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he had a real chainsaw. Rodrick told me the chainsaw has a rubber blade, but I wasn't taking any chances. Right when it looked like the chainsaw guy was going to catch us, Mom stepped in and bailed us out. THAT'S NOT NICE! I'M SORRY, MA'AM! Mom made the chainsaw guy show us where the exit was, and that was the end of our haunted house experience right there. I guess it was a little

他有一把真正的电锯。罗德里克告诉我电锯的刀片是橡胶的，但我不敢冒险。 就在电锯男要抓住我们的时候，妈妈挺身而出，把我们救了出来。 这可不好！对不起，夫人！妈妈让电锯男告诉我们出口在哪里，我们的鬼屋经历就这样结束了。 我想是有点

embarrassing when Mom did that, but I'm willing to let it go this one time. Saturday The Crossland haunted house really got me thinking. Those guys were charging five bucks a pop, and the line stretched halfway around the school. I decided to make a haunted house of my own. Actually, I had to bring Rowley in on the deal, because Mom wouldn't let me convert our first floor into a full-out haunted mansion. I knew Rowley's dad wouldn't be crazy about the idea, either, so we decided to build the haunted house in his basement and just not mention it to his parents. Me and Rowley spent most of the day coming up with an awesome plan for our haunted house. Here was our final plan:

妈妈那样做让我很尴尬，但我愿意放过这一次。 星期六克罗斯兰德的鬼屋真的让我深思。 那些人每支卖五美元，队伍延伸到学校的一半。 我决定自己造一个鬼屋。 事实上，我不得不让罗利参与进来，因为妈妈不让我把一楼改造成闹鬼的豪宅。 我知道罗利的爸爸也不会喜欢这个主意，所以我们决定把鬼屋建在他的地下室，而且不告诉他的父母。 我和罗利花了一天的大部分时间为我们的鬼屋想出一个很棒的计划。 这是我们的最终计划：

HALL OF SCREAMS. LAKE OF BLOOD. BOTTOMLESS PIT. RAT TUNNEL. MAZE OF 1,000 SKULLS. KNIFE ALLEY. HAND HALL. DEATH SLIDE. ACID LAKE. I don't mean to brag or anything, but what we came up with was way better than the Crossland High School haunted house. We realized we were gonna need to get the word out that we were doing this thing, so we got some paper and made up a bunch of flyers. I'll admit maybe we stretched the truth a little in our advertisement, but we had to make sure people actually showed up.

尖叫大厅。血海。 无底洞。老鼠隧道。 1000个骷髅迷宫。刀的拿手好戏。 手大厅。死亡幻灯片。酸湖。 我不是想吹牛什么的，但我们想出的东西比克罗斯兰高中的鬼屋好多了。 我们意识到我们需要让大家知道我们在做这件事，所以我们弄了些纸，做了一堆传单。 我承认也许我们在广告中夸大了事实，但我们必须确保人们确实出现了。

By the time we finished putting the flyers up around the neighborhood and got back to Rowley's basement, it was already 2:30, and we hadn't even started putting the actual haunted house together yet. So we had to cut some corners from our original plan. When 3:00 rolled around, we looked outside to see if anyone had showed up. And sure enough, there were about twenty neighborhood kids waiting in line outside Rowley's basement.

当我们在附近张贴完传单回到罗利的地下室时，已经两点半了，我们甚至还没有开始把真正的鬼屋组装起来。 所以我们不得不在原来的计划中做一些删减。 3点左右，我们向外面看了看是否有人出现。 果然，有大约二十个邻居的孩子在罗利家地下室外排队。

Now, I know our flyers said admission was fifty cents, but I could see that we had a chance to make a killing here. So I told the kids that admission was two bucks, and the fifty-cent thing was just a typo. The first kid to cough up his two bucks was Shane Snella. He paid his money and we let him inside, and me and Rowley took our positions in the Hall of Screams. The Hall of Screams was basically a bed with me and Rowley on either side of it.

我知道我们的传单上说入场费是50美分，但我能看出我们有机会在这里大赚一笔。 所以我告诉孩子们入场费是两美元，而50美分只是打错了。 第一个掏出两块钱的是谢恩·斯内拉。 他付了钱，我们让他进去，我和罗利在尖叫大厅里各就各位。 尖叫大厅基本上就是一张床，我和罗利在床的两边。

I guess maybe we made the Hall of Screams a little too scary, because halfway through, Shane curled up in a ball underneath the bed. We tried to get him to crawl out from under there, but he wouldn't budge. I started thinking about all the money we were losing with this kid clogging up the Hall of Screams, and I knew we had to get him out of there, quick. Eventually, Rowley's dad came downstairs. At first I was happy to see him, because I thought he could help us drag Shane out from under the bed and get our haunted house cranking again. But Rowley's dad wasn't really in a helpful mood. Rowley's dad wanted to know what we were doing, and why Shane Snella was curled up under the bed.

我想也许我们把尖叫大厅弄得有点太吓人了，因为表演到一半时，肖恩蜷缩在床底下。 我们试着让他从下面爬出来，但他就是不动。 我开始想这孩子把尖叫大厅堵得水泄不通我们损失了多少钱，我知道我们得赶紧把他弄出来。 最后，罗利的爸爸下楼了。 一开始我很高兴见到他，因为我以为他能帮我们把肖恩从床底下拖出来让我们的鬼屋重新运转起来。 但罗利的爸爸并不是很乐意帮忙。 罗利的爸爸想知道我们在做什么，还有为什么肖恩·斯奈拉蜷缩在床下。