Children who play truant from school are unimaginative.A quiet day's fishing, or eight hours in a cinema seeing the same film over and over again, is usually as far as they get. They have all been put to shame by a boy who, while playing truant, travelled 1,600 miles.He hitchhiked to Dover and, towards evening, went into a boat to find somewhere to sleep. When he woke up next morning, he discovered that the boat had, in the meantime, travelled to Calais. No one noticed the boy as he crept off .From there, he hitchhiked to Paris in a lorry. The driver gave him a few biscuits and a cup of coffee and left him just outside the city. The next car the boy stopped did not take him into the center of Paris as he hoped it would, but to Perpignan on the French-Spanish border. There he was picked up by a policeman and sent back to England by the local authorities. He has surely set up a record for the thousands of children who dream of evading school.
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New words and expressions 生词和短语
record-holder(title)/'rekɔ:d-'həvldə/纪录保持者
meantime(1.7)/'mi:ntaim/n.其间
truant(1.1)/'tru:ənt/n.逃学的孩子
lorry(1.9)/'lɑri/n.卡车
unimaginative(1.1)/ʌni'mædʒinәtiv/adj.缺乏想像力的
border(1.11)/'bɔ:də/n.边界
shame(1.4)/ʃeim/n.惭愧，羞耻
evade(1.12)/i'veid/v.逃避，逃离
hitchhike(1.5)/'hitʃhaik/v.搭便车旅行
1 play truant from school,逃学，也可以说play truant。
2 as far as they get,他们顶多到这种程度而已，as far as作“到……程度”解。
3 They have all been put to shame…,这是被动语态；put sb. to shame,使某人感到羞愧，使……黯然失色。
4 while playing truant是分词短语作状语。相当于一个状语从句while he was playing truant。
5 in the meantime,在此期间。
6 did not take him into the center of Paris as he hoped it would,没有像他希望的那样把他带到巴黎市中心。as he hoped it would是一个方式状语从句，作“像……那样”解，would后面省略了和前文相同的谓语take him into the centre of Paris。
逃学的孩子们都缺乏想像力。他们通常能够做到的，至多也就是安静地钓上一天鱼，或在电影院里坐上8个小时，一遍遍地看同一部电影。而有那么一个小男孩，他在逃学期间旅行了1，600英里，从而使上述所有逃学的孩子们都相形见绌了。他搭便车到了多佛，天快黑时钻进了一条船，想找个地方睡觉。第二天早上他醒来时，发现船在这段时间已经到了加莱。当男孩从船里爬出来时，谁也没有发现他。从那里他又搭上卡车到了巴黎。司机给了他几块饼干和一杯咖啡，就把他丢在了城外。男孩截住的下一辆车，没有像他希望的那样把他带到巴黎市中心，而是把他带到了法国和西班牙边界上的佩皮尼昂。他在那儿被一个警察抓住了，之后被当局送回了英国。他无疑为成千上万梦想逃避上学的孩子们创造了一项纪录。