Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17 Nellie squealed the tires as she rounded the corner. "Left! Left! Drive on the left side!" Dan yelled at her. "Oh, right," Nellie said. She swerved back into her lane, barely missing a parked car. "How'd you know where to find us?" Amy asked. "I've been hanging around you two goobers practically twenty-four/seven for more than a month," Nellie said. "I can tell when you're trying to keep a secret. You had 'We're planning to sneak back into the church' written all over your faces." Amy slumped in her seat. "Everybody knew we were planning to sneak back into the church," she muttered. "They were just pretending not to."

第十七章内莉转过拐角时，轮胎发出刺耳的声音。 “左!离开了!靠左边开！”丹对她大喊大叫。 “哦，对了，”内莉说。她急转弯回到自己的车道，差点撞上一辆停着的车。 “你怎么知道在哪儿能找到我们？”艾米问。 “一个多月来，我几乎一天二十四小时围着你们两个笨蛋转，”内莉说。 “当你试图保守秘密时，我能看出来。 你们的脸上写满了‘我们打算溜回教堂’。” 艾米瘫坐在座位上。“大家都知道我们打算溜回教堂。”她嘟囔着。 “他们只是假装没有。”

"As Shakespeare himself would say, 'All the world's a stage,'" Nellie said. She peered into her rearview mirror. "Wow. I have to hand it to Hamilton. He's practically keeping up." Amy whirled around in her seat. Hamilton was running behind their car, only four or five lengths back. If Nellie had to stop for a red light or a stop sign, he'd catch them. "Should I wait for him?" Nellie asked, slowing slightly. Amy saw another hulking figure striding alongside Hamilton. "No! His dad's with him!" she shrieked. Nellie whipped around another corner. "So," she said. "You got a destination in mind or do you just want me to keep going with the evasive driving?" "Back to the hotel to pick up our stuff," Amy said. "And then—" "Been there, done that," Nellie said. She took a hand off the steering wheel to point

“就像莎士比亚自己说的，‘整个世界就是一个舞台，’”内莉说。 她朝后视镜里看了看。 “哇。我不得不佩服汉密尔顿。 他几乎跟上了。” 艾米在座位上转过身来。 汉密尔顿跟在他们的车后面，只落后四五个车长。 如果内利遇到红灯或停车标志，他会抓住他们。 “我要等他吗？”内莉问，脚步稍微慢了下来。 艾米看见另一个笨重的身影大步走在汉密尔顿身边。 “不!他爸爸和他在一起！”她尖叫道。 内莉又拐了个弯。 “所以，”她说。“你心里已经有目的地了，还是你只想让我继续逃避驾驶？”“回旅馆去收拾我们的东西，”艾米说。 “然后——”“我去过那儿，干过那件事，"耐莉说。 她把手从方向盘上移开，指了指

at the backseat and floor. For the first time, Amy noticed that Saladin's cat carrier and Nellie's bag were right beside her. "As soon as I got away from Alistair, I packed up and checked out," Nellie said. "Then I headed toward the church. I thought my timing was pretty good, didn't you?" Nellie sounded amazingly casual given that she was practically driving a slalom course around cars parked on either side of the narrow street. "Oh, this is crazy! Eisenhower's waving at us like he thinks we're going to stop!" "Get on the highway," Amy said. "Toward…?" Nellie asked. "Not sure yet. Got any scissors?" Amy asked. "On my Swiss Army knife," Nellie said. "Bottom pocket in my bag, right-hand side." Amy pulled out the knife. Then she reached into her own bag for a Boston College T-shirt that had gotten kind of ragged during the Clue hunt. She began cutting off a spiral strip of the shirt from the bottom up. She made the strip extra long, just in case. Then she leaned over the front

在后座和地板上。 艾米第一次注意到萨拉丁的猫托和内莉的包就在她旁边。 “我一离开阿利斯泰尔，就收拾东西退房了，”内莉说。 然后我朝教堂走去。 我认为我的时机很好，你觉得呢？”内莉的声音听起来出奇地随意，因为她实际上是在绕着狭窄街道两旁停着的汽车开障碍回转赛。 “哦，这太疯狂了！”艾森豪威尔在向我们挥手，好像他认为我们会停下来似的！”“上高速公路吧，”艾米说。 “对…?”内莉问道。 “还不确定。有剪刀吗？”艾米问。 “在我的瑞士军刀上，”内莉说。 “我包里最下面的口袋，右手边。” 艾米拔出了刀。然后她把手伸进自己的包里，拿出一件波士顿学院的t恤，这件t恤在寻找线索的过程中有点破了。 她开始从衬衣的下往上剪下一条螺旋形的带子。 她把带子做得特别长，以防万一。 然后她俯下身去

seat and handed the cloth and a thin marker to Dan. "Start writing," she said. Dan let out a deep breath. That's why he wasn't talking, Amy thought. He was holding his breath, trying so hard not to forget. She'd noticed on the Clue hunt that Dan's photographic memory wasn't completely effortless. He just acted like it was. "Done," Dan said a few minutes later. He held up the strip. Its edges curled up because of the way it'd been cut. Curled, Amy thought. A spiral. Like… "I still don't get it," Dan said. "I can remember the letters from the ribbon. I'm even pretty sure I got the wacko spacing right, all the gaps between the letters. But I can't figure out what any of it means." "Wrap the cloth around the pole," Amy said. "Because back in Shakespeare's time, English villages always had these huge midsummer parties

他坐下，把布和一支细笔递给丹。 “开始写吧，”她说。 丹深深地吸了一口气。 这就是他不说话的原因，艾米想。 他屏住呼吸，努力不让自己忘记。 在寻找线索的过程中，她注意到丹的过目不忘并非完全不费力。 他只是表现得很像。 “好了。”几分钟后丹说。 他举起长条。它的边缘因为切割的方式而卷曲起来。 蜷缩着，艾米想。一个螺旋。 “我还是不明白，”丹说。 “我记得彩带上的字母。 我甚至很确定我把古怪的间距写对了，字母之间的间距。 但我一点也不明白这是什么意思。” “把布包在杆子上，”艾米说。 “因为在莎士比亚的时代，英国的乡村总是会举办盛大的仲夏派对

where girls would dance and wrap ribbons around a maypole in particular patterns. The midsummer festival would have been a big deal in Stratford, something Shakespeare probably missed when he moved to London. Something that reminded him of home." Home, Amy thought. That's what this clue is about. It's calling Cahills back home. Like in the hint we got in London: "Everything can come full circle." "One of Shakespeare's plays is called A Midsummer Night's Dream," Nellie said as she jerked the steering wheel left and right. "It's kind of bizarre, with—" "Stop it!" Dan yelled. "Both of you—stop trying to tell me stuff!" "I just thought it might help you solve that," Nellie said, sounding offended. "But I already have," Dan said, holding up the pole. "It's numbers, after all. Just spelled out as words!" Amy hung over the front seat so she could see. Dan had lined up the edges of the strip of cloth

在那里，女孩们会跳舞，用特殊的图案把丝带缠在五朔节花柱上。 仲夏节在斯特拉特福德是一件大事，莎士比亚搬到伦敦后可能错过了这一点。 能让他想起家的东西。” 回家，艾米想。这就是这个线索的意义所在。 它在召唤卡希尔斯回家。 就像我们在伦敦得到的提示：“一切都可能回到原点。” “莎士比亚有一部戏剧叫《仲夏夜之梦》，”内莉一边说一边左右拨动方向盘。 “这有点奇怪，还有——”“别说了！”丹喊道。 “你们两个——别再跟我瞎扯了！”“我只是想这也许能帮你解决这个问题，”内莉说，听起来有点生气。 “但我已经有了，”丹说着，举起了杆子。 “毕竟是数字。只是拼成单词而已！”艾米趴在前座上，这样她就能看到。 丹已把布条的边缘排成一行

with the words spiraling around the pole: MADRIGAL STRONGHOLD CAHILL ANCESTRAL HOME MADRIGAL STRONGHOLD CAHILL ANCESTRAL HOME… With the strip of cloth wrapped all the way around the pole, the nonsensical list of letters did indeed spell out words on one side. "'Fifty-three oN Six oW'?" Amy said. "What's that mean? Oh—" "That's not 'oN' and 'oW,'" Nellie said, glancing toward the pole. "That's—" "Degrees north," Dan said. "And degrees west," Amy said. "Latitude and longitude," Nellie finished. They'd all figured it out at the same time. The ribbon gave them the precise coordinates of the Madrigal stronghold. Nellie yanked the portable GPS unit off the dashboard and tossed it back to Amy. "Good thing I sprang for the deluxe rental package, now that you both know we're spending Madrigal money," Nellie said as Amy punched in the coordinates. "Where to?"

杆子上的字盘旋着：牧歌要塞卡希尔祖传的家牧歌要塞卡希尔祖传的家……用那条布把杆子包起来，那张荒谬的字母表确实在一面拼出了单词。 “‘六点五十三’？”艾米说。 “这是什么意思？”哦——““那不是‘开’和‘噢’，”耐莉说，朝杆子瞥了一眼。 “那是——”“北纬几度，”丹说。 “还有西经，”艾米说。 “经纬度，”耐莉说完。 他们都是同时发现的。 缎带告诉他们牧歌大本营的精确坐标。 内莉从仪表盘上扯下便携式GPS装置，扔还给艾米。 “好在我买了豪华租赁套餐，现在你们俩都知道我们要花《马德里情歌》的钱了，”内莉说，艾米在坐标上打卡。 “去哪儿?”