Pigeon English

　　我沒有偏心哪一滴雨，每一滴我都喜歡。
　　我沒有害怕任何罪惡，因為我跑得比誰都快。
　　我的皮膚和怪腔調裡包裹著一顆熾熱的星星，
　　就像鴿子一樣飛翔自在……

　　天空想下雨，把地上的血沖走。
　　這是死掉的男生的血，他在阿喬炸雞店前被殺了，血流得到處都是。
　　小孩子不應該被殺，但在倫敦這裡似乎不是。

　　我叫哈利，今年11歲，剛剛從迦納搬來倫敦。
　　學校裡的老大叫我幫他們做事，說不做就是敵人，但我才不幹呢。
　　要我做壞事，我寧願當警探幫死掉的男生找出兇手！
　　我去河邊找兇器，收集嫌疑犯的指紋，用望遠鏡監視他們的一舉一動……
　　找出兇手，我們才能跑在死亡的前頭，才能「永遠」和愛的人在一起。

　　我愛媽媽，我愛爸爸，我愛姊姊，我愛還是小貝比的妹妹。
　　我愛同學帕琵，我愛常常來陽台拜訪我的鴿子，我愛泰利的狗。
　　我愛把自己指紋燒掉的阿姨，我愛我最好的夥伴狄恩。
　　我愛我的飛毛腿，我愛樹，我愛星星……我愛這個世界！

　　努力好幾個月，我快把證據找齊了，快要天下太平了啦！
　　可是好像有什麼人在等我。從跑過的風中，我嗅到恐懼……
　　抬頭看，我的鴿子站在欄杆上，用牠粉紅色的眼睛看著我，
　　好像在對我說：別擔心，我會為你帶路……

　　Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner.

　　Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him.

　　Recently emigrated from Ghana with his sister and mother to London’s enormous housing projects, Harri is pure curiosity and ebullience—obsessed with gummy candy, a friend to the pigeon who visits his balcony, quite possibly the fastest runner in his school, and clearly also fast on the trail of a murderer.

　　Told in Harri’s infectious voice and multicultural slang, Pigeon English follows in the tradition of our great novels of friendship and adventure, as Harri finds wonder, mystery, and danger in his new, ever-expanding world.

　　本書中譯版《都嘛是怪腔男孩》由大田出版。

作者簡介

史蒂芬．凱爾曼　Stephen Kelman

　　1976年生於盧頓。大學畢業後，陸續做過不少工作，清潔工、倉管、行銷、地方公務員。2005年開始決心追求寫作夢，迄今已創作出數部電影腳本。《都嘛是怪腔男孩》是他的第一本小說，還在初稿階段就在英國10多家出版商之間展開一場爾虞我詐的競購戰！出版後立即攻佔亞馬遜書店暢銷排行榜，賣出全球20多國版權，更入圍2011年英國布克獎，進入最終決選名單！

　　Stephen Kelman grew up in the housing projects of Luton, England. He has worked as a careworker, a warehouse operative, in marketing, and in local government administration. Pigeon English was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and was named a “best first novel of 2011”* in his native England; it will be published in twenty countries.