Thursday

Yesterday Rodrick got a new heavy metal CD, and it had one of those “Parental Warning” stickers on it.

I have never gotten to listen to one of those Parental Warning CDs, because Mom and Dad never let me buy them at the mall. So I realized the only way I was gonna get a chance to listen to Rodrick’s CD was if I snuck it out of the house.

This morning, after Rodrick left, I called up Rowley and told him to bring his CD player to school.

Then I went down to Rodrick’s room and took the CD off his rack.

You’re not allowed to bring personal music players to school, so we had to wait to use it until after lunch when the teachers let us outside. As soon as we got the chance, me and Rowley snuck around the back of the school and loaded up Rodrick’s CD.

But Rowley forgot to put batteries in his CD player, so it was pretty much worthless.

Then I came up with this great idea for a game. The object was to put the headphones on your head and then try to shake them off without using your hands.

The winner was whoever could shake the headphones off in the shortest amount of time.

I had the record with seven and a half seconds, but I think I might have shook some of my fillings loose with that one.

Right in the middle of our game, Mrs. Craig came around the corner and caught us red-handed. She took the music player away from me and started chewing us out.

call up 打电话

英文解释：If you call someone up, you telephone them.

e.g. When I'm in Pittsburgh, I call him up.

comment：call up还有另外两个含义，a) If someone is called up, they are ordered to join the army, navy, or air force. b) If someone is called up, they are chosen to play in a sports team.

sneak around 鬼鬼祟祟；溜跑出去瞎混

e.g. How can I expect them to treat me like an adult if I sneak around and act like a kid?

red-handed 现行犯的，当场

英文解释：in the act of committing a crime or doing something wrong or shameful

e.g. My boyfriend and I robbed a store and were caught red-handed.

comment：catch red-handed是固定搭配。

chew out 严厉责备，训斥

英文解释：If you chew someone out, you tell them off in a very angry way.

e.g. He chewed out the player, who apologized the next time I saw him.

But I think she had the wrong idea about what we were doing back there. She started telling us how rock and roll is “evil” and how it’s going to ruin our brains.

I was going to tell her that there weren’t even any batteries in the CD player, but I could tell she didn’t want to be interrupted. So I just waited until she was done, and then I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

But right when Mrs. Craig was about to let us go, Rowley started blubbering about how he doesn’t want rock and roll to ruin his “brains.”

Honestly, sometimes I don’t know about that boy.

blubber 嚎啕大哭

英文解释：If someone blubbers, they cry noisily and in an unattractive way.

e.g. She started to blubber like a child.