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儿童英语读物 The Castle Mystery CHAPTER 9 Vanished into Thin Air

时间:2017-07-31 08:48来源:互联网 提供网友:qing   字体: [ ]
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Carrie Bell was in a hurry. “I wish I didn’t have to go to town with Sandy,” she told the Alden children. “I’d much rather poke1 around the secret room this morning. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit,” she said with a sigh. “Imagine! A whole roomful of treasures we didn’t even know about!”

“What didn’t we know about?” Sandy asked when she came in and overheard Carrie.

Benny’s face lit up. “We found a secret room last night with Mr. Tooner. It’s full of toys and armor and treasures. Carrie said we could go up there this morning.”

This seemed to upset Sandy. “Alone?”

“I trust these children with anything in the castle,” Carrie explained. “So does Mr. Tooner. Before he went out for the day with Mr. Alden, he gave me his keys. He trusts the children with them, and so do I.”

“Well, shouldn’t I stay behind and supervise them at least?” Sandy asked.

Carrie handed Sandy the grocery list. “First things first. We simply must get supplies and groceries this morning. The sooner we get to town, the sooner we can help the children.”

This didn’t stop Sandy. “Well maybe the children should come with us,” she said to Carrie. “We could split up the errands and get them done faster.”

Carrie shook her head. “That’s just what Tom Brady suggested this morning. He wanted to take them along to visit some antique dealers2. I had to tell him the same thing. Mr. Tooner and I feel fine about leaving the Aldens here alone until we all get back. That’s really final, Sandy.”

“I guess now we’re kings of the castle, right Benny?” Henry joked after Carrie and Sandy finally left. “What do you say we put on some armor and go jousting3!”

“What’s jousting?” Benny asked.

Violet explained. “Jousting is a horseback-riding sport that knights4 played in the olden days, Benny. I read about it in my King Arthur book. Sometimes this castle reminds me of those times.”

“Especially the tower,” Benny said. “Can we go up there now?”

“Sure Ben,” Henry said. “But let’s clear up the table first, okay? Even knights need clean dishes.”

The children carried the breakfast dishes to the sink. When Benny got to Tom’s place at the table he noticed something. “Isn’t this Tom’s notebook?”

“It is,” Jessie said. “We can drop it off at his office when we finish in here.”

Once the children had tidied up everything, they stopped off at the room Tom Brady used as an office.

“Should we leave the notebook in front of the door?” Benny asked. “Grandfather says we shouldn’t go into someone’s room unless the person is there.”

Jessie shook her head. “This time we have to, Benny. The hall is so dark I’m afraid someone might trip over the notebook. Let’s put it on Tom’s desk with a note saying that we found it.”

The children opened the door to the jumbled5 office. For someone who was so careful about old things, Tom Brady was careless about everything else. His wastebasket was overflowing6 with papers. Several half-empty mugs of cold tea were still on the desk. There wasn’t an inch of empty space to put down the notebook.

Jessie tried to make some room on the desk to write Tom a note. She moved over several books and picked up some bunched-up balls of paper.

“Wait a minute!” she cried. “Look at these!” She held up two colored cellophane candy wrappers. “Aren’t these the wrappers from the candy Violet and I hid yesterday?”

Benny found one or two other wrappers in the wastebasket. “Lemon, cherry.”

“Lime and grape,” Violet finished. “Those are exactly the same flavors Jessie and I hid by the blue door because we knew they were your favorites!”

“The ones that were missing along with the key!” Henry realized. “Do you think Tom took them, Jessie?”

Jessie didn’t answer. She ran out of the room and came back a few minutes later. She waved a piece of notebook paper at her brothers and sister.

“Look at this! It’s the map!” She laid the paper next to Tom’s notebook. “I can’t say for sure that the candy wrappers came from the candy we hid. But this map exactly matches the paper in Tom’s notebook.”

“So does the handwriting,” Violet added.

“It is the same,” Benny said proudly. Even though he hadn’t been reading for long, he was sure of that.

The children looked at each other. What was going on with Tom Brady?

Jessie made up her mind about something. “Let’s show the map to Tom. Maybe there’s a good reason he drew it. It could be a set of directions he wrote up for someone, then put in that book by mistake. He might be glad to get it back.”

Henry agreed. “Jessie’s right. Let’s see what Tom has to say when we show him what we found.”

“Aw, shucks,” Benny said. “I thought we solved a mystery.”

“Sorry, Benny, not just yet,” Jessie said with a laugh. “Now let’s get up to the secret room. Maybe there’s a mystery to solve up there.”

“I sure hope so,” Benny said as he raced ahead up the tower stairs.

When they got to the top, the children waited for Henry to open the door with Mr. Tooner’s keys.

“Here we are,” Henry said.

Benny paid no attention to all the treasures in the room. “Can we go to the secret room first, Henry?”

Henry laughed. “Why not? Carrie said we could go anywhere in the castle today. We might as well start sorting things out in there as well as in here.”

Benny got right inside the fake fireplace. He leaned against it just the way he had the day before. Nothing happened. He turned around then pushed so hard he grunted7. “This wall is stuck!”

“Here, Benny. You give a push on the bottom, while I push hard on top,” Henry said.

But try as they might, the boys couldn’t get the fireplace to turn. Then Benny noticed something. Right at his eye level, there was a keyhole. He looked in.

Just a few feet inside was Tom Brady! And in Tom’s hand was a violin. “Tom?” Benny called through the wall.

Suddenly the wall panel gave way and the Aldens pushed through into the secret room. There was Tom Brady — but his hands were empty.

“I was wondering when you children would find me,” Tom said with a laugh. “This was a good game of hide-and-seek, wasn’t it?”

The children were confused. One minute Tom had been trying to keep them out of the secret room. Now he was telling them he had been playing a game!

“Carrie said you left to meet some antique dealers this morning,” Jessie said. “Why are you here instead?” Now that she was facing Tom, Jessie wasn’t so sure it was the right time to mention the notebook. She decided8 to wait.

“Umm … well, yes, I was going to do just that but … uh, first I had to get something up here,” Tom said without looking at Jessie.

“Like a violin!” Benny said. “I saw you holding a violin when I peeked9 in the key-hole. Is it the famous one?” Benny asked as he scooted behind Tom.

“What violin?” Tom asked. “There are many musical instruments in this house. We all know William Drummond collected quite a few of them.”

By this time Benny had opened the doors of an old cabinet. “Like this one?” he cried when he spotted10 the neck of a violin.

Tom Brady whirled around. “Don’t touch that!” he yelled at Benny. “It’s priceless.”

Jessie stared at Tom with her steady brown eyes. “How do you know that violin is priceless?”

“Well, everything up here is priceless until we catalogue it and get estimates from antique dealers,” he said. “That’s all I meant. We must get experts in here.”

This did not stop Jessie Alden. “You said you were an expert when we first came here. Remember? You said you didn’t want us touching11 anything or working with you.”

“True, true,” Tom looked nervously12 around the room. “We do have to go about things in a certain way. I can’t have people poking13 around all over the castle. These valuable things must be handled with care.”

“Then why did you just shove the violin in this cabinet?” Benny asked. “Violet always puts hers carefully away in its case.

Tom took the violin from the cabinet. He cradled it in his arms as if to protect it. “How did I have any way of knowing who was at the door? Many dealers have been after the violin for years, coming to the castle and wanting to look around.”

Violet stepped forward. “Then this is the Stradivarius, isn’t it? Look how beautiful it is!”

Tom pulled a violin case out from behind a bookcase. “I won’t know until I study it and compare it to photos of other violins of this type. Why, I can do that this afternoon.” He carefully laid the violin in its case and snapped the lock shut before the children could get a closer look.

“Why don’t we let Carrie decide what to do about this violin and some of the other things in here?” Henry asked. “After all she’s part of the restoration group at the castle, too.”

Tom didn’t answer right away. But when he did, his whole mood had changed. He smiled at Henry and the other children. “You’re quite right, quite right, young fellow. This will be a feather in Carrie’s cap if the violin is the missing one. I think we should all surprise her at dinner tonight. That will give me time to look up my notes and find out if this is the Drummond Stradivarius.”

“Are you going to look in your notebook?” Benny asked.

Jessie grabbed Benny’s hand before Tom had a chance to answer. “Come on, Benny. Let’s go downstairs and wait for Carrie. I think Tom has a good plan. We can surprise Carrie tonight if the violin is the one we’ve all been looking for.”

Benny didn’t like this idea one bit. Why did Jessie want to go along with Tom’s plan? It didn’t make sense.

“Benny and I have a few things to do downstairs,” Jessie told Henry and Violet. “Maybe you can stay here and help Tom organize some of these things until we get back.”

Henry and Violet had a feeling Jessie had a plan of her own. What was it?


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 poke 5SFz9     
n.刺,戳,袋;vt.拨开,刺,戳;vi.戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢
参考例句:
  • We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
  • Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。
2 dealers 95e592fc0f5dffc9b9616efd02201373     
n.商人( dealer的名词复数 );贩毒者;毒品贩子;发牌者
参考例句:
  • There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
  • The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败,与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。
3 jousting 61f54586c2d51ea99148b54cf00febef     
(骑士)骑马用长矛比武( joust的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • The players happily jousting inside the castle walls didn't see the moat outside widening. 玩家在城墙上幸福地战斗的时候,没有注意到护城河已经开始扩张了。
4 knights 2061bac208c7bdd2665fbf4b7067e468     
骑士; (中古时代的)武士( knight的名词复数 ); 骑士; 爵士; (国际象棋中)马
参考例句:
  • stories of knights and fair maidens 关于骑士和美女的故事
  • He wove a fascinating tale of knights in shining armour. 他编了一个穿着明亮盔甲的骑士的迷人故事。
5 jumbled rpSzs2     
adj.混乱的;杂乱的
参考例句:
  • Books, shoes and clothes were jumbled together on the floor. 书、鞋子和衣服胡乱堆放在地板上。
  • The details of the accident were all jumbled together in his mind. 他把事故细节记得颠三倒四。
6 overflowing df84dc195bce4a8f55eb873daf61b924     
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式
参考例句:
  • The stands were overflowing with farm and sideline products. 集市上农副产品非常丰富。
  • The milk is overflowing. 牛奶溢出来了。
7 grunted f18a3a8ced1d857427f2252db2abbeaf     
(猪等)作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 ); (指人)发出类似的哼声; 咕哝着说
参考例句:
  • She just grunted, not deigning to look up from the page. 她只咕哝了一声,继续看书,不屑抬起头来看一眼。
  • She grunted some incomprehensible reply. 她咕噜着回答了些令人费解的话。
8 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
9 peeked c7b2fdc08abef3a4f4992d9023ed9bb8     
v.很快地看( peek的过去式和过去分词 );偷看;窥视;微露出
参考例句:
  • She peeked over the top of her menu. 她从菜单上往外偷看。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • On two occasions she had peeked at him through a crack in the wall. 她曾两次透过墙缝窥视他。 来自辞典例句
10 spotted 7FEyj     
adj.有斑点的,斑纹的,弄污了的
参考例句:
  • The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
  • Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。
11 touching sg6zQ9     
adj.动人的,使人感伤的
参考例句:
  • It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
  • His letter was touching.他的信很感人。
12 nervously tn6zFp     
adv.神情激动地,不安地
参考例句:
  • He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇,努力忍着不哭出来。
  • He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。
13 poking poking     
n. 刺,戳,袋 vt. 拨开,刺,戳 vi. 戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢
参考例句:
  • He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
  • He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。
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