Bringing down the house 房子倒塌記
Kathleen threw the yellow construction hat in Mark’s direction and told him to put it on. “Remember Mark, safety first on the building site,” she said. “I understand that. What I don’t understand is why we have to build our own house. Why can’t we just buy one like everybody else?” he asked. “Don’t be so boring. Haven’t you ever built a house before? I’ve built at least two. Come on, it’s not very hard. The first thing we have to do is destroy the old house,” Kathleen said.
An hour later Kathleen was in the cab of a large bulldozer. They took a last look at their house, and then she began to smash it down. “This is the fun part!” she said with a big smile. It didn’t take long to bring the house down. There was dust and rubble everywhere. Mark looked slightly sad, but Kathleen told him not to worry.
Not long later Kathleen returned with a cement truck and lots of bricks. “You’d better start building, or we’ll have nowhere to sleep tonight,” she said to Mark. Luckily, Mark was very good at building walls. He could carry the bricks on his back and used his trunk to spread the cement. Within an hour he had built the four walls. Although he was tired, he was proud of his work. “We make a good team, don’t we?” he said to Kathleen. “We sure do,” she said. “But there’sone more thing we need. The roof!”
Kathleen jumped into the cab of a nearby crane, and hoisted up a roof she had bought earlier. With Mark directing her from the ground, she managed to place the roof perfectly on the top of the walls.
Their new house looked fantastic, and their neighbors came out to tell them how great it looked. But just as they were about to walk through the door for the first time, everything began to shake. “Oh no, I think it’s an earthquake! What shall we do?” they yelled.
(JOHN PHILLIPS, STAFF WRITER)
凱薩琳把一頂黃色的工地帽丟向馬克,要他戴上,她說:「馬克你要記住,在工地安全第一。」馬克問:「安全第一我知道,可是我不了解的是,我們為什麼要自己蓋房子?我們為什麼不能像別人一樣買棟房子就好?」凱薩琳說:「別那麼無趣,你有自己蓋過房子嗎?我就至少蓋過兩棟。來吧,那不會很難。我們首先要做的,就是把舊房子摧毀。」
一小時後,凱薩琳就開來一輛大型推土機。他們看了房子最後一眼後,她就開始推倒房子。她大笑著說:「這就是有趣之處!」不久後,房子就被夷為平地;四處都是塵土和瓦礫堆。馬克看起來有點難過,但凱薩琳安慰他沒什麼好擔心的。
不久之後,凱薩琳又開來一輛水泥車,還帶了一大堆磚塊回來。她對馬克說:「你最好開始蓋房子,不然我們今晚就要露宿街頭了。」幸運的是,馬克是個砌牆高手;他把磚塊背在背上運送,然後再用鼻子舖抹水泥。不到一小時,他已經蓋好四面牆,儘管疲累,他卻覺得很得意。他對凱薩琳說:「我們合作無間,對吧?」她回答:「沒錯!但我們還少了個東西,就是屋頂!」
凱薩琳跳上附近一輛起重機的駕駛座,舉起她稍早買好的屋頂;馬克在下面指揮,她成功地把這塊屋頂分毫不差地架放在四面牆之上。
他們的新房子看起來棒極了,他們的鄰居紛紛跑來和他們說他們的房子看起來有多美。但就在他們第一次踏進家門時,整棟房子開始搖晃。他們大叫:「噢,不好了,我想是地震!我們該怎麼辦?」(翻譯:袁星塵)
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