雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第1章2:上學

That morning had begun like any other, though a little later than usuAl. It was exam time so school started at nine instead of eight, which was good as I don’t like getting up and can sleep through the crows of the cocks and the prayer calls of the muezzin. First my father would try to rouse me. ‘Time to get up, Jani mun,’ he would say. This means ‘soulmate’ in Persian, and he always called me that at the start of the day. ‘A few more minutes, Aba, please,’ I’d beg, then burrow deeper under the quilt. Then my mother would come. ‘Pisho,’ she would call. This means ‘cat’ and is her name for me. At this point I’d realise the time and shout, ‘Bhabi, I’m late!’ In our culture, every man is your ‘brother’ and every woman your ‘sister’. That’s how we think of each other. When my father first brought his wife to school, all the teachers referred to her as ‘my brother’s wife’ or Bhabi. That’s how it stayed from then on. We all call her Bhabi now.

這天早晨，和往常沒什麼兩樣。不過，因爲要考試，我們可以九點去上學，比平時晚一個小時。我很喜歡這樣，因爲可以不用早起，可以睡到比雞鳴聲更宜人的召喚聲響起時再起牀。父親一開始會試着叫我起牀。“該起牀了，親愛的Jani Mun！”“Jani Mun”在波斯語裏是“靈魂伴侶”的意思，他每天早上都會這麼叫我。“再過幾分鐘，爸爸，拜託。”我會這麼央求他，然後往被窩裏鑽得更深些。然後，母親就會過來，輕聲叫我：“Pisho！”Pisho是“小貓咪”的意思，是她呼喚我的方式。這時候我才發現已經晚了，便大叫着“我的嫂嫂啊，我要遲到啦！”跳起來。在我們的文化裏，每個男人都是你的“兄弟”，每個女人都是你的“姐妹”。這就是我們看待彼此的方式。所以，當父親第一次把妻子帶到學校去的時候，所有的老師都喊我母親“我兄弟的妻子”，也就是“嫂嫂”。於是，母親就有了這個稱號。現在，大家都喊她“嫂嫂”。

I slept in the long room at the front of our house, and the only furniture was a bed and a cabinet which I had bought with some of the money I had been given as an award for campaigning for peace in our valley and the right for girls to go to school. On some shelves were all the gold-coloured plastic cups and trophies I had won for coming first in my class. Only twice had I not come top – both times when I was beaten by my class rival Malka e-Noor. I was determined it would not happen again.

我的房間是長方形的，位於我們家房屋的最前面。房間裏很簡陋，只有一張牀和一個櫥櫃。這個櫥櫃是用我在爲河谷地區爭取和平和女性受教育權利時獲得的部分獎金購買的。其中的幾格架子上，放滿了我在班上得到第一名時獲得的金色塑料獎盃和獎牌。大多數時候，我都是第一名，僅有的兩次失手是被班上的對手瑪爾卡·努爾打敗。但我已經下定決心，決不會讓此事重演。

The school was not far from my home and I used to walk, but since the start of last year I had been going with other girls in a rickshaw and coming home by bus. It was a journey of just five minutes along the stinky stream, past the giant billboard for Dr Humayun’s Hair Transplant Institute where we joked that one of our bald male teachers must have gone when he suddenly started to sprout hair. I liked the bus because I didn’t get as sweaty as when I walked, and I could chat with my friends and gossip with Usman Ali, the driver, who we called Bhai Jan, or ‘Brother’. He made us all laugh with his crazy stories.

學校離我家不遠，以前我都是走路上學。但自從去年開始，我就跟着其他女生一起搭人力車上學，再搭校車回家。這段路程只有五分鐘的時間，我們要穿越惡臭的小溪，經過一個巨型廣告牌，廣告牌上是胡馬雍醫生植髮中心的廣告。當一位禿頭男老師突然長出頭髮時，我們都說他肯定去過了那家植髮中心。我喜歡搭校車，這樣就不會因爲走路而滿身大汗，而且還可以和朋友們聊天，和司機烏斯曼·阿里侃八卦，我們都喊他“Bhai Jan”，就是“哥哥”的意思。女孩子們總是被他的瘋狂故事逗得哈哈大笑。