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儿童英语读物 The Haunted Cabin Mystery CHAPTER 10 Henry’s Plan

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That night they talked a long time. They went over their plan until each of them knew exactly what to do. They talked so late that Thursday morning came too fast.

Again the sky was dark and overcast1. As they sat down for breakfast, Cap said, “Not much of a night for sleeping, was it?”

Henry was flipping2 golden brown pancakes in an iron skillet. Violet carried them to the table on warmed plates.

“Did you have trouble sleeping?” Benny asked Cap.

“Some,” he said. “How about you?”

“When I did sleep, I did it good,” Benny told him.

“Then nobody heard any animals crashing around or strange cries or anything?” Cap asked.

Violet put her fork down and looked up at him. “Well … ” she began.

Jessie interrupted her quietly. “Come on, Violet, let’s do the dishes since Henry cooked.”

“I felt terrible at breakfast,” Violet told Jessie. “Ever since we’ve been here, we’ve done nothing but keep secrets from Cap. It makes me feel dishonest.”

Jessie nodded. “I feel the same way, but it’s almost over. If we can catch the people who are making him so nervous, keeping secrets from him will be worth it.”

When the sun still hadn’t come out by afternoon, Cap shook his head. “At this rate, you won’t be able to get to town on Pilot tomorrow, either. I don’t know what we’re going to feed your grandfather on Saturday.”

“We’ll do fine if we can get into the garden tomorrow,” Violet said. “But it’s probably pure mud out there now.”

“Worse comes to worse, I can tell you how to build bridges into the garden,” Cap told her.

“Grandfather will be able to get here without building bridges, won’t he?” Benny asked Cap with a worried look.

The old man nodded. “He’ll have no problem in one of those big cars he always rents. It’s not like having a horse loaded with four kids and a bunch of groceries.” He glanced around. “Is that Henry back out at the barn again? Pilot’s going to be lonesome when that boy leaves.”

Jessie knew what Henry was doing out there with Pilot. He was fixing the barn lights so that all of them could be turned on with a single switch just inside Pilot’s stall. She was really proud of the plan they had worked out. And they had all gone over it so many times the night before that she was positive it would work.

Every single one of them had a different job. Jessie herself would be the lookout3 in the hayloft. She would have the flashlight. The minute she saw anyone creeping into the barn, she would wink5 the flashlight three times out of the window of the loft4.

Benny was to stay on the back porch and keep watching to see her signal from the hayloft window. The minute he saw Jessie flash the light three times, he would switch on the floodlight and make the whole barnyard as bright as day.

Violet would be standing6 inside the barn, just inside Pilot’s stall where she could reach the switch Henry had fixed7. When she saw the lights go on outside, she would turn on all the lights inside the barn. Whoever tried to come in there would be covered with light from both inside and out of the barn.

Henry was to stand just inside the chicken yard fence. He got that job because he was the biggest and the fastest runner. He would leave the gate open a little bit so that he could get out and start running fast. He would race across the yard and slam the barn door and lock the prowler inside. That way he couldn’t run away before they caught him. Everything had to work perfectly9.

That was the longest day ever. When dinnertime finally came, nobody was even hungry. “You kids must be excited to see your grandfather,” Cap said when Benny turned down a second helping10 of spaghetti.

Finally, it felt strange to be in bed fully11 dressed except for their shoes. They hardly breathed waiting for Henry to decide it was time to go out and take their places.

“It’s so noisy tonight,” Benny whispered.

“It sounds that way because we’re being so quiet,” Jessie told him. But it was noisy. The frogs croaked12. Off in the woods, the screech13 owl8 gave its trembling eerie14 call, sending a shiver up everyone’s spine15.

Henry watched the moon climb up the overcast sky. Mostly it was only behind the clouds. Once in a while, it broke free and flooded the wet barn and the yard around it with a silvery light.

Jessie was watching, too. “Look how plainly you can see everything in that light.”

Henry nodded. “We should go as soon as the moon gets hidden behind that big bank of clouds.”

The minute the moon slid under the clouds, Violet and Jessie went outside. They stood in the shadows of the cabin only a minute before making a dash for the barn door which Henry had left open for them.

“Is your heart beating like everything?” Violet asked Jessie when they were safe inside the barn and Jessie was starting up into the loft.

Jessie nodded. “I don’t like to think I’m afraid, but my skin feels creepy, too.”

“I’m scared and I know it,” Violet told her.

Jessie felt her way carefully up the wooden ladder into the loft. With the flashlight in her hand, she crept through the dark to the high window.

When Violet let herself inside the stall where Pilot stood, the big horse stamped his foot, then whinnied softly. After she had located the light switch, Violet stroked Pilot’s long warm head.

Back on the porch, Henry and Benny watched the girls make their shadowy run across the open yard. “Now it’s my turn,” Henry told Benny. “Whatever you do, don’t get sleepy.”

“I’m already sleepy,” Benny told him, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll go to sleep. I’ve even practiced pinching myself to stay awake.”

When the moon disappeared again, Henry made his way to the chicken yard and stood by the tall post just inside the gate.

The moon continued to rise in the sky as the time passed. Henry worried about Benny, back on the porch, pinching himself to stay awake. He even worried that the prowlers might not come at all.

He leaned against the fence post and sighed. This wasn’t the first mystery they had been involved in, but it was the most puzzling. Even if he hadn’t liked Cap Lambert as much as he did, it was terrible for someone to be scaring an old man. The plan had to work.

Suddenly something caught his eye. Something or someone smaller than a man, all dressed in dark clothing, was creeping around the side of the barn, moving awkwardly.

He drew in his breath and held it. How strangely the creature walked, unevenly16, as if it were dragging something heavy at its side. Then the dark creature melted into the shadow of the barn, and Henry let his breath out slowly.

In a minute it would be inside the barn. In a minute he would see Jessie’s signal from the barn loft. He had to be ready to run faster then he had ever run in his whole life.


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 overcast cJ2xV     
adj.阴天的,阴暗的,愁闷的;v.遮盖,(使)变暗,包边缝;n.覆盖,阴天
参考例句:
  • The overcast and rainy weather found out his arthritis.阴雨天使他的关节炎发作了。
  • The sky is overcast with dark clouds.乌云满天。
2 flipping b69cb8e0c44ab7550c47eaf7c01557e4     
讨厌之极的
参考例句:
  • I hate this flipping hotel! 我讨厌这个该死的旅馆!
  • Don't go flipping your lid. 别发火。
3 lookout w0sxT     
n.注意,前途,瞭望台
参考例句:
  • You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
  • It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来,公司的前景可就不妙了。
4 loft VkhyQ     
n.阁楼,顶楼
参考例句:
  • We could see up into the loft from bottom of the stairs.我们能从楼梯脚边望到阁楼的内部。
  • By converting the loft,they were able to have two extra bedrooms.把阁楼改造一下,他们就可以多出两间卧室。
5 wink 4MGz3     
n.眨眼,使眼色,瞬间;v.眨眼,使眼色,闪烁
参考例句:
  • He tipped me the wink not to buy at that price.他眨眼暗示我按那个价格就不要买。
  • The satellite disappeared in a wink.瞬息之间,那颗卫星就消失了。
6 standing 2hCzgo     
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
参考例句:
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
7 fixed JsKzzj     
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的
参考例句:
  • Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗?
  • Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定,我们就不应该随意改变。
8 owl 7KFxk     
n.猫头鹰,枭
参考例句:
  • Her new glasses make her look like an owl.她的新眼镜让她看上去像只猫头鹰。
  • I'm a night owl and seldom go to bed until after midnight.我睡得很晚,经常半夜后才睡觉。
9 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
10 helping 2rGzDc     
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
参考例句:
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
11 fully Gfuzd     
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地
参考例句:
  • The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气,然后全部呼出。
  • They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。
12 croaked 9a150c9af3075625e0cba4de8da8f6a9     
v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 );用粗的声音说
参考例句:
  • The crow croaked disaster. 乌鸦呱呱叫预报灾难。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • 'she has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. “她有一个漂亮的脑袋跟着去呢,”雅克三号低沉地说。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
13 screech uDkzc     
n./v.尖叫;(发出)刺耳的声音
参考例句:
  • He heard a screech of brakes and then fell down. 他听到汽车刹车发出的尖锐的声音,然后就摔倒了。
  • The screech of jet planes violated the peace of the afternoon. 喷射机的尖啸声侵犯了下午的平静。
14 eerie N8gy0     
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的
参考例句:
  • It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
  • I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。
15 spine lFQzT     
n.脊柱,脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊
参考例句:
  • He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
  • His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。
16 unevenly 9fZz51     
adv.不均匀的
参考例句:
  • Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed. 燃料资源分布很不均匀。
  • The cloth is dyed unevenly. 布染花了。
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