I DRIVE DOWN Gessum Avenue in Mama’s Cadillac. Up ahead, a little colored boy in overalls1 watches me, wide-eyed, gripping a red ball. I look into my rearview mirror. Aibileen is still on her front steps in her white uniform. She hadn’t even looked at me when she said No ma’am. She just kept her eyes set on that yellow patch of grass in her yard.
I guess I thought it would be like visiting Constantine, where friendly colored people waved and smiled, happy to see the little white girl whose daddy owned the big farm. But here, narrow eyes watch me pass by. When my car gets close to him, the little colored boy turns and scats behind a house a few down from Aibileen’s. Half-a-dozen colored people are gathered in the front yard of the house, holding trays and bags. I rub my temples. I try to think of something more that might convince Aibileen.
A WEEK AGO, Pascagoula knocked on my bedroom door.
“There’s a long distance phone call for you, Miss Skeeter. From a Miss . . . Stern, she say?”
“Stern?” I thought out loud. Then I straightened. “Do you mean . . . Stein?”
“I . . . I reckon it could a been Stein. She talk kind a hard-sounding.”
I rushed past Pascagoula, down the stairs. For some stupid reason, I kept smoothing my frizzy hair down as if it were a meeting and not a phone call. In the kitchen, I grabbed the phone dangling2 against the wall.
Three weeks earlier, I’d typed out the letter on Strathmore white. Three pages outlining the idea, the details, and the lie. Which was that a hardworking and respected colored maid has agreed to let me interview her and describe in specifics what it’s like to work for the white women of our town. Weighing it against the alternative, that I planned to ask a colored woman for help, saying she’d already agreed to it seemed infinitely3 more attractive.
I stretched the cord into the pantry, pulled the string on the single bare bulb. The pantry is shelved floor to ceiling with pickles4 and soup jars, molasses, put-up vegetables, and preserves. This was my old high school trick to get some privacy.
“Hello? This is Eugenia speaking.”
“Please hold, I’ll put the call through.” I heard a series of clicks and then a far, far away voice, almost as deep as a man’s, say, “Elaine Stein.”
“Hello? This is Skeet—Eugenia Phelan in Mississippi?”
“I know, Miss Phelan. I called you.” I heard a match strike, a short, sharp inhale5. “I received your letter last week. I have some comments.”
“Yes ma’am.” I sank down onto a tall tin can of King Biscuit flour. My heart thumped6 as I strained to hear her. A phone call from New York truly sounded as crackly as a thousand miles away ought to.
“What gave you this idea? About interviewing domestic housekeepers7. I’m curious.”
I sat paralyzed a second. She offered no chatting or hello, no introduction of herself. I realized it was best to answer her as instructed. “I was . . . well, I was raised by a colored woman. I’ve seen how simple it can be and—and how complex it can be between the families and the help.” I cleared my throat. I sounded stiff, like I was talking to a teacher.
“Continue.”
“Well,” I took a deep breath, “I’d like to write this showing the point of view of the help. The colored women down here.” I tried to picture Constantine’s face, Aibileen’s. “They raise a white child and then twenty years later the child becomes the employer. It’s that irony8, that we love them and they love us, yet . . .” I swallowed, my voice trembling. “We don’t even allow them to use the toilet in the house.”
Again there was silence.
“And,” I felt compelled to continue, “everyone knows how we white people feel, the glorified9 Mammy figure who dedicates her whole life to a white family. Margaret Mitchell covered that. But no one ever asked Mammy how she felt about it.” Sweat dripped down my chest, blotting10 the front of my cotton blouse.
“So you want to show a side that’s never been examined before,” Missus Stein said.
“Yes. Because no one ever talks about it. No one talks about anything down here.”
Elaine Stein laughed like a growl12. Her accent was tight, Yankee. “Miss Phelan, I lived in Atlanta. For six years with my first husband.”
I latched13 on to this small connection. “So . . . you know what it’s like then.”
“Enough to get me out of there,” she said, and I heard her exhale14 her smoke. “Look, I read your outline. It’s certainly... original, but it won’t work. What maid in her right mind would ever tell you the truth?”
I could see Mother’s pink slippers15 pass by the door. I tried to ignore them. I couldn’t believe Missus Stein was already calling my bluff16. “The first interviewee is . . . eager to tell her story.”
“Miss Phelan,” Elaine Stein said, and I knew it wasn’t a question, “this Negro actually agreed to talk to you candidly17? About working for a white family? Because that seems like a hell of a risk in a place like Jackson, Mississippi.”
I sat blinking. I felt the first fingers of worry that Aibileen might not be as easy to convince as I’d thought. Little did I know what she would say to me on her front steps the next week.
“I watched them try to integrate your bus station on the news,” Missus Stein continued. “They jammed fifty-five Negroes in a jail cell built for four.”
I pursed my lips. “She has agreed. Yes, she has.”
“Well. That is impressive. But after her, you really think other maids will talk to you? What if the employers find out?”
“The interviews would be conducted secretly. Since, as you know, things are a little dangerous down here right now.” The truth was, I had very little idea how dangerous things were. I’d spent the past four years locked away in the padded room of college, reading Keats and Eudora Welty and worrying over term papers.
“A little dangerous?” She laughed. “The marches in Birmingham, Martin Luther King. Dogs attacking colored children. Darling, it’s the hottest topic in the nation. But, I’m sorry, this will never work. Not as an article, because no Southern newspaper would publish it. And certainly not as a book. A book of interviews would never sell.”
“Oh,” I heard myself say. I closed my eyes, feeling all the excitement drain out of me. I heard myself say again, “Oh.”
“I called because, frankly18, it’s a good idea. But . . . there’s no possible way to take it to print.”
“But . . . what if . . .” My eyes started darting19 around the pantry, looking for something to bring back her interest. Maybe I should talk about it as an article, maybe a magazine, but she said no—
“Eugenia, who are you talking to in there?” Mother’s voice cut though the crack. She inched the door open and I yanked it closed again. I covered the receiver, hissed20, “I’m talking to Hilly, Mother—”
“In the pantry? You’re like a teenager again—”
“I mean—” Missus Stein let out a sharp tsk. “I suppose I could read what you get. God knows, the book business could use some rattling21.”
“You’d do that? Oh Missus Stein . . .”
“I’m not saying I’m considering it. But... do the interview and I’ll let you know if it’s worth pursuing.”
I stuttered a few unintelligible22 sounds, finally coming out with, “Thank you. Missus Stein, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Call Ruth, my secretary, if you need to get in touch.” And she hung up.
I lug23 an Old SATCHEL24 to bridge club at Elizabeth’s on Wednesday. It is red. It is ugly. And for today, at least, it is a prop25.
It’s the only bag in Mother’s house I could find large enough to carry the Miss Myrna letters. The leather is cracked and flaking26, the thick shoulder strap27 leaves a brown mark on my blouse where the leather stain is rubbing off. It was my Grandmother Claire’s gardening bag. She used to carry her garden tools around the yard in it and the bottom is still lined with sunflower seeds. It matches absolutely nothing I own and I don’t care.
“Two weeks,” Hilly says to me, holding up two fingers. “He’s coming.” She smiles and I smile back. “I’ll be right back,” I say and I slip into the kitchen, carrying my satchel with me.
Aibileen is standing29 at the sink. “Afternoon,” she says quietly. It was a week ago that I visited her at her house.
I stand there a minute, watching her stir the iced tea, feeling the discomfort30 in her posture31, her dread32 that I might be about to ask for her help on the book again. I pull a few housekeeping letters out and, seeing this, Aibileen’s shoulders relax a little. As I read her a question about mold stains, she pours a little tea in a glass, tastes it. She spoons more sugar in the pitcher33.
“Oh, fore11 I forget, I got the answer on that water ring question. Minny say just rub you a little mayonnaise on it.” Aibileen squeezes half a lemon in the tea. “Then go on and throw that no-good husband out the door.” She stirs, tastes. “Minny don’t take too well to husbands.”
“Thanks, I’ll put that down,” I say. As casually34 as I can, I pull an envelope from my bag. “And here. I’ve been meaning to give you this.”
Aibileen stiffens35 back into her cautious pose, the one she had when I walked in. “What you got there?” she says without reaching for it.
“For your help,” I say quietly. “I’ve put away five dollars for every article. It’s up to thirty-five dollars now.”
Aibileen’s eyes move quickly back to her tea. “No thank you, ma’am.”
“Please take it, you’ve earned it.”
I hear chairs scraping on wood in the dining room, Elizabeth’s voice.
“Please, Miss Skeeter. Miss Leefolt have a fit if she find you giving me cash,” Aibileen whispers.
“She doesn’t have to know.”
Aibileen looks up at me. The whites of her eyes are yellowed, tired. I know what she’s thinking.
“I already told you, I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that book, Miss Skeeter.”
I set the envelope on the counter, knowing I’ve made a terrible mistake.
“Please. Find you another colored maid. A young’un. Somebody... else.”
“But I don’t know any others well enough.” I am tempted36 to bring up the word friends, but I’m not that na?ve. I know we’re not friends.
Hilly’s head pops through the door. “Come on, Skeeter, I’m fixing to deal,” and she disappears.
“I’m begging you,” Aibileen says, “put that money away so Miss Leefolt don’t see it.”
I nod, embarrassed. I tuck the envelope in my bag, knowing we’re worse off than ever. It’s a bribe37, she thinks, to get her to let me interview her. A bribe disguised as goodwill38 and thanks. I’d been waiting to give her the money anyway, once it added up to something, but it’s true, my timing39 today had been deliberately40 planned. And now I’ve scared her off for good.
“Darling, just try it on your head. It cost eleven dollars. It must be good.”
Mother has me cornered in the kitchen. I glance at the door to the hall, the door to the side porch. Mother comes closer, the thing in hand, and I’m distracted by how thin her wrists look, how frail41 her arms are carrying the heavy gray machine. She pushes me down into a chair, not so frail after all, and squeezes a noisy, farty tube of goo on my head. Mother’s been chasing me with the Magic Soft & Silky Shinalator for two days now.
She rubs the cream in my hair with both hands. I can practically feel the hope in her fingers. A cream will not straighten my nose or take a foot off my height. It won’t add distinction to my almost translucent42 eyebrows43, nor add weight to my bony frame. And my teeth are already perfectly44 straight. So this is all she has left to fix, my hair.
Mother covers my dripping head with a plastic cap. She fastens a hose from the cap into a square machine.
“How long does this take, Mother?”
She picks up the booklet with a sticky finger. “It says here, ‘Cover with the Miracle Straightening Cap, then turn on the machine and wait for the miraculous—’ ”
“Ten minutes? Fifteen?”
I hear a click, a rising rumble45, then feel a slow, intense warmth on my head. But suddenly there’s a pop! The tube is loose from the machine and jerking around like a mad firehose. Mother shrieks46, grabs at it and misses. Finally, she snatches it and reattaches it.
She takes a deep breath and picks up the booklet again. “The Miracle Cap must remain on the head for two hours without removal or results—”
“Two hours?”
“I’ll have Pascagoula fix you a glass of tea, dear.” Mother pats me on the shoulder and swishes out through the kitchen door.
For two hours, I smoke cigarettes and read Life magazine. I finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Finally, I pick up the Jackson Journal, pick through it. It’s Friday, so there won’t be a Miss Myrna column. On page four, I read: Boy blinded over segregated47 bathroom, suspects questioned. It sounds . . . familiar. I remember then. This must be Aibileen’s neighbor.
Twice this week, I’ve gone by Elizabeth’s house hoping she wouldn’t be home, so I could talk to Aibileen, try to find some way to convince her to help me. Elizabeth was hunched48 over her sewing machine, intent on getting a new dress ready for the Christmas season, and it is yet another green gown, cheap and frail. She must’ve gotten a steal at the bargain bin28 on green material. I wish I could go down to Kennington’s and charge her something new but just the offer would embarrass her to death.
“So, do you know what you’re wearing for the date?” Hilly’d asked the second time I came by. “Next Saturday?”
I’d shrugged49. “I guess I have to go shopping.”
Just then Aibileen brought a tray of coffee out and set it on the table.
“Thank you.” Elizabeth nodded to her.
“Why, thank you, Aibileen,” Hilly said, sugaring her cup. “I tell you, you make the best colored coffee in town.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Aibileen,” Hilly continued, “how do you like your new bathroom out there? It’s nice to have a place of your own, now isn’t it?”
Aibileen stared at the crack in the dining table. “Yes ma’am.”
“You know, Mister Holbrook arranged for that bathroom, Aibileen. Sent the boys over and the equipment, too.” Hilly smiled.
Aibileen just stood there and I wished I wasn’t in the room. Please, I thought, please don’t say thank you.
“Yes ma’am.” Aibileen opened a drawer and reached inside, but Hilly kept looking at her. It was so obvious what she wanted.
Another second passed with no one moving. Hilly cleared her throat and finally Aibileen lowered her head. “Thank you, ma’am,” she whispered. She walked back into the kitchen. It’s no wonder she doesn’t want to talk to me.
At noon, Mother removes the vibrating cap from my head, washes the goo from my hair while I lean back in the kitchen sink. She quickly rolls up a dozen curlers, puts me under her hair dryer50 hood51 in her bathroom.
An hour later, I emerge pink and soreheaded and thirsty. Mother stands me in front of the mirror, pulling out curlers. She brushes out the giant circular mounds52 on my head.
We stare, dumbfounded.
“Ho-ly shit,” I say. All I’m thinking is, The date. The blind date is next weekend.
Mother smiles, shocked. She doesn’t even scold me for cursing. My hair looks great. The Shinalator actually worked.
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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inhale
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| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
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thumped
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| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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housekeepers
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| n.（女）管家( housekeeper的名词复数 ) | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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latched
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| v.理解( latch的过去式和过去分词 )；纠缠；用碰锁锁上（门等）；附着（在某物上） | |
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exhale
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| v.呼气，散出，吐出，蒸发 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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lug
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| n.柄，突出部，螺帽；(英）耳朵；（俚）笨蛋；vt.拖，拉，用力拖动 | |
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satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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flaking
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| 刨成片，压成片； 盘网 | |
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strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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posture
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| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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stiffens
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| （使）变硬，（使）强硬( stiffen的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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bribe
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| n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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timing
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| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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segregated
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| 分开的； 被隔离的 | |
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hunched
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| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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dryer
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| n.干衣机，干燥剂 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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