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On Friday morning, Grandfather drove the children to the nature center so they could go to the Greenfield Geocachers club meeting. When Grandfather dropped them off, they saw a crowd of people milling around the patio1 and picnic area in front of the nature center. There were families, college students, and retired2 couples. Many of the people had dogs with them.
“We should’ve brought Watch,” Benny said.
“Maybe next time,” Henry said.
“Hey, Boxcar Kids!” Andy Robertson waved at the Aldens.
“Hi, Andy,” Jessie said as the Aldens made their way over to him. The Aldens were glad to see someone they knew.
“I’m glad you came to the meeting,” Andy said. “We’re just waiting for Cal Edwards to come and unlock the nature center for us. Then we’ll get started.”
“Cal Edwards is in this club?” Violet asked.
“He sure is,” Andy replied. “In fact, he’s our club secretary. Why? Do you know him?”
“Yes,” Jessie said. “He’s a friend of our grandfather’s.”
“That’s wonderful,” Andy said. “Cal was one of the people who started this club.”
“How did geocaching start?” Violet wanted to know.
“It’s a neat story,” Andy said. “One person started the whole thing. He was a computer consultant3 and he wanted to see how well his GPS worked. So he hid a container out in the woods. Then he posted the coordinates4 online. Sure enough, someone else was able to find the container using a GPS! From there, the idea grew.”
“And now people all over the world do this?” Jessie asked. “Wow!”
“Let me introduce you to some of the club members while we wait,” Andy offered.
He turned to the brown-haired man and woman who were seated at the picnic table behind him. “This is Mr. and Mrs. Zeller,” Andy said. “And these are the Aldens: Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. The Aldens are new to geocaching, but they want to join our group.”
“That’s good,” Mrs. Zeller said, smiling at the children.
“You know, we have a boy and a girl about your age,” Mr. Zeller said. “Zack and Zoe. They’re twins.” He glanced around. “I’m not sure where they are right now.”
“They’re probably giving our son a hard time,” said a tall man who came up behind them. He had dark hair and dark eyes. His wife stood a head shorter, but she also had dark hair and dark eyes. Neither one of them smiled.
The Zellers exchanged looks. They did not look happy to see this other couple.
“Perhaps your son is giving Zack and Zoe a hard time,” Mrs. Zeller said stiffly.
Andy stepped in between the adults. “Mr. and Mrs. Greene, have you met the Aldens?”
The tall man nodded at the children.
“Nice to meet you,” his wife said coolly.
“The Greenes have a son around your age, Jessie,” Andy said. “His name is David.”
“Oh, maybe we can meet him?” Jessie said.
“I’m not sure where he is right now,” Mr. Greene said.
“Let’s see if we can find him,” Mrs. Greene said. Then they walked away.
“We should find out where Zack and Zoe went, too,” Mrs. Zeller said, getting up from the picnic table.
“It was nice meeting you all,” Mr. Zeller said. Then he and his wife went off in the opposite direction from the Greenes.
“Those people don’t seem to like each other very much,” Benny said.
“There’s a little rivalry5 between those two families,” Andy said as he checked his watch.
“What kind of rivalry?” Jessie asked.
“Well, right now our club has a contest going on. Whoever finds the most caches this month wins a new GPS.”
“Wow!” Violet said. “That’s a good prize.”
“Yes, it is,” Andy said. “The Zellers and the Greenes do a lot of geocaching. Probably more than anyone else in the club. And I know they both want to win that prize.”
“Well, there are only a few days left in the month, so I don’t think we’ll win the prize,” Henry said. “But we did do a little more geocaching the other day.”
“You did?” Andy smiled. “Did you find any caches.”
“Well, we couldn’t find the first two we looked for,” Jessie said. “But we found the third one. It was called ‘Chipmunk6 Challenge.’ ”
“Actually, another boy and girl found it before we did,” Violet said. “There was a stuffed armadillo inside. It looked just like the one we found in the Walk in the Park cache with you.”
“In fact, the kids who found it said it was the same armadillo,” Jessie added. “They said it was a travel bug7, but we never found out what that meant. What is a travel bug, Andy?”
“A travel bug is something that travels from one cache to another,” Andy explained. “Sometimes a travel bug has a goal. For instance, maybe it’s trying to visit caches in all fifty states, or maybe it’s trying to visit cities that start with a certain letter. If you can help it reach its goal, you can take it. Otherwise you should leave it for someone else to take.”
“How can you tell whether something is a travel bug or not?” Henry asked.
“If it’s a travel bug, it should have a tag attached to it that tells you it’s a travel bug. There will be a tracking number on the tag. You can use that number to get to the travel bug’s own page on the geocaching website and see where the travel bug has been.”
“Cool!” Benny said.
All of a sudden the Aldens heard raised voices behind them. They turned and saw the brown-haired boy and girl in matching denim8 jackets arguing with a dark-haired boy wearing a green baseball cap.
“Tell us!” the girl demanded as she flipped9 her braid over her shoulder. “Tell us how many caches you guys have found this month.”
The boy in the baseball cap shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you,” he said with a grin. “But it’s probably more than you’ve found!”
“It is not,” the other boy argued. “Otherwise you’d tell us how many you’ve found.”
The Aldens looked at each other. “Isn’t that the same boy and girl we ran into out when we were looking for the Chipmunk Challenge cache?” Jessie asked.
“I think so,” Violet said.
“That’s Zack and Zoe Zeller,” Andy said. “The other boy is David Greene.”
Mr. and Mrs. Zeller led their children to one side of the crowd and Mr. and Mrs. Greene led their son to the other side.
“Hey, are we going to start this meeting or not?” Mr. Greene called out.
“I wonder where Cal is,” an older man said, checking his watch. “Our meeting was supposed to start ten minutes ago.”
“I don’t think Cal has ever missed a meeting,” Andy’s dad, Mr. Robertson, said.
“There was one time he missed one,” Mrs. Zeller said. “He was out of town. But he gave someone else a key to the nature center so we could get in.”
“We could try calling him,” Andy said.
“I’ll try,” Mr. Zeller said. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. “I think I’ve even got his cell phone number right here.”
Mr. Zeller dialed, then put his phone to his ear.
Everyone waited.
After a couple of seconds, Mr. Zeller said, “He must have his phone turned off. It didn’t even ring once.”
“He’s probably on his way,” Mr. Robertson said. “Maybe we should just go ahead and start without him? It’s a nice day. I don’t mind holding our meeting out here. Do any of you?”
No one did. So they all made themselves comfortable on picnic tables, benches and the grass. Then, as president of the club, Andy’s dad called the meeting to order.
Everyone went around and introduced themselves, and Andy introduced the Aldens.
Then Mr. Robertson asked, “Is there any new business to discuss?”
“Yes.” Mr. Zeller raised his hand. “There are a few caches in the area that seem to be missing.”
Jessie and Henry looked at one another. Were these the same caches that they couldn’t find?
Mr. Greene chuckled10. “Are you sure they’re missing? Maybe you and your family just couldn’t find them.”
Mr. Zeller frowned. “Of course I’m sure.”
“We always find the cache when we’re out geocaching!” Zack called out.
“I don’t know,” David teased. “I can remember one that you guys had a little trouble with last summer.”
“That’s because the river was high and we couldn’t get to it,” Zoe said hotly. “We knew where to look.”
“I’m telling you, some of these caches are missing,” Mr. Zeller said. “And I think they’ve been stolen!”
“Stolen?” Several people gasped11.
“You know, we were out looking for the Squires12 Point cache the other day and we couldn’t find it,” a woman in a blue scarf said.
“Hey, that’s one of the ones we were looking for,” Benny spoke13 up. “We couldn’t find it, either.”
“I don’t know about that one,” Mr. Zeller said. “But I know for a fact the Happy Hollow cache has been stolen.”
“How do you ‘know for a fact?’ ” Mr. Greene asked with a smirk14.
Mr. Zeller looked irritated. “Because we’ve been to that one before,” he replied. “There was supposed to be a travel bug in there, so we thought we’d pick it up and take it to another cache. But when we arrived at the spot, the cache wasn’t there.”
“When did you look for it?” a young college student asked. “My roommate and I looked for it a week ago. It was right where it was supposed to be.”
“This was just a couple days ago,” Mr. Zeller said. He turned to the Aldens. “When did you kids go looking for it?”
“Two days ago,” Henry replied. “We couldn’t find Muffy’s Hideaway, either. But we’re brand new geocachers. Maybe we just couldn’t find them.”
“I don’t know,” an older man in overalls15 said. “My wife and I were out looking for that Muffy’s Hideaway yesterday and we couldn’t find it, either.”
“I hate to say it, but I think Mr. Zeller is right,” said the woman in the blue scarf. “I think we have a thief on our hands.”
“Wait a minute,” Henry said. “Isn’t it possible that someone who doesn’t know about geocaching took a couple of caches?” After all, the Aldens had almost walked away with a cache themselves, not knowing what it was.
“I’d believe that if it was just one cache that was missing,” the man in overalls said. “But there are several missing. I think someone is taking them on purpose.”
“Do we know how many caches are missing for sure?” Mr. Robertson asked. “Or which ones are missing?”
No one did.
“I’ve got a list of all the caches hidden around Greenfield,” Mr. Greene said, holding up a brown folder16. “Maybe we should look for them all at once and find out which ones are missing.”
“That’s a great idea,” Mr. Robertson said. “Let’s divide up the list so that everyone here gets to look for two or three caches.”
“If we can search over the weekend, maybe we can all meet again on Monday to report what we’ve found,” Mr. Zeller said.
As everyone got up to leave, Mr. Robertson glanced over at the Aldens. “Are you kids interested in helping17 out?”
“Sure,” Henry said.
“Why don’t you see if you can find these two.” Mr. Robertson tore off a sheet of paper and handed it to Henry.
The children looked at the paper. Their assignment was to find the ‘Nesting Place’ cache and the ‘Round the World’ cache.
“We’ll look for these this afternoon,” Jessie promised.
“Do you think there really is a thief stealing all the caches?” Benny asked his brother and sisters as they headed home.
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “It’s possible that some of us just haven’t been able to find some of the caches.”
“But there are quite a few people who looked for some of the same caches,” Jessie said. “It’s strange none of us could find them.”
“And Mr. Zeller said his family had been to the Happy Hollow cache before,” Violet added. “So they knew where to look for it, but they still couldn’t find it. That makes me wonder if someone is stealing the caches.”
“But who would do such a thing?” Benny asked. “And why?”
Jessie shrugged18. “It’s a mystery.”
收听单词发音 |
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patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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3
consultant
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| n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生 | |
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coordinates
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| n.相配之衣物；坐标( coordinate的名词复数 )；（颜色协调的）配套服装；[复数]女套服；同等重要的人（或物）v.使协调，使调和( coordinate的第三人称单数 )；协调；协同；成为同等 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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chipmunk
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| n.花栗鼠 | |
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bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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denim
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| n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤 | |
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flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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10
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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12
squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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13
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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14
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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15
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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16
folder
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| n.纸夹，文件夹 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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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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