Children who play truant form 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 centre 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 local authorities. He has surely set up a record for the thousands of children who dream of evading school!
New words and expressions 生词和短语
record-holder 纪录保持者
truant n.逃学的孩子
unimaginative adj.缺乏想象力的
shame n.惭愧，羞耻
hitchhike v.搭便车旅行
meantime n.其间
lorry n.卡车
border n.边界
evade v.逃避，逃离
Notes on the text 课文注释
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，as far as作“到......程度”解。
3 They have all been put to shame...，这是被动语态；put to shame,使某人感到羞愧。
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 centre 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。