2015-05-21
【Aiden in English】
Welcome, readers, to Montgomery’s annual Olympic Day. This day consists of three parts: the games, the half-time show, and the classic races and tug-of-war. Each and every year, a new theme is chosen, but this year, well, everyone has a limit to his/her ideas, you know? Here is hint: four teams are the Mountaineers (Blue), the Rangers (Green), the Scouts (White), and the Trailblazers (Red) across all grades from Kindergarteners to 6th grader at school. I’m on the Mountaineers.
Try creating eight games physical in the Olympics based on camping. Yeah, that’s right. This year’s theme was called “Going Camping”. As stupid as it sounded, a few games actually asked you of something like one game where the goal was to cross a “river” (a stretch of grass) to save “puppies” (small stuffed toys). To get across, each team got 12 pool noodles. This game used the brain because those noodles were extremely slippery, and to make a platform, two people were allowed to hold the noodles in place in the “river” while there was one walker. I came up with the idea of steps, having platforms of twos across. Other teams made a long bridge, which fell apart quickly. Only thing was, once seeing how successful my strategy worked, the other teams quickly copied it. In the end, whoever got the most toys won, but we could only get the puppies in our own lane. Three of the four teams collected all of theirs, making a tie, even though the Mountaineers came in the 1st.
What I thought that really got me on my moves was the ice game. This game contained absolutely no reason why it should be included. The objective was to pass ice cube containers filled with ice water over your head to the next person to the back. The last person dumped whatever remained into a bucket. Now I was okay playing this game, but first of all, it was only 50oF/10oC, outside. Not to mention the fact that the water felt like stabbing a corpse. That game ruined an unbelievable morning. Besides, who brought melted ice on a camping trip to have kids hold in over their heads? For torture, maybe.
The morning was only half of the day to come, and the scores now were just a lie at your face because the day, like I said, was only half done. And soon, the games began to have competition and every team needed to get a fair share of victories.
【紅霞譯文】
歡迎讀者跟我們一起參加蒙哥馬利小學一年一度的奧林匹克節，今天運動會共有三項事宜：比賽、中場表演以及傳統賽跑和拔河。每年奧運會都要特設主題，這回大家可算絞盡腦汁，猜出來嗎？溫馨提示：全校從學前班到初中一年級的全體學生共同組成四支競技隊伍，分別稱為登山者隊（藍色）、護林員隊（綠色）、童子軍隊（白色）和尖兵隊（紅色），我被編排在登山者隊。
從野營的角度出發，奧運會試圖推出八種比賽項目，說的一點沒錯。今年的中心思想圍繞“野營”一題，甭提有多小兒科，有的比賽索性要你“趟水過河”（一片稻草）營救“狗仔”（小型填充玩具）。為了過河，每個隊各有十二根泳池浮條，這個遊戲稍微需要動點腦筋，因為浮條非常滑溜，要想把它們當成平面必須得有兩個人抓牢，以保證單人過“河”。我找到了竅門，改由每兩根浮條一組分部進行；而別的隊卻先後羅列成長橋，人很快摔了下來。事情往往就是這樣，一旦發覺我的構思可行，大家紛紛效仿，比賽結果雖說哪個隊得到的玩具最多哪個隊贏，可我們只能救護自己圈地的動物，其他三個隊也是一樣，所以即使我們首先完成任務，最終各隊得分還是相等。
我覺得真正難搞的遊戲是運冰，不知誰出的餿主意，規定前面一個人要將裝在器皿里的冰塊從頭頂上傳到後面一個人，最後一位再把融化的冰水倒入水桶。我個人倒無大所謂，但問題在於眼下戶外溫度僅有華氏50／攝氏10度，冰水涼得恨不能可以穿透死屍，把手凍成冰棍，好端端的一個上午就這樣被這場比賽攪得一塌糊塗。再說，有誰跑到野外宿營會要求孩子從頭頂上運送冰水？成心折騰人吧。
到此為止半天光景已過，各隊積分高低並非真實成為定局，正如我剛才所說，我們僅完成了一半，接下來人人都有機會在即將到來的比賽中大顯身手。
