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儿童英语读物 The Mystery of the Secret Message CHAPTER 9 Vanished into Thin Air!

时间:2017-08-25 03:31来源:互联网 提供网友:qing   字体: [ ]
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Violet was trying to focus through the viewfinder. But Benny kept moving the canvas that covered the statue.

“Look!” he cried. He grabbed a corner of the canvas and pulled.

Violet nearly dropped her camera. Standing1 on the granite2 base was a stepladder. The statue of Josiah Wade3 was missing!

Jessie clutched Henry’s sleeve. “What happened to the statue?” she gasped4.

“Someone took it!” Henry replied as they ran to the center of the square.

“Our statue’s been kidnapped,” Benny exclaimed, hopping5 with excitement. “I mean, statue-napped! Do you think the phantom6 of Greenfield Square did it?”

“There is no phantom,” Henry told him. “But someone very clever pulled this off. We have to tell Grandfather.”

James Alden was already on the scene. He stared at the stepladder in disbelief. “How in the world did someone steal a six-foot-high statue in broad daylight?”

Word of the theft buzzed around the square. Shop owners came out to stare at the ladder perched on the statue’s base.

Rick Bass7 came running over. “This is incredible! Did anybody see anything?”

The Aldens shook their heads.

“People have been working in the square since this morning,” said Grandfather. “That statue didn’t vanish into thin air.”

“The statue was covered all day,” said Rick. “It could have been taken early this morning and we wouldn’t have known the difference.”

Violet thought of something. “Does this mean the festival won’t go on?”

Could they have a Winter Festival without the Minuteman statue? One of the main reasons for the event was to raise funds to fix the statue’s base. Now the guest of honor was missing.

“The festival will go on as scheduled,” Grandfather said firmly.

“The statue might turn up before tomorrow. It could be a prank8,” Rick said.

“Some prank!” Henry said. Was Rick Bass truly concerned or putting on an act?

“I’m going to talk to the shop owners,” James Alden declared. “An operation like this couldn’t be pulled off without somebody seeing something.”

“I’ll call the police,” Rick offered. “They should be notified of the theft.”

“Good idea,” Grandfather said. He and Rick hurried off.

“The thief must have left clues,” said Benny. “Let’s look around.”

The children searched the area thoroughly9. But they found only bent10 nails and trash the construction workers had left behind.

Discouraged, Violet sat down on the statue’s base. Her camera swung around her neck on its strap11.

Jessie stared at the camera. “Violet!” she cried. “Your camera!”

“What about it?”

“You’ve been taking pictures all day. I bet you have a clue on your film!” Jessie said. How could they miss something so obvious?

Now Benny was excited. “If we develop the pictures, we might find out who stole the statue!”

“But the drugstore has to send film away to the lab,” Henry said. “That takes almost a week.”

“Dawn will develop my film,” said Violet. “She could do it fast in her studio.”

“Dawn is one of our suspects,” Jessie reminded her. “Suppose she’s the person we’re after?”

“That’s a chance we have to take,” said Henry.

Benny was already running across the square. “Hurry up!” he called back.

Inside Dawn’s studio, the red light glowed above the darkroom door.

“That means she’s inside developing pictures,” Violet said. She knocked on the door.

“Just a second,” came the reply. A moment later, Dawn opened the door. She smiled when she saw the Aldens.

“Hi, what’s up?”

The children told her the statue was missing and a valuable clue to the theft might be in Violet’s pictures.

Dawn couldn’t believe the statue of Josiah Wade was gone. She went to the window.

“It really is gone!” she said. “Let’s develop Violet’s film right away. You kids can help me.”

They followed Dawn into her darkroom.

She put the roll of film into a canister of developing solution. Violet agitated12 the canister, then Dawn added other chemicals. Next, Dawn hung the roll of film up to dry. Jessie and Benny cut the negatives into strips.

“Now we print the pictures,” Dawn said. “But first we have to make the image bigger. I use this machine, called an enlarger.”

She gave them prints as she enlarged the negatives.

The Aldens dipped the prints in trays of developing solution. Like magic, images appeared on the paper.

“Look at this!” Henry cried. With tweezers13, he held up a photograph of the short, scruffy-haired worker talking to a woman.

The woman was Sylvia Pepper.

“Sylvia hired the construction crew,” Violet said. “She must know the workers.”

“Wait till you see this!” Jessie held up another picture.

The photograph showed the construction truck pulling away from the square. A tarpaulin14 covered the truck bed. Sticking out from the canvas was the end of a musket15.

“Josiah’s musket!” Benny exclaimed. “The workers stole the statue. We have to tell Grandfather!”

Violet was examining Jessie’s photograph with a magnifying glass. “Look,” she said. “Behind that pole. See anybody familiar?”

“Sylvia!” answered Benny, who had the sharpest eyes. “She’s watching the truck leave.”

“I think Miss Pepper has some explaining to do,” Henry said decisively. “Let’s go visit her.”

Dawn shut off the equipment in her darkroom. “I’ll come with you.”

They went outside. All the shop owners were talking about the theft. Even the substitute pharmacist, Mr. Kirby, seemed concerned. Only Sylvia Pepper was absent.

She was in her shop, calmly putting a bouquet16 of yellow roses in water.

When she saw the Aldens, Sylvia said, “If it’s about dressing17 up as a clown tomorrow for the festival, I’ve already told your grandfather I won’t do it.”

“But did you tell him about who stole the statue?” Jessie asked.

Sylvia dropped a rose. “What are you talking about?”

“Surely you must know the Minuteman statue is gone,” Dawn said, gesturing toward the square. “It was stolen sometime today.”

“Why would I know anything about it?” Sylvia said defensively. “I’ve been in my shop all day.”

“Not the whole day.” Henry put the two photographs on the counter.

Sylvia turned pale. Her bright lipstick18 seemed redder.

“Would you like to explain?” Dawn demanded.

The florist19 sat down on a stool behind the counter. “I thought I could get away with it,” she said dully. “It was risky20 taking the statue in the middle of the day. But I believed we could pull it off.”

“We, who?” Henry asked. “This man in the photo?”

“Yes,” replied Sylvia. “His name is Don. We went to college together.”

“Why did Don take the statue?” Benny asked. “It belongs to Greenfield.”

Sylvia told them that years ago when she was in college, she saw a copy of Franklin Bond’s sketch21 for the statue. She read the note about Josiah’s gift to the sculptor22.

“I never forgot about the secret compartment23 in the drawing,” she explained. “I figured the gift — whatever it was — was hidden inside the statue.”

Sylvia moved to Greenfield and opened her florist shop. But business was not as good as she’d hoped it would be and Sylvia was in danger of losing her lease on the store.

“Every day I’d look out on the square and see that statue,” she said. “I knew it contained a secret.”

“And you decided24 to take it,” Henry concluded.

Sylvia nodded. “Josiah Wade lived during the Revolutionary War. Whatever he gave Franklin Bond would be very old and valuable. Collectors pay good money for any kind of Revolutionary relic25.”

“Like the things Rick Bass has in the museum,” Violet said.

Sylvia went on. “I asked my old friend Don to help me look for the statue’s secret. But I didn’t want anybody to suspect me, so we arranged a private signal.”

Benny slapped the counter. “The message photograph!”

“That’s right,” Sylvia said. “I learned that trick in a photography class. But then the photographs got all mixed up in the drugstore and I lost my message photo.”

“I had it,” Violet said. “And you figured it out. You took my camera that day.”

Sylvia frowned. “It wasn’t easy getting it back. I had to search all your belongings26 before I found it.”

“What did the message mean?” Jessie said. “ ‘Move it the day before’?”

“The day before the festival,” Sylvia said. “Since a lot of activity would be going on in the square, I thought that would be a good time to steal the statue.”

“Why go to all that trouble?” Henry wanted to know. “Why not just call your friend and tell him about your plan?”

Sylvia shrugged27. “I was afraid the call might be traced back to me.”

“Then you didn’t really mean it when you said the statue should be moved in front of your store,” Benny accused.

Sylvia smiled. “I just said that.”

“You’re the phantom vandal,” Violet said. “You painted the statue and switched the building numbers. You even wrecked28 the decorations, didn’t you?”

“I had to stall for time while I looked for the message photograph,” Sylvia said. “Of course, I fired the original construction crew your grandfather hired. Don got a job as a construction worker and I hired his crew.”

Jessie thought of something. “You made that call to Grandfather about moving the statue, didn’t you?”

“Sure, to throw suspicion on Rick Bass. He never liked me, anyway,” Sylvia said sourly. “Nobody likes me.”

“We tried to,” Dawn told her. “Everyone in the square would have pitched in to help save your shop.”

“What do you care?” Sylvia said, tossing her head.

“The other night, after we worked on the wreaths,” Dawn said. “You thought I had gone home, but I saw you poking29 around the statue.”

“We saw you!” Henry cried. “We were coming back for Jessie’s notebook. You ran.”

“I thought it was Sylvia coming back,” Dawn said. “I didn’t want her to think I was spying on her.”

Sylvia gave a sharp laugh. “Well, let me tell you what I was doing. I was looking for the secret compartment one last time.”

“The ribbon I found,” Benny said. “It was yours, not Dawn’s!” The scrap30 of cloth matched the bows on the door wreaths. Sylvia had contributed those ribbons.

Dawn looked at the Aldens in surprise. “Did you think I was the vandal?”

Violet blushed. “Well . . . we knew you were in the drugstore the day the pictures were mixed up.”

“I was only in there a second,” Dawn said. “The place was so crowded, I left.”

“We couldn’t rule out anyone,” Henry told her, “until we got to the bottom of this. But we found the true culprit.”

The corners of Sylvia’s mouth turned down. “I really didn’t want to steal that stupid statue.”

A voice said behind them, “That’s too bad, Miss Pepper. You could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

Violet turned at the voice. “Grandfather! Sylvia Pepper and her friend stole the statue!”

“I heard,” James Alden said, striding into the shop. A policeman was at his heels. “You’ll be happy to know, children, that the statue has been recovered.”


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 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。
2 granite Kyqyu     
adj.花岗岩,花岗石
参考例句:
  • They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
  • The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。
3 wade nMgzu     
v.跋涉,涉水;n.跋涉
参考例句:
  • We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
  • We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。
4 gasped e6af294d8a7477229d6749fa9e8f5b80     
v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要
参考例句:
  • She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
  • People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
5 hopping hopping     
n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式
参考例句:
  • The clubs in town are really hopping. 城里的俱乐部真够热闹的。
  • I'm hopping over to Paris for the weekend. 我要去巴黎度周末。
6 phantom T36zQ     
n.幻影,虚位,幽灵;adj.错觉的,幻影的,幽灵的
参考例句:
  • I found myself staring at her as if she were a phantom.我发现自己瞪大眼睛看着她,好像她是一个幽灵。
  • He is only a phantom of a king.他只是有名无实的国王。
7 bass APUyY     
n.男低音(歌手);低音乐器;低音大提琴
参考例句:
  • He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
  • The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。
8 prank 51azg     
n.开玩笑,恶作剧;v.装饰;打扮;炫耀自己
参考例句:
  • It was thought that the fire alarm had been set off as a prank.人们认为火警报警器响是个恶作剧。
  • The dean was ranking the boys for pulling the prank.系主任正在惩罚那些恶作剧的男学生。
9 thoroughly sgmz0J     
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地
参考例句:
  • The soil must be thoroughly turned over before planting.一定要先把土地深翻一遍再下种。
  • The soldiers have been thoroughly instructed in the care of their weapons.士兵们都系统地接受过保护武器的训练。
10 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。
11 strap 5GhzK     
n.皮带,带子;v.用带扣住,束牢;用绷带包扎
参考例句:
  • She held onto a strap to steady herself.她抓住拉手吊带以便站稳。
  • The nurse will strap up your wound.护士会绑扎你的伤口。
12 agitated dzgzc2     
adj.被鼓动的,不安的
参考例句:
  • His answers were all mixed up,so agitated was he.他是那样心神不定,回答全乱了。
  • She was agitated because her train was an hour late.她乘坐的火车晚点一个小时,她十分焦虑。
13 tweezers ffxzlw     
n.镊子
参考例句:
  • We simply removed from the cracked endocarp with sterile tweezers.我们简单地用消过毒的镊子从裂开的内果皮中取出种子。
  • Bee stings should be removed with tweezers.蜜蜂的螫刺应该用小镊子拔出来。
14 tarpaulin nIszk     
n.涂油防水布,防水衣,防水帽
参考例句:
  • The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来,堆在那里,还盖上了防水布。
  • The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来,堆在那里,还盖上了防水布。
15 musket 46jzO     
n.滑膛枪
参考例句:
  • I hunted with a musket two years ago.两年前我用滑膛枪打猎。
  • So some seconds passed,till suddenly Joyce whipped up his musket and fired.又过了几秒钟,突然,乔伊斯端起枪来开了火。
16 bouquet pWEzA     
n.花束,酒香
参考例句:
  • This wine has a rich bouquet.这种葡萄酒有浓郁的香气。
  • Her wedding bouquet consisted of roses and ivy.她的婚礼花篮包括玫瑰和长春藤。
17 dressing 1uOzJG     
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料
参考例句:
  • Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
  • The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。
18 lipstick o0zxg     
n.口红,唇膏
参考例句:
  • Taking out her lipstick,she began to paint her lips.她拿出口红,开始往嘴唇上抹。
  • Lipstick and hair conditioner are cosmetics.口红和护发素都是化妆品。
19 florist vj3xB     
n.花商;种花者
参考例句:
  • The florist bunched the flowers up.花匠把花捆成花束。
  • Could you stop at that florist shop over there?劳驾在那边花店停一下好不好?
20 risky IXVxe     
adj.有风险的,冒险的
参考例句:
  • It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险,但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
  • He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。
21 sketch UEyyG     
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述
参考例句:
  • My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
  • I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。
22 sculptor 8Dyz4     
n.雕刻家,雕刻家
参考例句:
  • A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
  • The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。
23 compartment dOFz6     
n.卧车包房,隔间;分隔的空间
参考例句:
  • We were glad to have the whole compartment to ourselves.真高兴,整个客车隔间由我们独享。
  • The batteries are safely enclosed in a watertight compartment.电池被安全地置于一个防水的隔间里。
24 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。
25 relic 4V2xd     
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物
参考例句:
  • This stone axe is a relic of ancient times.这石斧是古代的遗物。
  • He found himself thinking of the man as a relic from the past.他把这个男人看成是过去时代的人物。
26 belongings oy6zMv     
n.私人物品,私人财物
参考例句:
  • I put a few personal belongings in a bag.我把几件私人物品装进包中。
  • Your personal belongings are not dutiable.个人物品不用纳税。
27 shrugged 497904474a48f991a3d1961b0476ebce     
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式)
参考例句:
  • Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀,什么也没说。
  • She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩,装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
28 wrecked ze0zKI     
adj.失事的,遇难的
参考例句:
  • the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
  • the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞
29 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。
30 scrap JDFzf     
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废
参考例句:
  • A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
  • Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。
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