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儿童英语读物 The Castle Mystery CHAPTER 6 Benny Finds Two Treasures

时间:2017-07-31 08:45来源:互联网 提供网友:qing   字体: [ ]
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    (单词翻译:双击或拖选)

Mr. Alden was out on the grounds when his grandchildren spotted1 him. They couldn’t wait to tell their grandfather about the map.

Watch dashed over from the garden to greet the children.

“Watch has been whining2 for you children to come outdoors all morning.” Mr. Alden called out. “I’m afraid he finds gardening rather dull. You probably have something far more exciting for him.”

“We sure do, Grandfather,” Benny said. “We found a map in an old book. We’re going on a treasure hunt. The greenhouse is where it starts.”

“That’s right over there,” Grandfather pointed3. “Only it’s not really a greenhouse anymore but the skeleton of one.”

The children went inside the empty framework. Anyone could see there wasn’t anything hidden or secret about where they were standing4.

“Let’s go to the next place on the map,” Benny suggested.

“That’s the stable we saw in the picture,” Jessie said. “Let’s take a look.”

The children skipped over to an old building not far from the greenhouse. There were several empty horse stalls inside, but that was all.

Benny’s face fell.

“Let’s walk back and forth5 to see if the floor sounds hollow any place,” Henry suggested when he saw Benny’s disappointment. “You never know. There might be a secret passage that leads someplace.”

The children walked in small steps. If there was a secret trap door they were going to find it. Benny walked up and down the length of the stable. There was nothing.

“Come on, buddy,” Henry said. “Let’s go to the next place on the map.”

Jessie began to wonder if the map was not a treasure map at all. She felt sorry for Benny. She knew he was counting on an adventure today. That’s when she got one of her good ideas.

“We’ll make our own treasure hunt,” Jessie told Benny. “Violet and I will run ahead and hide some treats for you and Henry to find. Meet us back here in about twenty minutes. We’ll give you back the map, and you and Henry can follow it. What do you think of that?”

“I think the treasures should be something to eat!” Benny suggested. “We couldn’t eat that old violin anyway.”

While they waited, Henry and Benny decided6 to see what Grandfather was doing. When they returned to the garden they were surprised to see him with Mr. Tooner.

“Is your treasure hunt over already, boys?” Mr. Alden asked. “I don’t see you carrying a bag of gold! Well, come see how a professional gardener does things. Do you mind, Mr. Tooner?”

Mr. Tooner went about his work without greeting the boys. “Now the first thing you do with a lilac bush is you look for the old wood,” he said gruffly. “That’s what you cut — like this.” Mr. Tooner snapped off a branch with his pruning7 scissors.

“Henry, why don’t you give it a try?” Mr. Alden suggested.

Henry took the scissors from Mr. Tooner and started to cut.

“Nope. Not that high, my boy. Cut it right down to the ground,” Mr. Tooner explained. “That’s the way.”

Mr. Tooner supervised the boys as they took turns. “Now you don’t want to hack8 a growing thing like this the way some people do. You cut some of the old growth — not all of it, mind you — to make way for the new. Now you folks can do the rest.”

Mr. Alden and his grandsons watched Mr. Tooner slowly walk back to the castle.

“Well, boys, I’m glad you came along when you did,” Mr. Alden said. “There’s nothing I like better than learning something new from a fine gardener.”

“I thought I didn’t like Mr. Tooner, but now I do,” Benny announced.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Mr. Alden said. “I noticed Mr. Tooner always seemed to be around wherever I looked. So I asked him to show me a few things. That’s often a good way to make friends with a stranger.”

Henry pruned10 some of the other lilac branches. “Did Mr. Tooner talk about Drummond Castle?”

“Just how to properly prune9 these lilacs,” Mr. Alden said. “Mr. Tooner makes every word count. Not much for chitchat and such. But that’s fine with me. I told him we were only here to help out, and he could teach us how to do what needs doing.”

“I’m glad to know Mr. Tooner is such a good teacher, Grandfather,” Henry said. “I wish he would show me how to play a tune11 on the fiddle12.”

Mr. Alden looked puzzled. Benny explained. “We found a picture of Mr. Tooner at a dance a long time ago. He was holding a fiddle. We think we heard him practicing the other night.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Mr. Alden said. “He’s got fine hands for it. Now where are Jessie and Violet? I think Benny’s had enough of gardening.”

“And not enough of treasure hunting,” Benny agreed. “It seems longer than twenty minutes.”

Henry checked his watch. “It is longer than twenty minutes. Let’s go back to the castle and see what’s holding them up.”

Violet and Jessie were nowhere around when the boys went to the castle. Carrie said the girls had come in to get a bag of hard candy and two flashlights, and had then run off again.

“Here’s a flashlight for you boys,” Carrie said.

Benny took the flashlight from Carrie. “Where were the girls going that they might need one?” he asked.

“Let’s check upstairs,” Henry suggested. “They might still be here getting their jackets or something.”

There was no one in the girls’ room.

“Maybe we can see them from up here,” Henry suggested. He took the binoculars13 and looked out from the tower. “Nope, all I see is Sandy Munson driving the Jeep up the hill. Let’s go out and see if Jessie and Violet went back to the greenhouse.”

“Okay,” Benny agreed. “Why are you taking Jessie’s hat, Henry?”

“Maybe Watch can catch Jessie’s scent14 and follow the girls.”

Benny liked this idea very much. On the way to the greenhouse, the boys took one last look back at the castle. Maybe the girls were playing a game of hide-and-seek with them.

“Henry! Look up at that window.” Benny pointed to the rose window over the front door. “It’s moving!”

Indeed there seemed to be someone looking out from the center of the round stained glass window where the painted knight15 was supposed to be.

Henry grabbed Benny’s hand and raced back to the door.

“Shucks!” Benny said when they got closer. “I guess it was just somebody going by in that room.”

“I guess so,” Henry agreed. “Let’s ask Carrie about getting into it sometime. There’s something strange about that window.”

When the boys got to the stables, Watch raced toward them. When he sniffed17 Jessie’s bright red cap, he wagged his tail eagerly.

“Go find Jessie, boy,” Henry said.

Watch put his nose to the ground. Then he went right inside the stable and stood under a window. There on a windowsill was a wrapped piece of candy.

“Good boy, Watch!” Benny cried when he saw the candy his sisters had left for him. “This is more fun than following any old map.”

It sure was. With another sniff16 of Jessie’s hat, Watch led Henry and Benny to a toolshed. Lo and behold18, there was a wrapped candy waiting right up on a shelf next to an old toolbox.

“The girls can’t be too far ahead,” Henry said. “Watch is a better guide than a map any day.”

The boys were sure they would catch up to their sisters very soon. Watch led them to the next stop, a pretty ironwork summerhouse with a bench inside.

“Grape!” Henry announced as he unwrapped a purple candy.

“Look, Henry, they even left a dog biscuit for Watch!” Benny said in amazement19.

Benny waited while Watch finished his munching20 and crunching21. Then Benny gave him Jessie’s hat to sniff again. “I like this treasure hunt!” he told Henry.

Watch ran ahead of the boys. He stopped in front of an old blue door built into the hillside. They had never noticed it before because it was partly hidden by bushes.

Henry turned the doorknob. The door didn’t budge22.

“They can’t have gone in here,” Henry told Benny. “The door is locked tight.”

“Tell that to Watch,” Benny laughed. “He keeps walking back and forth in front of this door.”

The boys pulled and pushed, then turned and twisted the rusted23 iron doorknob. Nothing happened.

“Watch must be wrong,” Benny said.

Henry put Jessie’s hat under Watch’s nose again. “Find Jessie, boy.”

Again Watch paced back and forth in front of the door.

“Let’s go back to where we started at the greenhouse,” Henry suggested. “Maybe the girls are back by now. Or maybe they went another way when they couldn’t get this door open.”

This time the boys took the path along the cliff. They looked down to see if their sisters had gone to the lake. When they passed the entrance to the footpath24, Watch dashed down the steps.

“Watch! Watch!” Henry called out.

Watch kept right on going.

“We’d better follow him,” Henry told Benny.

The boys could hear Watch sniffing25 ahead of them. Finally he stopped right in front of the gate to the cave.

“Henry! Benny! Here we are,” Jessie cried, peering out when her brothers got close. “We’re in here.”

Henry pulled at the gate. “What? How did you get in here? It’s locked.”

“I know it’s locked,” Jessie began. “Open it with that big key, and we’ll tell you about our adventure.”

Henry and Benny looked at each other with surprise.

“What key?” Henry asked. “We don’t have any key.”

Now the girls were surprised.

“Didn’t you find the key we left hanging by the blue door? We left it there with a few candies so you would notice it and follow us into that end of the cave. Now we’re locked in.”

“We didn’t notice any candies or any key,” Benny said in a shaky voice. He didn’t like seeing his sisters behind the locked gate.

Jessie tried not to get nervous. “We put the key back and locked the door behind us. Then we followed the cave until we got here. Go back and see if the key fell on the ground.”

Henry raced off while Benny waited with his sisters. “Is it spooky in there?” he asked in a very small voice.

Violet smiled at Benny. “It is a little spooky. The cave twists and turns a long, long way under the cliff until it stops here. Jessie and I were glad that Carrie gave us flashlights when we went back for the candy. She’s the one who told us about the key. It probably opens this gate, too.”

Henry came back all out of breath. “The key and the candy are gone!”

“They are?” Jessie asked. “Why, we put the key right back! I know we did. Who could have taken it?”

“Someone must have been watching us, Jessie,” Violet said. “Someone who wanted us to get locked in. But who?”

“We’ll have to find that out,” Henry said. “But first I have to get you free. In the tool shed I found this metal cutter to break the lock. We’ve all had enough adventure for today.”

“That’s for sure,” Benny agreed.

Henry worked away at the old lock until he was able to pull it apart. As soon as the gate opened, Watch went up to the two girls and licked them over and over.

“There, there, boy, it wasn’t so bad,” Violet said.

All the same she waited outside while Henry and Benny took a few steps inside the cave to see what it was like.

“We’ll have to come back with a bigger flashlight,” Henry said. “First I want to find out what happened to that key and who sent us on this wild goose chase with this useless map.”

“You mean a dog chase, don’t you, Henry?” Benny asked. “Not a goose chase.”

Everyone laughed at Benny’s good joke.

“Too bad we didn’t find any treasures,” Jessie said to Benny.

“But we did!” Benny said. “You and Violet were the treasures!”


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 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。
2 whining whining     
n. 抱怨,牢骚 v. 哭诉,发牢骚
参考例句:
  • That's the way with you whining, puny, pitiful players. 你们这种又爱哭、又软弱、又可怜的赌棍就是这样。
  • The dog sat outside the door whining (to be let in). 那条狗坐在门外狺狺叫着(要进来)。
3 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。
4 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。
5 forth Hzdz2     
adv.向前;向外,往外
参考例句:
  • The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
  • He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。
6 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。
7 pruning 6e4e50e38fdf94b800891c532bf2f5e7     
n.修枝,剪枝,修剪v.修剪(树木等)( prune的现在分词 );精简某事物,除去某事物多余的部分
参考例句:
  • In writing an essay one must do a lot of pruning. 写文章要下一番剪裁的工夫。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • A sapling needs pruning, a child discipline. 小树要砍,小孩要管。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
8 hack BQJz2     
n.劈,砍,出租马车;v.劈,砍,干咳
参考例句:
  • He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
  • Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。
9 prune k0Kzf     
n.酶干;vt.修剪,砍掉,削减;vi.删除
参考例句:
  • Will you prune away the unnecessary adjectives in the passage?把这段文字中不必要的形容词删去好吗?
  • It is our job to prune the side branches of these trees.我们的工作就是修剪这些树的侧枝。
10 pruned f85c1df15d6cc4e51e146e7321c6b2a5     
v.修剪(树木等)( prune的过去式和过去分词 );精简某事物,除去某事物多余的部分
参考例句:
  • Next year's budget will have to be drastically pruned. 下一年度的预算将大幅度削减。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The roses had been pruned back savagely. 玫瑰被狠狠地修剪了一番。 来自《简明英汉词典》
11 tune NmnwW     
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整
参考例句:
  • He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子,并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
  • The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。
12 fiddle GgYzm     
n.小提琴;vi.拉提琴;不停拨弄,乱动
参考例句:
  • She plays the fiddle well.她小提琴拉得好。
  • Don't fiddle with the typewriter.不要摆弄那架打字机了。
13 binoculars IybzWh     
n.双筒望远镜
参考例句:
  • He watched the play through his binoculars.他用双筒望远镜看戏。
  • If I had binoculars,I could see that comet clearly.如果我有望远镜,我就可以清楚地看见那颗彗星。
14 scent WThzs     
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉
参考例句:
  • The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
  • The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。
15 knight W2Hxk     
n.骑士,武士;爵士
参考例句:
  • He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
  • A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。
16 sniff PF7zs     
vi.嗅…味道;抽鼻涕;对嗤之以鼻,蔑视
参考例句:
  • The police used dogs to sniff out the criminals in their hiding - place.警察使用警犬查出了罪犯的藏身地点。
  • When Munchie meets a dog on the beach, they sniff each other for a while.当麦奇在海滩上碰到另一条狗的时候,他们会彼此嗅一会儿。
17 sniffed ccb6bd83c4e9592715e6230a90f76b72     
v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说
参考例句:
  • When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣,吸了吸鼻子,擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
18 behold jQKy9     
v.看,注视,看到
参考例句:
  • The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
  • The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。
19 amazement 7zlzBK     
n.惊奇,惊讶
参考例句:
  • All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
  • He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。
20 munching 3bbbb661207569e6c6cb6a1390d74d06     
v.用力咀嚼(某物),大嚼( munch的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • He was munching an apple. 他在津津有味地嚼着苹果。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Munching the apple as he was, he had an eye for all her movements. 他虽然啃着苹果,但却很留神地监视着她的每一个动作。 来自辞典例句
21 crunching crunching     
v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄
参考例句:
  • The horses were crunching their straw at their manger. 这些马在嘎吱嘎吱地吃槽里的草。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The dog was crunching a bone. 狗正嘎吱嘎吱地嚼骨头。 来自《简明英汉词典》
22 budge eSRy5     
v.移动一点儿;改变立场
参考例句:
  • We tried to lift the rock but it wouldn't budge.我们试图把大石头抬起来,但它连动都没动一下。
  • She wouldn't budge on the issue.她在这个问题上不肯让步。
23 rusted 79e453270dbdbb2c5fc11d284e95ff6e     
v.(使)生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • I can't get these screws out; they've rusted in. 我无法取出这些螺丝,它们都锈住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • My bike has rusted and needs oil. 我的自行车生锈了,需要上油。 来自《简明英汉词典》
24 footpath 9gzzO     
n.小路,人行道
参考例句:
  • Owners who allow their dogs to foul the footpath will be fined.主人若放任狗弄脏人行道将受处罚。
  • They rambled on the footpath in the woods.他俩漫步在林间蹊径上。
25 sniffing 50b6416c50a7d3793e6172a8514a0576     
n.探查法v.以鼻吸气,嗅,闻( sniff的现在分词 );抽鼻子(尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气);抱怨,不以为然地说
参考例句:
  • We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了,一个劲地抽鼻子,打喷嚏。
  • They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了,呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
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