雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第11章:聰明的班級(17)

Muslim Khan didn’t answer. ‘What about their own daughters?’ I asked my father. ‘Don’t they want them to learn?’

穆斯林•汗沒有回答。“他們自己的女兒呢？”我問父親，“難道他們不希望女兒們受教育嗎？”

Our headmistress Madam Maryam had studied at Sangota, and her younger sister Ayesha was a pupil there, so she and some of the other Sangota girls transferred to our school.

瑪麗安女士年輕時曾在桑戈塔求學，而她的妹妹阿依莎正在那裏上學。爆炸發生後，她和其他一些原本就讀桑戈塔的女學生轉到了我們學校。

The monthly school fees were never enough to cover all our outgoings so the extra fees were welcome, but my father was unhappy.

我們每個月收到的學費永遠不夠支付所有的開銷，因此能增加進賬當然是一件好事，但我的父親卻開心不起來。

He went everywhere he could demanding the reconstruction of both schools. Once he spoke at a big gathering and held up an audience member’s baby girl and said, ‘This girl is our future. Do we want her to be ignorant?’ The crowd agreed that they would sacrifice themselves before giving up their daughters’ education.

他四處走訪，要求重建這兩所學校。有一次，他在一場盛大的集會中演講。他抱起一名聽衆的女嬰，面向人羣，說：“這個女孩是我們的未來。我們希望她一生無知嗎？”羣衆均點頭稱是，表示即便犧牲自己，也要捍衛女兒受教育的權利。

The new girls had horrible stories. Ayesha told us how one day on the way home from Sangota she had seen a Taliban holding up the severed head of a policeman by its hair, blood dripping from the neck.

新來的桑戈塔的女生們講了一些很恐怖的故事。阿依莎告訴我們，有一天，在從桑戈塔下課回家的途中，她看見一名塔利班手裏抓着一顆警察的頭顱，鮮血從斷掉的頸部不停滴下。

The Sangota girls were also very bright, which meant more competition. One of them, Rida, was excellent at making speeches. She became a good friend of mine and of Moniba’s, which sometimes caused fights as three is a tricky number.

桑戈塔來的女孩們都非常聰明，這意味着在課業方面，我們會面臨更多競爭。她們其中的一位——麗達，是一名優秀的演說家。她和我，還有莫妮巴結爲好友。我們之間偶爾也鬧小矛盾，因爲三個人在一起，難免會有摩擦。