英语美文背诵 我笔下的奇异世界

Me and Writing

This was the summer that I think I became a writer. I was thirteen years old. I wore steel-rimmed glasses and I was a very 1)solemn boy. Not that I was sad, but I simply was paying attention. I'd been given a typewriter by my Uncle George, when he got an electric. He gave me his old Underwood typewriter and I set it up in the 2)basement. I had a secret place under the stairs behind a 3)stack of sheet rock. I sat in there and wrote where my parents could not see me because they were worried, you know, that I didn't go outside. And they believed in the 4)illusion of a balanced life, you know, you do a little bit of this, you do a little bit of that. I just wanted to do one thing. I just wanted to find things to write about.

I liked to write about 5)tornadoes²: Tornadoes, which come out of a peaceful summer day in the Midwest. And the sky's blue and then suddenly it's dark as night and this great snake-like cloud comes slithering across the 6)landscape, 7)smashing houses at random³, destroying this one, leaving this standing⁴. I liked that idea.

I wrote a story, a sort of 8)autobiographical story, about a family from New York, a microbiologist and his actress wife, and their son, who looked, and walked, and talked, and thought, and felt exactly like me. I sat in the 9)backseat and they were driving across the Midwest, and they forgot me... at a gas station. We stopped for a rest stop... and they forgot me, and they drove⁵ away. I walked up the road that they had driven and suddenly the sky turned dark and... a tornado¹ came up and it picked me up and it carried me and dropped me, uninjured, in the yard of a 10)sanctified 11)Brethren family. I knocked on the door and a woman in a white 12)satin gown⁶ holding a flaming 13)torch⁷ came out and asked me what I wanted. And I was going to tell them that I had to leave to look for my parents and then the dog spoke⁸ to me. The dog said, "Stay." So, I stayed. But still, I missed the life of 14)glamour that I had known⁹ on New York's 15)exclusive Upper West Side. I love to write stories like that.

I sat there at my Underwood typewriter, but I wished that something real would happen.

That was the summer that my cousin, Helen-Marie, came to stay with us suddenly. She was seventeen. She was four years older than I and I'd always admired her. She was lovelier than the rest of us. The rest of us had our family's looks; we had 16)homely faces and she was pretty. She had 17)blonde hair, a rarity in our family.

Then I wrote a story about her; about a girl who is cooking lunch at home one day and a woman in a white satin dress holding a flaming torch bursts¹⁰ in through the door, and it startles¹¹ the girl so much that she drops the 18)cast iron¹² skillet on her dog and the dog bites her and she gets an 19)incurable blood disease¹³ from this. Doctors give her two weeks to live, and then, on top of everything, a tornado comes in and it blows the roof off the house and it 20)impales four blades¹⁴ of grass in her side. And there's something on that grass that cures that blood disease. Medical science has never seen anything like it. She's cured. She comes home. And that night the dog 21)scratches on her door, and the dog says, "Aren't you curious to know what it was on the grass that cured that blood disease?" I sort of liked the story.

我想当作家的念头是在这个夏天冒出来的。那年我十三岁了，戴着一副银边眼镜，是个不苟言笑的男孩。倒不是因为心情不好，我只是在琢磨事儿。乔治叔叔买了一台电打字机后，就把手打打字机给了我。他给我的是一台安德伍牌老式打字机，我把它架在地下室里。楼梯下石砖墙后是我的密室。我坐在里面写东西，爸妈看不到我，你知道，我之所以要秘密行事是因为他们担心我总不出门。他们相信生活应该有多方面平衡，就是让你做做这个又做做那个。而我只想做一件事——练笔。

我想写写龙卷风：一个平静的夏日里，在中西部骤然刮起了龙卷风。蔚蓝的天空霎时间变得像夜晚一样漆黑，蛇一般的巨大烟云卷过地面，将房屋揉得粉碎，摧毁了这间，放过了那间。我太喜欢写龙卷风了。

我写了一个故事，自传式的故事，说的是一个纽约家庭，家里有一个微生物学家，当演员的妻子，还有他们的儿子--那孩子的模样和走路、说话、思考的方式简直跟我一样。我坐在汽车的后座，他们开车穿越中西部，后来他们把我忘在了一个加油站。我们停车休息，然后他们就把我给落下了，开车走了。我沿着他们车驶去的方向走着，突然间，天空暗了下来， 龙卷风大作，风卷起我吹啊吹，毫发不伤地把我扔在一个圣教徒家的后院里。我敲敲门，一个身穿白色缎袍的女人举着一把熊熊的火炬，走出来问我想干什么。我正想说我想去找我的爸妈，一条狗冲着我说话了：“留下来吧。”于是，我就留下了。但是，我还是很怀念在纽约高尚住宅区的好日子。我就喜欢写这样的故事。

我坐在安德伍牌打字机前，想写些真实的事儿。

那年夏天，我的表姐海伦?玛莉突然来我们家住下。她十七岁，比我大四岁，我很喜欢她。她比我们家的其他人都可爱。其他人都有着家族的容貌特征，脸蛋儿一点儿也不起眼，她却很漂亮。那一头金发在我们家族里是极少见的。

于是我就写了一个关于她的故事，说的是有一天，一个女孩正在家里做午饭时，有个穿着白色缎袍的女人手里举着熊熊的火炬从门外闯了进来，女孩吓了一大跳，把铁锅砸到了她的狗，狗咬了她一口，她从此就得了一种没法治的血液病。医生说她只能活两个星期了，这时，一股龙卷风刮了进来，它掀掉屋顶，四片草叶子刺到她的身上。草叶子上面的什么东西就把她的血液病给治好了。医学上从来没有见过这种奇事。她痊愈了，回到了家。那天晚上，小狗抓挠着她的房门，那狗问她说： “你难道不想知道草叶子上面是什么东西治好了你的血液病吗？”我喜欢这样的故事。

1 tornado   

n.飓风，龙卷风

参考例句：

• A tornado whirled into the town last week.龙卷风上周袭击了这座城市。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

2 tornadoes   

n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Tornadoes, severe earthquakes, and plagues create wide spread havoc. 龙卷风、大地震和瘟疫成普遍的毁坏。 来自互联网
• Meteorologists are at odds over the working of tornadoes. 气象学者对龙卷风的运动方式看法不一。 来自互联网

3 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 drove   

vbl.驾驶，drive的过去式；n.畜群

参考例句：

• He drove at a speed of sixty miles per hour.他以每小时60英里的速度开车。
• They drove foreign goods out of the market.他们把外国货驱逐出市场。

6 gown   

n.长袍，特殊场合穿的长服

参考例句：

• She pinned the gown at the neck with a safety pin.她在领子那儿用一枚别针把睡衣别住。
• He threw on his gown.他穿上他的礼服。

7 torch   

n.火炬

参考例句：

• They are looking for volunteers to carry the torch.他们正在寻找火炬传递的志愿者。
• A famous athlete held a torch and ran to the stadium.一个著名的运动员举着火炬跑到运动场。

8 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。

9 known   

adj.大家知道的；知名的，已知的

参考例句：

• He is a known artist.他是一个知名的艺术家。
• He is known both as a painter and as a statesman.他是知名的画家及政治家。

10 bursts   

v.爆炸( burst的第三人称单数 )；突然发作；突然打开；挤满

参考例句：

• intermittent bursts of applause 一阵阵的掌声
• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。

11 startles   

n.使惊跳，使大吃一惊( startle的名词复数 )v.使惊跳，使大吃一惊( startle的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• What a disordered state you are in! The least thing--nothing--startles you! 一点点小事——什么事都没有——也都叫你吃惊！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• \"I see my appearance startles you.\" “看来我的外表把你给吓着了。” 来自互联网

12 iron   

n.铁，熨斗，坚强，烙铁，镣铐；vt.烫平，熨，用铁包；vi. 烫衣服

参考例句：

• The iron has lost its magnetic force.这块铁已失去了磁力。
• We need an electrician to mend the iron.我们要请电工修理熨斗。

13 disease   

n.疾病，弊端

参考例句：

• The doctors are trying to stamp out the disease.医生正在尽力消灭这种疾病。
• He fought against the disease for a long time.他同疾病做了长时间的斗争。

14 blades   

n.刀口( blade的名词复数 )；（机器上旋转的）叶片；桨叶；（船桨的）桨叶

参考例句：

• the blades of a propeller 螺旋桨叶
• Stay well away from the helicopter when its blades start to rotate. 直升机的螺旋桨开始转动时，尽量离远点儿。