蒋静仪 阅读教程(泛读3)Unit 7 TV and Its Influence 2

Unit 7 TV and Its InfluenceSection Two In-readingREADING ONEWhen Television Ate My Best FriendI was eight years old when I lost my best friend. My very first very best friend. Lucy hardly ever whined, even when we kids played cowboys and she had to be Dale Evans. Nor did she cry, even when we played dodge ball and some big kid threw the ball so hard you could read Spalding backward on her legs. Lucy was world class.Much of our time together was spent in my backyard on the perfect swing set: high, wide, built solid, and grounded for life. But one June day long ago, something went wrong. I was swinging as high as I could, and still higher. The next time the swing started to come back down, I didn’t . I just kept going up. And up.Then I began to fall.―Know what? Know what?‖ Lucy was yelling at me.No, I didn’t know what. All I knew was that my left arm hurt.―Know what? For a minute there, you flew. You seemed to catch the wind and … soar! Right up until you must have do ne something wrong, because you fell.‖Wearing a cast on my broken arm gave me time to work out the scientifics with Lucy. Our Theory was that if you swing just high enough and straight enough, and you jump out of the swing at just the right moment and in just the right position —you just might fly.July was spent waiting for my arm to heal. We ran our hands across the wooden seat, feeling for the odd splinter that could ruin your perfect takeoff. We pulled on the chains, testing for weak links.Finally came the day in August when my cast was off, and Lucy and I were ready. Today we would fly.Early that morning, we began taking turns — one pushing, one pumping. All day we pushed and pumped, higher and higher, ever so close. It was almost dark wh en Lucy’s mother hollered for her to come home right this minute and see what her daddy had brought them.This was strictly against the rules. Nobody had to go home in August until it was altogether dark. Besides, Lucy’s daddy wasn’t a man to be struc k with irresistible impulses like stopping at the horse store and thinking, Golly, my little girl loves ponies! I better get her one!So we kept on swinging, and Lucy pretended not to hear her mother – until she dropped Lucee to Lucille Louise. Halfway through the fourth Lucille Louise, Lucy slowly raised her head as though straining to hear some woman calling from the next county.―Were you calling me, Mother? Okay, okay, I’m coming. Yes, ma’am. Right now.‖Lucy and I walked together to the end of my driveway. Once in her front yard, she slowed to something between a meander and a lollygag, choosing a path that took her straight through the sprinklers. Twice.When at last Lucy sashayed to her front door, she turned back to me and, with a grin, gave me the thumbs-up sign used by pilots everywhere. Awright. So we’d fly tomorrow instead. We’d waited all summer. We could wait one more day. On her way in the house, she slammed the screen door.BANG!In my memory, I’ve listened to that screen door shut behind my best friend a thousand times. It was the last time I played with her.I knocked on the door every day, but her mother always answered saying Lucy was busy and