英语访谈对话 513 House Mates

 　　Todd: So Carla, you lived in Africa, so you must have some cool animal stories.

　　Carla: Do you want my cockroach¹ story, or my monkey story, or my chameleon² story? I know! I have a snake story.

　　Todd: Ok

　　Carla: We had a snake that lived in the bookcase. And you can never tell where he was except that that book was, except that that book was sticking out of the bookcase so you always knew where he was. And if you knocked on the book, you could pull it out and he would just lie there. But if you pulled the book out without knocking first, he would be frightened so he'd rear his head up and hiss³ at you and stick his tongue out and wiggle it around. He was a python, a baby python. Maybe two metres long.

　　Todd: And you just let him live in the house? You didn't make the snake leave?

　　Carla: When he was growing a little bit bigger, and he started leaving his skin around, we got fed up with that. I said to him “I'm fed up of clearing your skins away so you're out fella”.

　　Todd: Wow, well who made the snake leave. How did you get him out of the house?

　　Carla: Oh we just put him outside in the garden.

　　Todd: Did you ever see him again?

　　Carla: Oh I have scorpion⁴ stories too. Never mind scorpion stories.

　　Todd: No no no, tell. Ya what's the scorpion story?

　　Carla: Well, the scorpions⁵ were about… what ten, fifteen centimetres long. Great big black things. And a friend of mine had… We didn't have any running water in that village either. And so we had a man who would come in every morning with a big head load of water. A big huge bucket on his head carrying water, and he'd tip it into our huge barrel in the back garden. And then we would have to move it out bucket full by bucket full. Anyway, so our bathroom was always dry. There was never any water, the taps didn't work. And we kept our bath sponge on the edge of the bath. And one day, I went to take a shower to have a bath, and I picked up the sponge and I put it against myself and I got this terrible pain. Because there had been a scorpion hiding underneath⁶ the sponge. And it stung me. But luckily it stung me in a place where it didn't hurt so much. On my stomach.

　　Todd: Wow.

　　Carla: If you get it on your foot or you hand where you've got lots of nerves, it's really excruciating.

　　Todd: Oh man. I'm glad you're ok.

1 cockroach   

n.蟑螂

参考例句：

• A cockroach can live several weeks with its head off.蟑螂在头被切掉后仍能活好几个星期。
• She screamed when she found a cockroach in her bed.她在床上找到一只蟑螂时大声尖叫。

2 chameleon   

n.变色龙，蜥蜴；善变之人

参考例句：

• The chameleon changes colour to match its surroundings.变色龙变换颜色以适应环境。
• The chameleon can take on the colour of its background.变色龙可呈现出与其背景相同的颜色。

3 hiss   

v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满

参考例句：

• We can hear the hiss of air escaping from a tire.我们能听到一只轮胎的嘶嘶漏气声。
• Don't hiss at the speaker.不要嘘演讲人。

4 scorpion   

n.蝎子，心黑的人，蝎子鞭

参考例句：

• The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。
• The scorpion has a sting that can be deadly.蝎子有可以致命的螫针。

5 scorpions   

n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You promise me that Black Scorpions will never come back to Lanzhou. 你保证黑蝎子永远不再踏上兰州的土地。 来自电影对白
• You Scorpions are rather secretive about your likes and dislikes. 天蝎：蝎子是如此的神秘，你的喜好很难被别人洞悉。 来自互联网

6 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。