Julia always enjoyed running through The Dark Walk towards the light at the end of it. It was a dark, damp tunnel (隧道) made of smooth branches. This year she had the extra joy of showing it to her small brother, Stephen, and terrifying him as well as herself.
One day they found a hole on one side of the walk. Inside there was water, in which they perceived a panting trout (喘息的鳟鱼). They were both so excited that they were no longer afraid of the darkness as they bent down and peered at the fish panting in his tiny prison, his silver stomach going up and down like an engine; otherwise he was motionless. Julia wondered what he ate and thought of his hunger. She found him a worm.He ignored the food, and just went on panting. Bending over him, she thought how he had been in there. All the winter, in the dark tunnel, all day, all night, floating around alone.
Nobody knew how the fish got there. Her mother suggested that a bird had carried the egg. Her father thought that in the winter a small stream might have carried it down there as a baby, and it has been safe until summer came and the water began to dry up.
Before they went to bed, Stephen asked his mummy the whole story of the trout, not really interested in the actual trout, but in the story which his mum began to make up for him, and Julia, in her bed, presented her back to them and read her book. But she kept one ear cocked. "And so, in the end, this naughty fish got bigger and bigger, and the water got smaller and smaller..." Passionately, she turned around and cried, "Mummy, don't make it a horrible old moral story." Her mom even brought in a fairy (仙子), who had made it rain and filled the hole, so that the trout could float away down to the river below. Staring at the moon she knew there was no such thing as a fairy and that trout, down in the tunnel, was panting for his life.
注意: 1. 续写词数应为150左右;2. 请按如下格式在答题卷的相应位置作答。
She sat up in the silent night and Stephan was sound asleep. …… Julia poured the trout out of the pot into the river. |