Name: 西爾維斯特與魔法鵝卵石》讀後感(Reid Scott) (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble read by Reid Scott)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:29:00.000Z
Duration: 12 min 14 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

And welcome to Storyline Online presented by SAG-AFTRA Foundation.

未來進行式

Today I'm going to be reading you guys  one of my favorite books.

This is Sylvester and the Magic Pebble written and illustrated by William Steig.

Sylvester Duncan lived with his mother and father at Acorn Road in Oatsdale.

Once of his hobbies was collecting pebbles of unusual shape and color.

On a rainy Saturday during vacation he found a quite extraordinary one.

It was flaming red, shiny, and perfectly round, like a marble.

As he was studying this remarkable pebble,

he began to shiver, probably from excitement,

“I wish it would stop raining,” he said.

It didn't stop gradually as rains usually do.

The drops vanished on the way down, the clouds disappeared, everything was dry,

and the sun was shining as if rain had never existed.

In all his young life Sylvester had never had a wish gratified so quickly.

It struck him that magic must be at work,

and he guessed that the magic must be in the remarkable-looking red pebble.

To make a test, he put the pebble on the ground

and said, “I wish it would rain again.”

But when he said the same thing holding the pebble in his hoof,

the sky turned black, there was lightning and a clap of thunder,

“What a lucky day this is!” thought Sylvester.

“From now on I can have anything I want.

My father and mother can have anything they want.

My relatives, my friends, and anybody at all can have everything anybody wants!”

and he wished a wart on his left hind fetlock  would disappear, and it did,

and he started home, eager to amaze his father and mother with his magic pebble.

Maybe they wouldn't even believe him at first.

thinking of some of the many, many things he could wish for,

he was startled to see a mean, hungry lion  looking right at him from behind some tall grass.

If he hadn't been so frightened, he could have made the lion disappear,

or he could have wished himself safe at home with his father and mother.

He could have wished the lion would turn into a butterfly or a daisy or a gnat.

He could have wished many things, but he panicked and couldn't think carefully.

“I wish I were a rock,” he said,  and he became a rock.

The lion came bounding over, sniffed the rock a hundred times, walked around and around it,

and went away confused, perplexed, puzzled, and bewildered.

“I saw that little donkey as clear as day.

And there was Sylvester, a rock on Strawberry Hill,

with the magic pebble lying right beside him on the ground,

“Oh, how I wish I were myself again,” he thought, but nothing happened.

He had to be touching the pebble to make the magic work,

but there was nothing he could do about it.

and eventually he realized that his only chance of becoming himself again

and to wish that the rock next to it would be a donkey.

Someone would surely find the red pebble — it was so bright and shiny —

but what on earth would make them wish that a rock was a donkey?

Meanwhile, back at home, Mr. and Mrs. Duncan paced the floor, frantic with worry.

Sylvester had never come home later than dinner time.

They stayed up all night wondering what had happened,

expecting that Sylvester would surely turn up by morning.

Mrs. Duncan cried a lot and Mr. Duncan did his best to soothe her.

Both longed to have their dear son with them.

“I will never scold Sylvester again as long as I live,” said Mrs. Duncan,

At dawn, they went about inquiring of all the neighbors.

They talked to all the children—the puppies, the kittens, the colts, the piglets.

No one had seen Sylvester since the day before yesterday.

They went to the police. The police could not find their child.

All the dogs in Oatsdale went searching for him.

They sniffed behind every rock and tree and blade of grass,

into every nook and gully of the neighborhood and beyond, but found not a scent of him.

They sniffed the rock on Strawberry Hill, but it smelled like a rock.

After a month of searching the same places over and over again,

and inquiring of the same animals over and over again,

Mr. and Mrs. Duncan no longer knew what to do.

They concluded that something dreadful must have happened,

and that they would probably never see their son again.

(Though all the time he was less than a mile away.)

They tried their best to be happy, to go about their usual ways.

But their usual ways included Sylvester and they were always reminded of him.

Night followed day and day followed night over and over again.

Sylvester on the hill woke up less and less often.

When he was awake,  he was only hopeless and unhappy.