哈利波特与魔法石05-At the zoo with Dudley

　　It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded withfamilies. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers¹ large chocolateice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady inthe van had asked Harry² what he wanted before they could hurry himaway, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either,Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla³ scratching itshead who looked remarkably⁴ like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.
Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He wascareful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so thatDudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animalsby lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hittinghim. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrumbecause his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top,Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finishthe first.
Harry felt, afterward⁵, that he should have known it was alltoo good to last.
After lunch they went to the reptile⁶ house. It was cool and darkin there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, allsorts of lizards⁷ and snakes were crawling and slithering over bitsof wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonouscobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found thelargest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twicearound Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can -- but atthe moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staringat the glistening⁸ brown coils.
"Make it move," he whined⁹ at his father. Uncle Vernon tappedon the glass, but the snake didn't budge¹⁰.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glasssmartly with his knuckles¹¹, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled¹² away.
Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at thesnake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredomitself -- no company except stupid people drumming their fingerson the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse thanhaving a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was AuntPetunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got tovisit the rest of the house.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly,it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.
It winked¹⁴.
Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone waswatching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, thenraised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that saidquite plainly:
"I get that all the time.
"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn'tsure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."The snake nodded vigorously.
"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.
The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to theglass. Harry peered at it.
Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
"Was it nice there?"The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again andHarry read on: This specimen¹⁵ was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see --so you've never been to Brazil?"As the snake shook its head, a deafening¹⁶ shout behind Harrymade both of them jump.
"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'TBELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"Dudley came waddling¹⁷ toward them as fast as he could.
"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in theribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. Whatcame next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second,Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next,they had leapt back with howls of horror.
Harry sat up and gasped¹⁸; the glass front of the boa constrictor'stank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly,slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile housescreamed and started running for the exits.
As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low,hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come.... Thanksss, amigo."The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia¹³ a cup of strong,sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers andDudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snakehadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as itpassed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car,Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, whilePiers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worstof all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say,"Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the housebefore starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. Hemanaged to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before hecollapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him alarge brandy.
Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had awatch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure theDursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneakingto the kitchen for some food.
He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserableyears, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a babyand his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't rememberbeing in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when hestrained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came upwith a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burn-ing pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, thoughhe couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn'tremember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke¹⁹ aboutthem, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There wereno photographs of them in the house.
When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of someunknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened;the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybehoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strangestrangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowedto him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. Afterasking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushedthem out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking oldwoman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. Abald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand inthe street the other day and then walked away without a word. Theweirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed tovanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.
At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's ganghated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy²⁰ old clothes and brokenglasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.

1 piers   

n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 )；（常设有娱乐场所的）突堤；柱子；墙墩

参考例句：

• Most road bridges have piers rising out of the vally. 很多公路桥的桥墩是从河谷里建造起来的。 来自辞典例句
• At these piers coasters and landing-craft would be able to discharge at all states of tide. 沿岸航行的海船和登陆艇，不论潮汐如何涨落，都能在这种码头上卸载。 来自辞典例句

2 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

3 gorilla   

n.大猩猩，暴徒，打手

参考例句：

• I was awed by the huge gorilla.那只大猩猩使我惊惧。
• A gorilla is just a speechless animal.猩猩只不过是一种不会说话的动物。

4 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

5 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

6 reptile   

n.爬行动物；两栖动物

参考例句：

• The frog is not a true reptile.青蛙并非真正的爬行动物。
• So you should not be surprised to see someone keep a reptile as a pet.所以，你不必惊奇有人养了一只爬行动物作为宠物。

7 lizards   

n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nothing lives in Pompeii except crickets and beetles and lizards. 在庞培城里除了蟋蟀、甲壳虫和蜥蜴外，没有别的生物。 来自辞典例句
• Can lizards reproduce their tails? 蜥蜴的尾巴断了以后能再生吗？ 来自辞典例句

8 glistening   

adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
• Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》

9 whined   

v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨

参考例句：

• The dog whined at the door, asking to be let out. 狗在门前嚎叫着要出去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He whined and pouted when he did not get what he wanted. 他要是没得到想要的东西就会发牢骚、撅嘴。 来自辞典例句

10 budge   

v.移动一点儿；改变立场

参考例句：

• We tried to lift the rock but it wouldn't budge.我们试图把大石头抬起来，但它连动都没动一下。
• She wouldn't budge on the issue.她在这个问题上不肯让步。

11 knuckles   

n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝

参考例句：

• He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘，握得指关节都变白了。
• Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 shuffled   

v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼

参考例句：

• He shuffled across the room to the window. 他拖着脚走到房间那头的窗户跟前。
• Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them. 西蒙笨拙地拖着脚朝他们走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 petunia   

n.矮牵牛花

参考例句：

• Height,breadth and diameter of corolla are the important ornamental characters of petunia.株高、冠幅、花径是矮牵牛的重要观赏性状。
• His favourite flower is petunia.他最喜欢的花是矮牵牛花。

14 winked   

v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮

参考例句：

• He winked at her and she knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. 他冲她眨了眨眼，她便知道他的想法和她一样。
• He winked his eyes at her and left the classroom. 他向她眨巴一下眼睛走出了教室。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 specimen   

n.样本，标本

参考例句：

• You'll need tweezers to hold up the specimen.你要用镊子来夹这标本。
• This specimen is richly variegated in colour.这件标本上有很多颜色。

16 deafening   

adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The noise of the siren was deafening her. 汽笛声震得她耳朵都快聋了。
• The noise of the machine was deafening. 机器的轰鸣声震耳欲聋。

17 waddling   

v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Rhinoceros Give me a break, were been waddling every day. 犀牛甲：饶了我吧，我们晃了一整天了都。 来自互联网
• A short plump woman came waddling along the pavement. 有个矮胖女子一摇一摆地沿人行道走来。 来自互联网

18 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

19 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

20 baggy   

adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的

参考例句：

• My T-shirt went all baggy in the wash.我的T恤越洗越大了。
• Baggy pants are meant to be stylish,not offensive.松松垮垮的裤子意味着时髦，而不是无礼。