Alan was not what Brewster called a 'proper boy', whose instincts, inherited from thousands of years of warfare, made him want to throw things at other people. In this respect he was more like his father, who had managed to escape games as a boy in Bedford.

艾伦不是布鲁斯特说的那种，继承了原始人类的本能，喜欢向其他人投掷东西的男孩。在这方面，他更像他的父亲，他父亲小时候在贝德福德时，就不喜欢玩那些东西。

Mr Turing, who lacked his wife's excessive respect for schoolmasters, made a special request for Alan to be excused from cricket, and he was allowed by O'Hanlon to play golf instead. But he made himself 'a drip' by letting down his house contingent at the gym with his 'slackness'. He was also called dirty, thanks to his rather dark, greasy complexion, and a perpetual rash of ink stains. Fountain pens still seemed to spurt ink whenever his clumsy hands came near them. His hair, which naturally fell forward, refused to lie down in the required direction; his shirt moved out of his trousers, his tie out of his stiff collar. He still seemed unable to work out which coat button corresponded to which buttonhole. On the Officers Training Corps parade on Friday afternoons, he stood out with cap askew, hunched shoulders, ill-fitting uniform with puttees like lampshades winding up his legs. All his characteristics lent themselves to easy mockery, especially his shy, hesitant, high-pitched voice – not exactly stuttering, but hesitating, as if waiting for some laborious process to translate his thoughts into the form of human speech.

图灵先生没有像他妻子那样，对校长过度尊重，他提出特殊要求，使艾伦免于打板球。后来奥汉兰允许艾伦玩高尔夫球，于是艾伦迅速地把体育馆搞得和他的屋子一样乱七八糟，这使艾伦成了一个讨厌的人。因为他本来肤色就比较黑，再加上总是抹得到处都是墨水，所以大家都觉得他很脏。他的笨手一伸出来，就仿佛是他自制的钢笔一样，随时都有可能喷出墨水。他的头发永远都不能倒在他想要的方向，衬衫从裤子里耷拉出来，领带缠在僵硬的领子外面，而且他好像还不知道哪个扣子该对应哪个眼儿。在星期五下午的军事训练营，他站在那里，帽子戴歪了，肩膀隆起来，穿着像灯罩一样的奇怪制服，还把裤腿卷了起来。这些特点，使他经常受到嘲笑，更不用说他那种怯懦、抑郁、尖细的嗓音――他不是真的结巴，而是犹豫，他好像需要用一套笨重的程序，费力地把自己的想法翻译成人类语言。

Mrs Turing saw the fulfilment of her worst fear, which was that Alan would not adapt to public school life. Nor was he the kind of boy who was unpopular in the house but pleased the masters in class. He failed there too. In his first term, he had been placed in a form called 'the Shell', with boys a year older than himself who were not good at the work. Then he was 'promoted', but only to the entrance form for those supposed of average ability. Alan took little notice. The masters streamed past – seventeen in those first four terms – and none understood the dreaming boy in a class of twenty-two. According to a classmate of the period:17

图灵夫人看到，她最担心的事情发生了，那就是艾伦无法适应公学生活。他也不是那种只跟老师亲近，而不受同学欢迎的学生，他连这一点也做不到。第一学期，他被分在一个叫作「贝壳」的班级，这个班级的其他学生，全都比他大一岁，而且都是能力很差的那种。后来他被提拔了，但也只不过是调到了正常能力的年级。艾伦自己倒不在乎这些。老师们像流水一样更迭着，前四个学期一共有17个老师，但他们中却没有一个，能够理解这个做梦的男孩。据这个时期一位同学说：