雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第20章:誰是馬拉拉?(8)

We were grateful to the army but couldn't understand why they were still everywhere, in machine-gun nests on roofs and manning checkpoints.

我們對軍方心存感激，但無法理解爲什麼軍人仍隨處可見：他們在屋頂上架設機槍，或置身於檢查哨之中。

Even to enter our valley people needed official permission.

人們甚至需要官方的許可，才能進入我們的河谷。

The road up the small hill is usually busy as it is a short cut but that day it was strangely quiet.

開上小丘的道路通常是繁忙擁塞的，因爲那是條捷徑。但是那天，卻異常安靜。

'Where are all the people?' I asked Moniba.

“人們都到哪兒去了？”我問莫妮巴。

All the girls were singing and chatting and our voices bounced around inside the bus.

所有的女孩都在唱歌、聊天，巴士裏充斥着我們的聲音。

Around that time my mother was probably just going through the doorway into our school for her first lesson since she had left school at age six.

在那個時間點，我母親大概剛穿過大門進入學校。這是她自從六歲輟學，第一次再度進入學校上課。

I didn't see the two young men step out into the road and bring the van to a sudden halt.

我沒有看見那兩名站在馬路上、迫使巴士緊急停車的男子，

I didn't get a chance to answer their question, 'Who is Malala?'

也沒有機會回答他們的問題：“誰是馬拉拉？”

or I would have explained to them why they should let us girls go to school as well as their own sisters and daughters.

因此，我沒有機會跟他們解釋爲什麼他們應該讓我們這些女孩，以及他們自己的姐妹與女兒去學校接受教育。

The last thing I remember is that I was thinking about the revision I needed to do for the next day.

我記得，當時我腦海中正在想的，是爲第二天考試要進行的複習。

The sounds in my head were not the crack, crack, crack of three bullets,

我記憶中最後的聲音不是那三顆子彈帶來的“砰、砰、砰”，

but the chop, chop, chop, drip, drip, drip of the man severing the heads of chickens, and them dropping into the dirty street, one by one.

而是那斬雞頭的男人所發出的“咚、咚、咚”，“嘀、嘀、嘀”的聲音。那些雞頭墜落在骯髒的街道上，一顆，接着一顆。