11 The Flying Parret

The Flying Parrot Claudette's left eye was still shining black when they got to the sweetshop, but she was no longer smirking strangely. She seemed to be back to her normal self. "You mustn't let the rejections get to you," she said to Bethany. "This is all just a small hiccup—I promise." The sweetshop was mostly empty, but it was throbbing with noise—because heavy-metal music was blaring, booming, and rattling from the speakers. The young, blue-

当他们到达糖果店的时候，克劳德特的左眼仍然亮着黑色的光芒，但她不再奇怪地傻笑了。 她似乎恢复了正常的样子。 “你不能让那些拒绝影响到你，”她对宝芬妮说。 “这只是个小问题——我保证。” 这家糖果店几乎空无一人，但却充满了噪音——因为扬声器里传出了刺耳、轰隆、嘎嘎作响的重金属音乐。 少年，蓝——

haired Miss Muddle was hunched over a worktop, trying to inject a miniaturized chocolate bar into a strawberry. She looked up from her experiment in a confused fashion. "Oh, jingling Jelly Babies, you're here! I was hoping to save your sweets as a surprise for Friday," said Miss Muddle, blinking at Claudette through her safety goggles. "Sweets? What sweets?" asked Claudette as Miss Muddle led them into her laboratory. "Why, the ones for your show, of course! The Cussocks commissioned me this morning because they thought some themed treats might help ticket sales," said Miss Muddle. She removed a flour-coated sheet from a table and showed off her creations. "Sooo, what do you think?"

头发蓬乱的马德尔小姐正弯着腰坐在工作台上，试图把一根迷你巧克力棒注入一颗草莓里。 她困惑地从实验中抬起头来。 “哦，叮当作响的果冻宝宝，你来了！”我希望把你的糖果留到周五给我一个惊喜，”马德尔小姐说着，透过护目镜朝克劳德特眨了眨眼睛。 “糖果?什么糖果？”当马德尔小姐把她们领进实验室时，克劳德特问道。 “啊，当然是给你看的那些！”库索克夫妇今天早上委托我来，因为他们认为一些主题美食可能有助于门票销售。” 她从桌子上取下一张涂了面粉的床单，展示她的作品。 “那么，你觉得怎么样？”

The table was groaning from the weight of all the sweets on display. There were lollipop trees, which resembled the Wintlorian forest where Claudette and Patrick had grown up, and Elvis-shaped bonbons to mark the time that Patrick had spent on tour with the King. There was even going to be a sweet to reflect the jaunty joy of "Hurricane Picnic," because Miss Muddle was halfway through swirling some vats of frozen candy floss into the shapes of hurricanes. "This is all wonderful, but it's far too much," said Claudette, rubbing her talons nervously together. "I really want to keep the show as small as possible." Miss Muddle was too caught up in showing off her wares to take notice. She opened up a jar of purple Gobstoppers

桌子上摆满了沉重的糖果，弄得咕咕作响。 那里有棒棒糖树，很像克劳德特和帕特里克长大的温特洛林森林，还有猫王形状的糖果，纪念帕特里克和国王一起旅行的时光。 甚至还会有糖果来反映“飓风野餐”的欢乐，因为马德尔小姐正在把几大桶冷冻棉花糖搓成飓风的形状。 “这一切都很好，但太过分了，”克劳德特说，紧张地摩擦着她的爪子。 “我真的想让这部剧越小越好。” 马德尔小姐太沉迷于炫耀她的商品了，没有注意到。 她打开了一罐紫色的跳跳糖

(decorated with cartoonish pictures of Patrick's face) and offered them to Bethany and Claudette.

（上面装饰着帕特里克的卡通头像）并把它们送给了宝芬妮和克劳德特。

"I rolled these in a variation of popping candy," she explained. "Most popping candy is designed to fizzle your tongue, but this one does fizzly things to your ears instead. When I get them right, they should make you feel like you've just heard someone sing a beautiful song. I thought I'd give them out to the audience after the show—so they can suck on them whenever they want to think about the concert again." Bethany and Claudette tried the Gobstoppers, and true to Miss Muddle's words, they both felt a pleasing tingle in their ears—the sort of feeling you experience when you hear someone sing live. "Thank you, Miss Muddle," said Claudette. "It's all far more than I was expecting, but… well, Patrick would love it."

“我把它们卷成各种各样的跳跳糖，”她解释说。 大多数跳跳糖都是为了让你的舌头嘶嘶作响而设计的，但这一款却能让你的耳朵嘶嘶作响。 当我做对了，它们应该让你觉得你刚刚听到有人唱了一首美丽的歌。 我想在演出结束后把它们分发给观众——这样他们就可以在想演唱会的时候吸一口了。” 贝瑟尼和克劳德特试着玩了弹珠，正如马德尔小姐所说的，她们都感到耳朵里有一种愉快的刺痛感——就像你听到有人现场唱歌时所经历的那种感觉。 “谢谢你，马德尔小姐，”克劳德特说。 “这一切都远远超出了我的预期，但是……嗯，帕特里克会喜欢的。”