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儿童英语读物 The Great Bicycle Race Mystery CHAPTER 7 “I’m Hungry!”

时间:2017-09-27 06:18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)

A grumble1 went down the line. A crew member ran out of the dining tent, followed by another. They raced past.

“I don’t believe this,” one of them said as she ran by.

“What’s going on?” asked Benny.

A moment later, another member of the dining hall crew walked down the line. “Dinner will be delayed,” he announced as he walked. “Come back when we ring the bell. It will be at least an hour.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Jessie inquired.

The crew member shook his head. “We got everything set up. We were ready to unload the food and start dishing it out. And then we discovered that someone had tampered2 with the lock on the food wagon3.”

“It’s broken?” asked Violet.

“No. Looks like someone put glue in it. It’s going to take a locksmith to get it open,” he answered. He shook his head again. “I just hope the food doesn’t spoil.”

“Me too!” said Benny.

Henry said, “Did you see anybody suspicious around the food wagon?”

“Ha,” the crew volunteer said. “Like anyone would have time to notice. We’ve all been too busy to notice anything.”

“I’m hungry,” said Benny.

“I have some snack bars in my tent, Benny,” said Soo Lee. “You can have one.”

“Maybe we could all have one?” Jessie asked hopefully.

“There might be enough to go around,” Soo Lee said. “Let’s see.”

They went back across the park to the tents. Soo Lee had enough snack bars for everybody. She even had one left over. They took the snack bars to a picnic table overlooking a small pond.

“If I had my fishing pole,” said Benny, “we could catch fish and cook them for dinner. I wonder who put glue in the lock? I guess whoever it was, wasn’t very hungry.”

“Whoever it was is trying to sabotage4 the ride,” said Henry. “Too many things have gone wrong.”

“Your bike. The water mess at the first rest stop. The fake directions. And the glue in the lock,” said Violet, counting each one on her fingers. She held up four fingers.

“Wow. And we haven’t even started the second day of the ride yet,” said Soo Lee.

“Who could it be? Do you think whoever wrecked5 your bike is the same person who did everything today?” asked Jessie.

Henry said, “Well ... it could be. After all, Al came by the lemonade stand and knew which bike was mine. And he was at the water stop this morning when we got there.”

“That’s right,” said Jessie. “He could have gotten there early and slipped in and opened the spigots.”

“Or it could have been Ms. Whatney and Ronald. He knew about the water and he was glad it happened. And he was right there, remember?” Soo Lee pointed6 out.

“And they could have driven ahead in their car and changed all the signs around,” Henry said.

“Or the mysterious stranger could have done it,” Benny said. “With the backward hat. He knows Ronald and Ms. Whatney. And we saw him walking away from the mess tent tonight.”

Henry rubbed his forehead. “They all seem suspicious, don’t they? But Ms. Whatney wants to buy Eagle Mountain and make money by cutting down the trees and putting up a resort, so she has a reason.”

“Or it could be someone else,” said Violet.

“But how do we figure out who did it?” asked Soo Lee.

“We’ll have to watch everyone very carefully from now on,” said Henry. “Tomorrow, Benny and I will keep an eye out for Ms. Whatney and Ronald.”

“And the mysterious stranger,” said Violet. “Soo Lee and I will help.”

Soo Lee nodded distractedly. She was looking in the direction of the dining tent.

“And I’ll ride extra fast and try to stay near Al to keep an eye on him,” Jessie promised.

Soo Lee stood up.

“Soo Lee? What is it? What’s wrong?” asked Violet.

Soo Lee grinned. The sound of a bell floated through the early evening dusk.

“Dinnertime!” she announced.

But their troubles weren’t over. Soon after dinner, the lights went out in the camp. Soo Lee and Violet, who had been brushing their teeth, had to hurry, shining their flashlights up and down the rows of tents to find their own.

Other flashlights crisscrossed the rows of tents as other riders looked for their sleeping spots. Each row had a letter and each tent had a number.

“N,” whispered Violet. “Here’s our row.”

“We’re near the end,” Soo Lee reminded her. As they walked past the tents, they could hear people talking in soft, sleepy tones. Everyone was tired.

They stopped in front of their tent. Violet crawled in, then Soo Lee followed. Soo Lee leaned out. “Good night,” she called softly to Henry and Grandfather, and to Jessie and Benny, who were in the tents across from Soo Lee and Violet.

Behind her, Violet said, “Sleep tight.”

“I will,” said Benny, his voice muffled7.

“Night,” called Jessie.

Grandfather and Henry didn’t say anything. The only sound that came from their tent was a quiet snore.

Violet pulled up her sleeping bag. Soo Lee snuggled down into hers.

“Good night, Violet,” whispered Soo Lee.

“Good night, Soo Lee,” Violet whispered back.

She turned off the flashlight and yawned.

And then she screamed as something dark and smothering8 swooped9 down on her.

“Help! Help!” cried Violet, thrashing her arms above her head.

“Oh, oh, oh,” shouted Soo Lee, punching and kicking.

“Ow!” said Violet as Soo Lee kicked her in the leg.

“Ouch!” said Soo Lee as one of Violet’s thrashing arms caught her in the shoulder.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Henry’s voice came to them through the darkness. “Your tent collapsed10.”

Struggling out of the tent with Soo Lee, Violet became aware that they weren’t the only ones who’d been kicking and shouting for help.

Violet blinked. “Wha-at?” she managed to say.

“It’s not just your tent,” Jessie announced. “It’s the whole row. Look at that.”

Now volunteers came running with flashlights.

“Just a tent problem, folks,” a woman called as she hurried along. “The night crew will fix it in no time.”

“Look at this,” Jessie said. She had gone to the end of the row. The Aldens followed her voice until they found her. She had her flashlight pointed down at something on the ground. “It was deliberate. Someone made those tents all come down on purpose. All the rear tent pegs11 at this end of the row have been linked together with a single piece of thin rope looped over each peg12. Whoever did that only had to yank the rope and all the rear tent pegs came up. Boom. The tents collapse,” Jessie said.

Henry squatted13 to examine the rope. “Just plain cord,” he said. “But whoever did this is pretty smart. It’s simple and quick. All he—or she—had to do was walk by and pull. No one would even notice.”

As Henry had predicted, no one had. Dozens and dozens of bikers had been up and down the rows of tents since they were put up. “Anyone could have tied the pegs together,” said Henry.

“Not anyone,” said Violet. “It had to be someone staying in the tent city. Remember? They closed the gates.”

“That rules out Ms. Whatney and Ronald, then,” said Jessie.

Soo Lee said, “That’s right. Only riders and crew members and volunteers are allowed to stay in the tent city.”

“Maybe Ronald sneaked14 in,” said Benny. He yawned. “Or maybe the backward hat man.”

“Or maybe it was Al,” said Henry softly.

They walked back to their tents and helped put them back up. Soon the camp had settled down again. People began to fall asleep.

But Henry and Jessie lay awake in their tents, trying to figure out who wanted to sabotage the bike race, and why.

“Oh, good. No glue in the locks this morning,” said Benny.

A yawning crew member shuffled15 by and heard Benny’s words. She smiled wryly16. “That’s because we left someone on guard,” she said. She shook her head. “We have strict security to guard the bicycles in the corral. No one allowed in without their bike number and race ID pass. But who thought we’d have to guard the food?”

She yawned hugely and said, “I need a shower,” and broke into a trot17 toward the shower wagons18.

The Aldens quickly ate their breakfast of cold cereal, juice, and muffins, and headed for the bike corral. On the way, they ran into Nan.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” said Henry. He didn’t feel like talking about everything that had gone wrong.

Nan fell into step beside him.

Henry looked down. “What happened to your leg? Did you fall off your bike?”

A large new bruise19 was on Nan’s shin. It was purple and shiny.

“I bumped into something last night,” she said.

“Why didn’t you use your flashlight?” Violet asked.

Nan made a face. “Well, it was late. I didn’t want to wake people up. I thought I could find the bathrooms in the dark.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t fall into someone’s tent,” said Soo Lee with a little laugh. “Our tents fell last night.”

“Was that the noise I heard? I’m all the way at the end of the tent city, so I couldn’t tell what it was,” Nan said. She showed her rider identification and race number to the corral volunteer.

They were among the first riders to get there. The volunteer guard waved them through.

Nan walked straight down the rows toward her bike, but it took the Aldens a little while to find theirs. When they did, they discovered that something was wrong.

“Hey,” Benny said. “This isn’t my helmet. My helmet doesn’t have pink stripes on it!”

“My helmet’s not orange and silver,” said Henry.

“This helmet’s the wrong color and the wrong size,” said Soo Lee, turning to show a helmet that was sliding down over her nose.

“All our helmets have been mixed up with other people’s,” said Violet.

“Not just ours,” said Jessie. “Look!”

As bikers poured into the bike corral, voices were raised all around them in indignation. Several rows of helmets, which had been tied to the bikes during the night, had been switched around.

For the next hour, noise and disorder20 ruled. Cyclists ran up and down the row, peering at helmets and waving the ones they had above their heads.

Henry finally found his helmet and the owner of the one that had been attached to his bike. He helped Benny locate his helmet while Violet, Soo Lee, and Jessie looked for theirs.

“What about Grandfather?” asked Violet suddenly. She had just found her own helmet, much to her relief. “I’ll see if he needs help finding his helmet.”

But the helmets on Grandfather’s row, much farther away, hadn’t been switched around.

Violet also couldn’t help but notice that the helmets on the row where Al had his bike hadn’t been switched, either. All the riders in his row of parked bicycles were calmly picking up their helmets and putting them on.

Then Violet noticed something else: The man with the backward hat was standing21 just inside the entrance of the bike corral, staring at the rows of bicyclists trying to find their helmets. He had his hands in his pockets and no expression at all on his face.

As if he felt Violet staring, he turned. He smiled at her, that funny jerk of the corner of his mouth.

Violet gave him a halfhearted wave, ducked her head, and hurried back to join the others.

As they walked their bikes out of the corral after finally finding her helmet, she told her family what she had seen.

“It does seem a little suspicious that Al’s row didn’t have any mixed-up helmets,” said Jessie.

“And why did the mystery man suddenly turn up just as it all happened?” Benny wondered out loud.

No one knew the answer to that. And the mysterious man was gone when they reached the entrance of the corral. The Aldens looked around, shrugged22, and then rode out of the camp to begin the second day of the great bike race.


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 grumble 6emzH     
vi.抱怨;咕哝;n.抱怨,牢骚;咕哝,隆隆声
参考例句:
  • I don't want to hear another grumble from you.我不愿再听到你的抱怨。
  • He could do nothing but grumble over the situation.他除了埋怨局势之外别无他法。
2 tampered 07b218b924120d49a725c36b06556000     
v.窜改( tamper的过去式 );篡改;(用不正当手段)影响;瞎摆弄
参考例句:
  • The records of the meeting had been tampered with. 会议记录已被人擅自改动。 来自辞典例句
  • The old man's will has been tampered with. 老人的遗嘱已被窜改。 来自辞典例句
3 wagon XhUwP     
n.四轮马车,手推车,面包车;无盖运货列车
参考例句:
  • We have to fork the hay into the wagon.我们得把干草用叉子挑进马车里去。
  • The muddy road bemired the wagon.马车陷入了泥泞的道路。
4 sabotage 3Tmzz     
n.怠工,破坏活动,破坏;v.从事破坏活动,妨害,破坏
参考例句:
  • They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
  • The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。
5 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
6 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。
7 muffled fnmzel     
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己)
参考例句:
  • muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
  • There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》
8 smothering f8ecc967f0689285cbf243c32f28ae30     
(使)窒息, (使)透不过气( smother的现在分词 ); 覆盖; 忍住; 抑制
参考例句:
  • He laughed triumphantly, and silenced her by manly smothering. 他胜利地微笑着,以男人咄咄逼人的气势使她哑口无言。
  • He wrapped the coat around her head, smothering the flames. 他用上衣包住她的头,熄灭了火。
9 swooped 33b84cab2ba3813062b6e35dccf6ee5b     
俯冲,猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The aircraft swooped down over the buildings. 飞机俯冲到那些建筑物上方。
  • The hawk swooped down on the rabbit and killed it. 鹰猛地朝兔子扑下来,并把它杀死。
10 collapsed cwWzSG     
adj.倒塌的
参考例句:
  • Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
  • The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。
11 pegs 6e3949e2f13b27821b0b2a5124975625     
n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 );挂钉;系帐篷的桩;弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 );使固定在某水平
参考例句:
  • She hung up the shirt with two (clothes) pegs. 她用两只衣夹挂上衬衫。 来自辞典例句
  • The vice-presidents were all square pegs in round holes. 各位副总裁也都安排得不得其所。 来自辞典例句
12 peg p3Fzi     
n.木栓,木钉;vt.用木钉钉,用短桩固定
参考例句:
  • Hang your overcoat on the peg in the hall.把你的大衣挂在门厅的挂衣钩上。
  • He hit the peg mightily on the top with a mallet.他用木槌猛敲木栓顶。
13 squatted 45deb990f8c5186c854d710c535327b0     
v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。
参考例句:
  • He squatted down beside the footprints and examined them closely. 他蹲在脚印旁仔细地观察。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He squatted in the grass discussing with someone. 他蹲在草地上与一个人谈话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
14 sneaked fcb2f62c486b1c2ed19664da4b5204be     
v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 );偷偷溜走;(儿童向成人)打小报告;告状
参考例句:
  • I sneaked up the stairs. 我蹑手蹑脚地上了楼。
  • She sneaked a surreptitious glance at her watch. 她偷偷看了一眼手表。
15 shuffled cee46c30b0d1f2d0c136c830230fe75a     
v.洗(纸牌)( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 );拖着脚步走;粗心地做;摆脱尘世的烦恼
参考例句:
  • He shuffled across the room to the window. 他拖着脚走到房间那头的窗户跟前。
  • Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them. 西蒙笨拙地拖着脚朝他们走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
16 wryly 510b39f91f2e11b414d09f4c1a9c5a1a     
adv. 挖苦地,嘲弄地
参考例句:
  • Molly smiled rather wryly and said nothing. 莫莉苦笑着,一句话也没说。
  • He smiled wryly, then closed his eyes and gnawed his lips. 他狞笑一声,就闭了眼睛,咬着嘴唇。 来自子夜部分
17 trot aKBzt     
n.疾走,慢跑;n.老太婆;现成译本;(复数)trots:腹泻(与the 连用);v.小跑,快步走,赶紧
参考例句:
  • They passed me at a trot.他们从我身边快步走过。
  • The horse broke into a brisk trot.马突然快步小跑起来。
18 wagons ff97c19d76ea81bb4f2a97f2ff0025e7     
n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 );铁路货车;小手推车
参考例句:
  • The wagons were hauled by horses. 那些货车是马拉的。
  • They drew their wagons into a laager and set up camp. 他们把马车围成一圈扎起营地。
19 bruise kcCyw     
n.青肿,挫伤;伤痕;vt.打青;挫伤
参考例句:
  • The bruise was caused by a kick.这伤痕是脚踢的。
  • Jack fell down yesterday and got a big bruise on his face.杰克昨天摔了一跤,脸上摔出老大一块淤斑。
20 disorder Et1x4     
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调
参考例句:
  • When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后,他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
  • It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。
21 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。
22 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》
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