7 CHEWING

CHAPTER 7 CHEWING? "Mooom!" I burst through the doorway and almost ran into her. "Oh, whoops! You're right there." We both laughed. I held out the footprint mold. "And whatever the creature is, it chews. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what those noises were. And there might have been a few of them—it sounded like more than one and there were a LOT of these footprints." "Huh." Mom ran her finger along the outline of the footprint. "This is going to sound strange, but what were your friends' moods like when you heard the creatures?" "Both times they were SO grumpy! It was like, all of a sudden, too!" Mom nodded. "Huh. So… years ago when I was

第七章咀嚼？“Mooom !”我冲进门口，差点撞到她。 “哦,哦!你说得对。” 我们都笑了。我拿出脚印模型。 “不管这是什么生物，它都会咀嚼。 至少，我很确定那就是那些声音。 可能有几个——听起来不止一个，而且有很多这样的脚印。” “嗯。”妈妈用手指沿着脚印的轮廓摸了摸。 “这听起来可能很奇怪，但当你听到这些生物的声音时，你的朋友们是什么情绪？”“两次他们都很暴躁！”就像，突然之间！”妈妈点了点头。 “嗯。几年前，我还在

much younger, I found a strange footprint in the forest. I think it looked like this one. I was so curious I asked two of my forest monster friends about it. One of them said it was a creature that makes everyone grumpy, and the other had a funny name for it. I should have written it down in my science journal!" "OH! I think I know. Pip was talking about a grumpie. No… that's not quite it. Hold on a sec." I dashed to my room, grabbed my Thinking Goggles, popped them on, and raced back to the kitchen. "A bad case of the GRUMPLETS! That's what he said." "Yes! That's it. That's what she called them— grumplets! But I haven't seen any footprints since then. I had forgotten about them until you showed me this." Mom handed the footprint mold back to me. Mom put an arm on my shoulder. "Since the forest monsters seemed to know about them, I think your best bet is to go ask—" "GORP!" we said at the same time.

更年轻的时候，我在森林里发现了一个奇怪的脚印。 我想应该是这个。 我很好奇，我问了我的两个森林怪物朋友。 其中一个说它是一种让每个人都脾气暴躁的生物，另一个给它起了一个有趣的名字。 我应该把它写在我的科学日记里！”“哦!我想我知道。 皮普正在谈论一个脾气暴躁的人。 不，不完全是这样。 等一下。”我冲进自己的房间，抓起我的“思维护目镜”，戴上，然后跑回厨房。 “坏脾气的孩子！”他就是这么说的。” “是啊!就是这样。她就是这么叫他们的——小矮人！但从那以后我就没见过脚印了。 在你给我看这个之前，我都忘了它们。” 妈妈把脚印模型还给了我。 妈妈把一只胳膊搭在我肩上。 “既然森林里的怪物似乎知道他们，我想你最好的办法是去问——”“嘘！”我们同时说。

Sassafras immediately started purring.

黄樟立刻开始发出呼噜声。