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儿童英语读物 Mystery in the Sand CHAPTER 7 Violet’s Adventure

时间:2017-06-29 02:26来源:互联网 提供网友:qing   字体: [ ]
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Benny woke very early next morning. He looked out and saw that the weather had changed. It was very windy. The waves were high and the sand was blowing.

Benny pulled on an old pair of pants and a sweatshirt. He wanted to race along the beach, barefoot, and have the whole place to himself.

Without waking Henry or the girls, Benny opened the door and slipped outside.

The very first thing, he stubbed his toe on a stone.

“Ow!” he exclaimed. “That stone wasn’t there last night. Now who in the world would put a stone right in my way?”

Then suddenly he saw a piece of white paper blowing away. He raced after the paper.

The wind blew it high, then low. At last it dropped on the sand.

“Got you!” said Benny. He put his foot on it, until he could pick it up. “That stone I stepped on was holding you down.”

Benny soon saw that the paper was a sheet of writing paper, folded in half. On the outside something was written in old-fashioned writing. Benny could hardly read it in the dim light, but at last he made out the words, “Thank you.” Then he opened the paper and looked inside. He read the message twice. It did not seem to make any sense. It said, “All thanks you. We all thank you.”

That was it. Benny turned the paper over. He folded it again. “Who wrote this?” he thought. “And it must be for us, right in front of our trailer. That sentence, ‘All thanks you,’ isn’t even good English.”

He started back to the trailer house. Now he looked around to see if anyone was in sight. The beach was empty from one end to the other.

“Perhaps there are footprints,” Benny thought.

But all he found were his own barefoot tracks he had just made chasing the paper.

Near the door Benny found what he was looking for. There were three small footprints on the hard sand. “They look like a child’s shoes,” he thought.

Two footprints pointed1 toward the trailer, and one was made as the person turned to go toward the water. But that was all. Everything else was washed away by the tide. There was nothing to show where the nighttime visitor had come from or gone.

But Benny still had the note. He read it again. Then he opened the door of the trailer and found Henry and the girls just waking up.

“Look!” Benny called. “A new mystery!”

Everyone took turns looking at the note, reading it, and then looking out at the beach.

At last Jessie said, “Well, I don’t know what to make of this.”

“We can show it to Mr. Lee,” Benny said.

“If he’s out on a windy morning like this,” Henry said. “The weather has changed.”

“Let’s have breakfast inside,” Jessie suggested. “Ben, you sit where you can watch for Mr. Lee.”

But although everyone watched, Mr. Lee and Richard did not come down the beach. There was not a sign of them. Jessie let the hot water for the tea grow cold. Everyone felt a bit sad and uneasy2.

Benny still thought about the note. “‘All thanks you,’” he said. “That bothers me.”

Henry said, “Let me see that note again. The writing is hard to read. Do you think it really says ‘all’?”

“I don’t know what else it could say,” Benny answered. “I would really like to know what it means.”

“We all would,” Jessie said. “But I give up. I don’t think we’ll ever know what the message means or who was supposed to read it.”

Benny folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Let’s go to town,” he said. “It’s too stormy to go swimming. There isn’t much to do here.”

Nobody else really wanted to say this, but they were restless not doing anything.

“Something may come up,” Benny said. “But it is more likely to come up in Beachwood than out here.”

“We’ll just wait until after lunch, Benny,” said Jessie. “Then we’ll go up to Beachwood.”

After the lunch dishes were done, they all changed their clothes and climbed into Henry’s car.

They were soon on Main Street in Beachwood, but Henry had a hard time parking the car.

“I forgot this was shopping day,” said Henry, looking everywhere for a parking place. “I guess the windy weather made everybody decide to come to town.”

At last, far down the Main Street, almost at the very end, Henry found room to park. In fact, there was space for two or three cars along the curb3.

“One place is all I need,” Henry said, laughing. He put a coin in the meter.

“Look at the crowd,” Benny exclaimed. “Let’s just walk down the street with the crowd. I didn’t know Beachwood had so many people.”

“It doesn’t, Ben,” Jessie told him. “You’ll notice half this crowd comes in from the beaches. The town people are all pale, and the visitors are tanned.”

“And the town people take their time and drive along slowly,” Benny said. “But look at some of the beach people!”

“That’s right,” Henry agreed. “Those drivers expect you to keep out of their way. If you don’t, too bad!”

The Aldens had worked their way down Main Street as far as the drugstore. The street was thick with cars, and people were looking for parking places and honking4 their horns. What a racket!

Henry and Benny, with Jessie between them, walked along quickly. But Violet stopped to look in a window.

Suddenly Violet cried out, “Oh, look! Look at that cat!”

And before Henry or anyone else could stop her, she ran out into the street. She threw her left hand high in the air to stop the cars coming toward her. There was a noise of grinding5 gears6, and all the cars stopped with a jerk7.

Paying no attention, Violet bent8 over and picked up an enormous gray cat. He was crouching9 in the dust of the street, and trembling all over.

With the cat safe in her arms, Violet ran back to the sidewalk.

“Did you see that?” a man asked his wife. “That girl risked her life for a cat. She could have been killed!”

Jessie and Henry took Violet between them and led her through the crowd. Violet had the big cat safe in her arms, and indeed the cat did not try to get away.

The drugstore clerk had come to the door of his store. He watched as the postman spoke10 to Violet.

The postman said, “That’s Miss Smith’s cat. She lives in Tower House. But I don’t think she’ll let you in.”

“She’ll let you in this time—when she sees you coming with her cat,” said the clerk.

People turned to look and smile at Violet. She was a pretty picture in her lavender shorts, a lavender scarf over her hair. And against the lavender was the great gray cat, with long soft fur and beautiful big eyes.

The cat lay still in Violet’s arms, although she could feel its heart beating fast. He seemed to know that he was safe from all the noise.

The Aldens walked across to the Tower House, and this time Benny rapped12. He did not have to rap11 again, for the door opened at once. There stood a new Mary Smith. She was very much upset and frightened.

“Oh, come in! Bring the cat in. I let him out! I am to blame,” Miss Smith said all in one breath. “To think he could have been run over in the street!”

The cat seemed to be comfortable in Violet’s arms. It did not move or try to get down.

When Miss Smith told Violet and Benny to go into the house, they did so. They looked quickly around the room. They both noticed a long black velvet13 curtain which hung from the ceiling to the floor at the end of the room. But they were amazed at Miss Smith. She was shaking, really shaking.

Violet said, “You’d feel better if you made a cup of hot tea. Why don’t you get one? We’ll be careful when we go out and not let your cat out again.”

Miss Smith actually smiled at Violet. “Oh, I believe I will,” she said. “That cat is Ali Baba the Third, and to think I nearly lost him! You stay just a minute. I don’t want any tea.”

Miss Smith went through the black curtain at the end of the room. She was careful not to let any light shine into the room beyond.

Violet looked about and noticed that the furniture was old and fine and the carpet was an oriental14 one. She still held the big cat.

Jessie and Henry had been a few steps behind Benny and Violet. When Miss Smith had asked them to come in, she had been too excited to notice Henry and Jessie. They were left out, on the other side of the door.

“We sure were left out in the cold,” Henry said. “I wish we knew what was going on inside the Tower House.”

“I thought Violet and Benny would be right out,” Jessie said. “But I am sure they are all right.”

“We’ll wait, then try knocking,” Henry decided15.

Inside the house, Miss Smith soon came back to her guests. She was still upset. “I let him out!” she repeated. “I just opened the door a crack and out he went, flying. I let him out.”

Benny and Violet could not understand this. But they were not going to leave Miss Smith until she felt better. Nobody could be less like a witch than Miss Smith!

“I love cats,” said Violet. “And so does Benny.”

“I see you do. I never saw that cat go to anybody, not even me. You must have a way with you. Do you have a cat?”

“No, we have a dog,” replied Violet, smiling.

Benny said, “I can just see Watch if we brought home a cat. He’s a dog that doesn’t like cats.”

“Most dogs don’t,” said Miss Smith, still trembling.

If Violet and Benny had known it, Miss Smith had talked more in the last five minutes than she did in most weeks. She couldn’t seem to stop saying, “I am to blame. I’m the one who let him out.”

Violet still held the cat. She said, “Don’t blame yourself so much. Look, here is the cat, safe in the house. And he’s beginning to purr. Nobody else, surely, is blaming you.”

But Miss Smith certainly acted as if someone else was blaming her. She stared at the cat and said, “I never saw Ali Baba friendly with anyone before. He’s a very wild cat.”

Benny said, “He knows Violet loves him. Animals know when anyone really likes them.”

It was odd that neither Benny nor Violet thought once of the locket and the picture of the cat in it. But they were too busy thinking of Miss Smith and her troubles. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Benny saw the black curtain move.

“That is no cat,” Benny thought. “I’m sure there are two people here, just as I thought.”

Violet had the same idea. Miss Smith disappeared behind the curtain again for a minute. When she came back, she said, “Would you do something for me, little girl?”

Violet did not feel that she was a little girl, but she said, “Of course. I hope it is something I can do.”

“What can Miss Smith want?” Benny wondered.

“Come back tomorrow morning when the sun is just right. About ten o’clock. Can you do that? Will you? And wear the same clothes.”

Violet was too surprised to speak, so Benny said, “Yes, she can.”

Miss Smith seemed better now, and Violet put the cat down. “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten,” she said. “Good-bye.”

The minute Violet and Benny joined Jessie and Henry they began to tell them all that had happened.

“Miss Smith said I was to come when the light was right,” Violet said. “I can’t guess what she means.”

Benny had a fine idea. “I think Miss Smith wants to paint a picture of Violet with the cat in her arms.”

They all agreed. Jessie said, “Violet was certainly a picture with all that gray and violet color.”

“What a story we’ll have for Mr. Lee,” Benny said. “I’m sure he thought we’d never get inside the Tower House.”

In all the excitement, Benny and Violet forgot about the cat’s name. After all, a great deal had happened in a short time.

The next morning Mr. Lee was surprised at all the news. He thought exactly as the Aldens did. When they told him of Miss Smith’s request, he agreed that probably Violet was going to sit for her picture with the cat in her arms. “Otherwise,” remarked Mr. Lee, “she wouldn’t have told Violet what color to wear.”

At exactly ten o’clock Henry stopped the blue car in front of the Tower House and Violet got out. Miss Smith opened the door before she had time to knock.

“Go in, please,” Miss Smith said. She pushed back the black curtain.

Violet found herself in an artist’s studio. Sunshine came in through the large back window, and there was light everywhere. And sure enough, there was another person! She came out of the shadows.

She was a tiny little woman, dressed in a smock, all covered with paint. She looked sharply16 at Violet.

“Sit here,” she said suddenly. “Good of you to come. Take up Ali Baba.”

Now Violet never picked up a cat. She always waited for the cat to come to her. She explained this now as she saw the cat lying asleep on a silk cushion. She did not wait long. Ali stretched himself and jumped lightly into her lap.

“A marvel,” said the artist. She wasted no time but began to draw very quickly on the paper on the easel.

“You don’t have to sit still,” she said gruffly. “Don’t look at Ali. Look at me.”

Violet obeyed. The cat settled down in her arms exactly as he had done the day before. He felt safe.

“How will you get home, child?” asked the little woman.

“Oh, my brother Henry is waiting with the car. They are all waiting.”

“Who is ‘all’?”

“Well, my sister Jessie, Henry, my big brother, and Benny, my younger brother. There are four of us.”

“Four of you?” said the little woman. “Yes, that’s right. A loving family, eh?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I never saw one myself,” said the artist.

“You should meet mine,” Violet exclaimed. How sad it must be, Violet thought, to live all one’s life and never know a loving family.

Ali had gone to sleep. His head was lying sideways, and he had stopped purring.

Suddenly Violet asked, “Do you have other cats?”

“Oh, yes. I have ten cats. I like cats better than people, you see. I try not to have anything to do with people.”

Violet thought about that. Here was someone who did not want to make friends. If Ali had not escaped from the house, Violet would never have been invited to come in.

Without even having begun to paint, the artist said, “That’s all. Come tomorrow, child.” And she handed Violet a note that said, “Please be ready for me at 10. Thank you.”

“I will be,” Violet said. She started to put Ali Baba back on the cushion, talking to him all the time. He growled17 softly. He was very comfortable and did not want to be moved.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to hold you,” Violet promised. She did not even try to look at the picture. She knew it was not done and she would have to wait.

The artist called, “Mary, please let this little girl out. We are finished for today.” And to Violet she said with great charm18, “Thank you, my dear, for coming.”

“Just a minute, Ruth,” Violet heard Miss Smith answer. And in a moment she appeared and led Violet to the door.

“You’ve made Miss Lane and me happy,” Miss Smith said quickly. Her cheeks were pink as she spoke, and suddenly Violet knew that this was a very shy person. How wrong everyone in Beachwood was about Miss Mary Smith!


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
2 uneasy 8kDwf     
adj.心神不安的,担心的,令人不安的
参考例句:
  • He feels uneasy today.他今天心里感到不安。
  • She had an uneasy feeling that they were still following her.她有一种他们仍在跟踪她的不安感觉。
3 curb LmRyy     
n.场外证券市场,场外交易;vt.制止,抑制
参考例句:
  • I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
  • You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。
4 honking 69e32168087f0fd692f761e62a361acf     
v.(使)发出雁叫似的声音,鸣(喇叭),按(喇叭)( honk的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • Cars zoomed helter-skelter, honking belligerently. 大街上来往车辆穿梭不停,喇叭声刺耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Flocks of honking geese flew past. 雁群嗷嗷地飞过。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
5 grinding a6c90b548f82ce1dde5ef853d105cd86     
adj.磨的,磨擦的,碾的v.磨碎,嚼碎( grind的现在分词 );旋转开动;压迫,折磨
参考例句:
  • The powerful lords were guilty of grinding the villagers under their heels. 那些大领主的罪过是以权势欺压村民。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • This old mill has been grinding away for over 50 years. 50多年来,这间老磨坊一直在磨粮食。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 gears 56f3f885234d52d7bd89394d19228991     
n.齿轮( gear的名词复数 );装备;挡;(做某事的)速度
参考例句:
  • Careless use of the clutch may damage the gears. 离合器使用不慎可能会损坏传动装置。
  • A car has five gears. 汽车有五挡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
7 jerk pazz3     
n.(口语)笨蛋,性情古怪的人,急拉,肌肉抽搐;v.痉挛,急拉,急推,急动
参考例句:
  • Just keep that jerk off me.让那个笨蛋离开我。
  • The knife was stuck but she pulled it out with a jerk.那把刀子被卡住了,她猛地一拔,把它拔了出来。
8 bent QQ8yD     
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的
参考例句:
  • He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
  • We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。
9 crouching crouching     
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
  • A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
10 spoke XryyC     
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
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
11 rap SABzi     
n.轻敲,拍击,责骂,厉声说出,说唱音乐,谈话,最少量;vi.轻敲,敲门,表演说唱音乐,畅谈;vt.抓,抢,拍击
参考例句:
  • I heard a rap on the door.我听到有轻轻的敲门声。
  • Today we are going to rap about relationships.今天我们要聊聊关系的问题。
12 rapped c554bddab0a4bec3b87b6af2a62a9983     
v.突然说出( rap的过去式和过去分词 );(公开地)严厉批评;突然大声说出;连续敲叩
参考例句:
  • He rapped sharply on the door. 他猛烈地敲门。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The king rapped on the table with his heavy metal ring, and the company fell silent. 国王用他重重的金属戒指敲打桌子,使客人安静下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
13 velvet 5gqyO     
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的
参考例句:
  • This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
  • The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。
14 oriental lJxxo     
adj.东方的,东方人的,东方文化的
参考例句:
  • China is an oriental country with a long history.中国是一个有着悠久历史的东方国家。
  • They maintain a very powerful fleet in Oriental waters.他们在远东海域保持着一支非常强大的舰队。
15 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。
16 sharply UiRziL     
adj.锐利地,急速;adv.严厉地,鲜明地
参考例句:
  • The plane dived sharply and rose again.飞机猛然俯冲而后又拉了起来。
  • Demand for personal computers has risen sharply.对个人电脑的需求急剧增长。
17 growled 65a0c9cac661e85023a63631d6dab8a3     
v.(动物)发狺狺声, (雷)作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 );低声咆哮着说
参考例句:
  • \"They ought to be birched, \" growled the old man. 老人咆哮道:“他们应受到鞭打。” 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He growled out an answer. 他低声威胁着回答。 来自《简明英汉词典》
18 charm prVzK     
vt.使着迷,使陶醉;n.招人喜欢之处,魅力
参考例句:
  • With all imperfections the short play has a real charm.尽管有不少缺欠,这出小戏仍颇具魅力。
  • He could resist her charm no longer.他再也抗拒不住她的魅力。
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