圈外閑人
Amazon專欄作家 http://www.amazon.com/Jennifer-Fu/e/B004Y218FQ
《薑餅博物館之糖果、煎蛋、菠菜、冰塊和餅幹》是女兒寫的第四本小說，我在此節譯幾個章節。
第一章：許可簽名紙的厄運
埃弗雷特在課堂上不停地歎著氣，因為他要去聖荷西藝術館參觀。埃弗雷特是一名十歲的男孩，他怎麽也想象不出比藝術館更無聊的地方，當然他也討厭拚寫測驗，討厭吃苦澀的菠菜，這些都是他仇恨的敵人。
他盯著手中的許可簽名紙，也許，隻是也許，他可以偽造他母親的簽名，並假裝他明天要去看醫生，這樣就可以逃避參觀藝術館。也許不行 ...... 絕對不行，千萬不能讓他母親看到許可簽名紙。這似乎成了他母親最大的心望，讓他去聖荷西藝術館獲取藝術創作的靈感。
藝術創作是學校的功課 ―― 他必須拍攝照片或者素描一個雕像，然後寫一篇關於創作者風格的文章。這是所有荒謬想法中最最荒謬的，世界上真有“創作者的風格”嗎？埃弗雷特認為隻有一種風格，叫做無聊。
鈴聲響了，格林老師下了課。埃弗雷特跑向他的書包收拾東西，他一遍又一遍地檢查了裏麵的東西。數學教科書 ―― 打勾，科學教材 ―― 打勾，文件夾 ―― 打勾，繪圖紙 ―― 打勾，許可簽名紙 ―― 在他的課桌上。好，埃弗裏特將它留在學校，格林老師可能因為他“忘記”了許可簽名紙，因而懲罰他不去參觀藝術館。當然，這個幻想隻在他的腦海裏存留了一分鍾，格林老師將許可簽名紙遞給他。埃弗雷特聳聳肩，想想過一會兒撕掉也行，就一溜煙地跑出教室趕校車回家了。
在完成了回家作業之後，埃弗雷特走到了餐桌旁。菠菜麵在烤箱裏烤過頭了 ―― 呸！碎肉燉湯 ―― 啊！麵包店買來的新鮮餅幹 ―― 美味乘以二！埃弗雷特開始拿餅幹吃，他母親罵道，“埃弗裏特！能否請你洗一下手，這一次行嗎？”
哦，太棒了，埃弗雷特想，我要媽媽寫紙條不能去藝術館，結果她的吼叫將我的腦袋給炸昏了！搖晃了一下，他記起還沒有來得及撕許可簽名紙，他母親已經開始在他的書包裏翻找起來。
“嘿，這是私人物品！”埃弗雷特喊道。
為時已晚，狄更斯太太已經找到了許可簽名紙。大筆一揮，他母親決定了他得去博物館。埃弗裏特被送到床上去吃烤焦的菠菜麵，一粒餅幹屑也沒有嚐到，作為他沒有交出許可簽名紙的懲罰。
第二天，校車的喇叭聲吵醒了埃弗雷特，但是幾分鍾後，他又開始打呼嚕了。他母親搖晃著他。 “什麽 ...... ”他抱怨道。幾秒鍾後，他睜開了惺忪的眼睛。 “那是什麽？”
埃弗雷特睡意朦朧地換上了學校製服，迷迷糊糊地上了校車，在座位上頹然倒下。當車子到達學校後，他拉著沉重的書包進了教室。嗯，說實話，他拽著沉重的書包的描述似乎更為確切。書包裏頭有一個防水照相機，裝在一個防水照相機袋子裏。
有人問為什麽聖何西藝術館那麽特別。埃弗雷特真想抽那人的耳光，用那麽無聊的問題，引發格林老師又臭又長的解釋。
埃弗雷特勉強聽到老師嗡嗡的說話聲，在腦海中想象著恐怖的藝術展覽。“聖何西藝術館最初是個郵局，然後被改建成聖何西圖書館。”埃弗雷特想象著混亂無章的場麵，太多的投訴信，無法遞送到老板的手中，然後這些信件湧向圖書館 ...
“後來成立了美術畫廊協會，然後再重建成文娛藝術畫廊，最終更名為聖何西藝術館。”埃弗雷特覺得這些信息特別枯燥，有負於這樣一座曆史悠久的建築。
“這裏完全亂了陣腳，許多人試圖將書還進來，然後幻想故事丟得滿地都是！我知道這些因為我父母的一位密友在那裏工作。”埃弗裏特對此表示懷疑，也許格林老師故意誇張，想讓曆史顯得更加有趣。
格林太太繼續說：“請記住，我們將在那裏呆兩天。第一天在一樓，第二天，我們將參觀頂樓的世界巡回展覽。”
埃弗雷特控製著不跑出房間尖叫，“徹頭徹尾的災難！”這確實是一場災難，他將浪費今明兩天在藝術館裏。
然後下課鈴響了。
Everett groaned in the classroom. He was going to the San Jose Museum of Art. Everett, as a ten-year-old boy, could not imagine anything worse than going to an art museum, except maybe for having ten pop quizzes all about SPELLING, which was one of his enemies. His other enemy was SPINACH.
He looked at the permission slip. Maybe, just maybe, he could forge his mother’s signature and pretend that he had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, the day of the field trip. Probably not… definitely not, if his mother caught one good look at the slip. It seemed to be his mother’s greatest ambition, to get him into the San Jose Museum of Art for the sake of getting ideas for his art project.
The art project was a school assignment – he had to take a picture or sketch a sculpture, then write an essay about the style of the creator. Out of all the ridiculous ideas in the world, this was the most preposterous. What in the world was a “creator’s style”? Everett thought there was only one style, called boring.
The bell rang. The teacher, Mrs. Green, dismissed the class. Everett raced to his backpack to pack things. He checked and double checked its contents. Math textbook – check. Science textbook – check. Binder – check. Graph paper – check. The permission slip – on his desk. Good. Everett would leave it in school. Ms. Green might leave him out of the fieldtrip as a punishment for “forgetting” the slip. The fantasy was in his mind for only a minute. Then Mrs. Green passed the slip to him. He shrugged. He could rip it up later. Everett ran out of the classroom to catch the school bus to go home.
After he had done his homework, Everett went to the dining table. Spinach casserole accidentally overcooked inside the oven – yuck! Ground pork in soup – yum! Biscuits freshly bought from the bakery – yum times two! Everett started helping himself to the biscuits when his mother scolded, “Everett! Can you please wash your hands this one time?!”
Oh, great, Everett thought, I want to get mom to write on the slip that I can’t go, and she’s yelling her head off at me! With a jolt, he remembered that he had not torn it up yet. His mother started rummaging in his backpack.
“Hey, that’s private stuff!” Everett yelled.
It was too late. Mrs. Dickens had found the permission slip. With a single signature, his mother confirmed that he, Everett, would go to the museum. Everett was sent to bed to eat a dinner of overcooked spinach casserole, without a crumb of biscuit, for not showing the slip. He picked at his food all throughout the timeout.
The next day, the honking from the school bus woke up Everett, but after a few minutes he started snoring again. His mother shook him up. “Wha…?” he grumbled. A few seconds later, he opened his bleary eyes. “What was that for?”
Everett sleepily changed into his school uniform, and stumbled to the bus, which started going school-wards. For the whole trip, Everett slumped down in his seat. When it reached school, he ran to his classroom with the heavy load of his backpack. Well, in truth, he dragged his backpack all the way to class. He also had to carry a waterproof camera in a waterproof camera case.
Someone decided to ask why the San Jose Museum of Art was special. Everett could have slapped that person in the face for provoking Mrs. Green into giving a long, boring explanation.
Everett could just barely hear the teacher droning on about the museum as he imagined the terrors in the art exhibits. “The San Jose Museum of Art was originally built as the San Jose Post Office, and then it got converted into the San Jose Library.” Everett imagined that it must have gotten several letters of complaint, which they couldn’t deliver to their boss, at the time. These letters would have brought chaos to the library…
“It served as the fine arts gallery association, then reopened as the Civic Arts Gallery, and finally was renamed the San Jose Museum of Art.” Everett found the information rather boring, for such a historical building.
“It was in complete disarray, because people tried to return books there, and fantasy stories kept on popping all over the place! I know this because a close friend of my parents worked there.” Everett doubted this. Probably Mrs. Green was exaggerating to make the history more interesting.
Mrs. Green continued, “Remember, we will spend two days there. We will spend the first day at the first floor. The second day we will look at the world traveling exhibits, which are located at the top floor.”
Everett had to stop himself from running out of the room and screaming, “Total disaster!” It was a catastrophe. He would have to spend the next two days at the museum.
Then the bell rang.
雖然馬克吐溫的湯姆索亞裏麵也有類似的描述，但是湯姆有他勇敢正義和有傳奇色彩的一麵，而且他反抗的教會學校教聖經，背聖經的一套，本來就令人反感。這個小說的主人公有什麽可愛之處呢？還是想樹一個反麵典型？
謝謝鼓勵啦！