Piret Raud
THE SHY MOBILE PHONE
Translated into English by Susan Wilson
Uncle Ralf bought himself a new mobile phone. He realised fairly soon that he’d picked a very nervous model. Each time someone called him, the new mobile would shiver and shake all over. The phone’s nervous nature was a worry to Uncle Ralf.
“It’s supposed to shake,” Uncle Ralf’s Mum reassured him. “It’s got a vibrating alert mechanism.”
She showed him how to stop the shaking by pressing various buttons on the keypad, but unfortunately pressing those buttons on Uncle Ralf’s phone did no good. The phone carried on trembling just the same, more and more fearfully with each call.
Uncle Ralf was sorry for the poor little thing. He really loved his phone.
“Don’t call me any more!” he told his friends. “It scares my phone.”
Uncle Ralf’s friends stopped calling him, they stopped inviting him out to the cinema or to the football or to rock concerts. Not that Uncle Ralf would have wanted to go because places like that are very noisy and his phone wouldn’t have liked it.
He simply went fishing by the lake.
It’s important to be really quiet when fishing so that the fish won’t swim away from the line, and keeping quiet was something his phone could do.
Uncle Ralf and his phone spent several hours there fishing until an awful thing happened. The phone rang! It was Uncle Ralf’s Mum, who was expecting him back for lunch. Mum wasn’t bothered about his phone being scared. She was much more worried that the lunch would get cold while she was waiting for him.
Uncle Ralf took the quivering phone out of his pocket to answer his Mum, but the phone was trembling so violently that it fell, splash! into the water. Uncle Ralf immediately tore off his clothes and dived in after it, but unfortunately it was nowhere to be found.
Uncle Ralf had no choice but to buy himself a new phone. The first call he made was to the old phone. Uncle Ralf hoped that this would be a way of finding his old friend.
“Hello, where are you? I’ll come and get you straight away!” he shouted to the phone.
It was no shy mobile phone who answered, however. It was a fish, who said, “Please don’t phone this number again! It scares my lovely little phone.”

Piret Raud
羞涩的手机
由Susan Wilson译作英文
Ralf叔叔买了部新手机。他很快意识到自己选了个神经质的机型。每次有人给他打电话，新手机就会震动，全身发抖。新手机神经兮兮的特质成了Ralf叔叔的烦心事。
“本来就应该发抖，”Ralf叔叔的妈妈劝他说，“手机有震动提醒功能。”
她给他演示怎么在键盘上按各种按钮就能取消手机的发抖，但不幸的是，即便按了Ralf叔叔手机上这些钮还是无济于事。手机还是不停地发抖，而且每次有人打电话，手机都抖得更厉害了。
Ralf叔叔很可怜这手机。他真对手机视若珍宝。
“别再给我打电话了！”他告诉朋友们，“我的手机胆儿小。”
Ralf叔叔的朋友们不再给他打电话了，他们也不再邀请他去看电影或者足球赛或者摇滚演唱会。倒不是Ralf叔叔本来想去看，而是这样的地方太吵了，而他的手机肯定不喜欢。
他索性去湖边钓鱼。
钓鱼的时候必须非常安静，这样鱼就不会从鱼钩附近溜走，而保持安静是他的手机很擅长的。
Ralf叔叔和他的手机在湖边几个小时几个小时的钓鱼，后来发生了一件可怕的事儿。来电话了！打电话的是Ralf叔叔的妈妈，她正等他回家吃午饭。他妈妈根本不在乎他的手机胆儿小不胆儿小。她更在乎等他等到饭都凉了。
Ralf叔叔把颤抖的手机从口袋里拿出来接他妈妈的电话，但手机抖得太厉害，啪嗒！掉进了??里。Ralf叔叔赶紧脱了衣服下水去找，不过可惜没找到。
Ralf叔叔没办法，只好又买了个新手机。第一个电话打给了他的旧手机。Ralf叔叔希望这样能找回他的老朋友。
“你好，你在哪呢？我马上来接你！”他对着电话大喊。
然而，回答他的并不是害羞的手机。是条鱼，它说，“请别再打这个号码了！我的宝贝手机胆儿小。”