不起的盖茨比中第二章在描述Tom's girl的丈夫Wilson的时候用到了这个词。He was a blond ,spirtless man, anaemic , and faintly handsome. (此处也可以认为是lacking vigor or energy无精打采的)
注:anaemic美式常用anemic 美国人真懒啊。
以后小主人公(名字不好打，就不打了)把妈妈磨得没办法，说饭我自己做，不用洗盘子，中午你们看不着我说不定更想我等等等等，妈妈终于同意了。
Okay, okay, my mother says after three days of this. And the following morning I get to go to school with my mother’s letter and a rice sandwich because we don’t have lunch meat.
Mondays or Fridays, it doesn’t matter, mornings always go by slow and this day especially. But lunchtime came finally and I got to get in line with the stay-at-school kids.
自带的饭只是简单的米饭三明治，连肉都没有，可是这都不重要。重要的是我要在食堂吃饭了。那天周几也不记得了，只记得等待的时间太过漫长。
And then she made me stand up on a box of books and point. That one? she said, pointing to a row of ugly three-flats, the ones even the raggedy men are ashamed to go into. Yes, I nodded even though I knew that wasn’t my house and started to cry. I always cry when nuns yell at me, even if they’re not yelling.
这一段把小孩子的自尊心写得惟妙惟肖。大嬷嬷看了妈妈的字条，说你家离这不远，甚至不到四个街区，就在大路对面(across the boulevard 大街，林荫大道)，然后指着对面连流浪汉都羞于居住的一排丑陋的三户式公寓，说是那么？孩子已经难受得低下头开始哭，知道不是也不辩解了。
In the canteen, which was nothing special, lots of boys and girls watched while I cried and ate my sandwich, the bread already greasy and the rice cold.
最后嬷嬷允许她今天仅此一次在食堂吃饭，但孩子对食堂的幻想已经完全被现实冲刷得一干二净了。她吃着冰冷的米饭三明治，哭着，其他孩子就那么看着。canteen已经没有什么important和special了。
读到这有点感慨，想起了《佐贺的超级阿嬷》里面每次开运动会的盒饭。孩子的一点点尊严和幻想在大人那里或许不重要，但对于他们的成长来说，却举足轻重。
额外的一个词，a Kleenex 纸巾，世界上最早的面巾纸品牌，很多美国人保持了把面巾纸叫Kleenex的习惯，换成中文说法就是"舒洁牌"。--出自译本，算是一个文化常识。
以上就是今天的阅读了，这篇内容多了一点点，后面还有一篇Chanclas(西班牙语，表塌跟的旧鞋)就不说了。
This is really a special sad diary woven through the inner voice of a small girl, little by little,at a slow pace. Anyway, that's for today.
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