Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 Merle and Pearl wasted no time in unfolding the map once Ruben threw their canvas prison into the back seat of the rental car. Merle scanned the map and quickly found their location at Haifa Airport. "Look, Pearl— we're up north by Mount Carmel!" Way before even Merle and Pearl's time, Mount Carmel was made famous when the prophet Elijah went there and called down fire from heaven. "Wait," Pearl said. "We're near Galilee!"

鲁本一把莫尔和珀尔的帆布监狱扔到租来的汽车后座上，莫尔和珀尔就立刻展开地图。 梅尔扫描了一下地图，很快就找到了他们在海法机场的位置。 “瞧，珠儿——我们在卡梅尔山的北边了！”早在梅尔和珍珠的时代以前，先知以利亚就到迦密山，从天上叫火降下来，迦密山就出名了。 “等等，”珠儿说。“我们近加利利了！”

Merle caught a glimpse of a road sign out the window. "And we're headed east— toward Nazareth!" he whispered. This was great news for Merle— that's where he'd grown up! It was a small town that he knew like the back of his paw. "Remember the first time we met?" Pearl asked, pointing to a spot on the map along the Sea of Galilee. "I was just a small-town squirrel on my first trip to the big city," Merle recalled. Pearl was from Tiberias, along the shore of Galilee. "You seemed so sophisticated." "And I still am!" Pearl smiled. "Here's where we started our raft ride." Merle pointed to the southern end of the sea, which fed into the Jordan River. Merle's bright idea to sail down the Jordan for a vacation at the Dead Sea was the reason the squirrels ended up petrified in a cave for 2,000 years. "Don't remind me," Pearl said dryly.

莫尔瞥了一眼窗外的路标。 “我们往东走——往拿撒勒去！”他低声说。 这对梅尔来说是个好消息——他就是在那里长大的！那是一个他非常熟悉的小镇。 “还记得我们第一次见面吗？”珠儿指着地图上沿加利利海的一个地点问。 “我只是第一次来到大城市的一只小镇松鼠，”梅尔回忆说。 珠儿来自加利利沿岸的提比哩亚。 “你看起来很老练。” “我现在还是！”明珠笑了。 “我们就是从这里开始筏子之旅的。” 梅尔指了指汇入约旦河的海的南端。 梅尔想出了一个绝妙的主意，沿着约旦河顺流而下，去死海度假。正是这个主意，松鼠们在一个洞穴里被石化了2000年。 “别提醒我，”珠儿干巴巴地说。

Merle turned his attention back to the matter at hand. "If we manage to escape once we get to Nazareth, at least we'll be in familiar territory," he said. "That's a big if," Pearl replied, keeping an eye on their squirrelnapper.

梅尔把注意力转回到手头的事情上。 “如果我们能逃到拿撒勒，至少我们会回到熟悉的地方，”他说。 “这是一个很大的假设，”珠儿回答说，眼睛一直盯着他们的松鼠床。