Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 Dan picked up the coin. It was some sort of thick metal, stamped with a fancy script "K" on each side. A "K." Of course. "The Kabras," Dan said darkly. The Kabras had become Dan and Amy's worst enemies in the Clue hunt. They were filthy rich— and pure evil. "Of course they even have their own trained monkey to do their bidding," Amy said bleakly. "They probably have their own private zoo," Dan muttered. He rushed to the window, getting there just a few steps ahead of Amy. The monkey was several

第二章丹捡起硬币。 那是一种很厚的金属，两边都印着一个漂亮的字母“K”。 “k”当然可以。“卡布拉家族。”丹阴郁地说。 在寻找线索的过程中，卡布拉一家成了丹和艾米最大的敌人。 他们非常富有——而且是纯粹的邪恶。 “当然，他们甚至有自己训练有素的猴子为他们做事，”艾米沮丧地说。 “他们可能有自己的私人动物园，”丹喃喃地说。 他冲到窗前，比艾米快了几步。 猴子有好几岁了。

stories below them now. He had the paper rolled up in his teeth and was climbing down a rope suspended from the roof. While Dan, Amy, and Nellie watched, the monkey reached the ground and scrambled across the sidewalk. Then a pair of hands reached out of a waiting limo and scooped up the monkey. The door shut; the black limo sped away. "Those were Isabel Kabra's hands," Amy said. She pronounced the name carefully, as if every syllable hurt. It does, Dan thought. He didn't ask how Amy thought she could recognize Isabel's hands from twelve stories up. Isabel had murdered Amy and Dan's parents. She'd tried to murder Amy and Dan themselves back in Indonesia, and threatened them with death in Australia and South Africa. Then there were all those times she'd sent her nasty children, Ian and Natalie, to attack them. Back in Korea, the Kabra kids had tried to leave Amy and Dan to die in a collapsed cave. When someone has been so incredibly cruel and

现在在他们下面。他嘴里叼着那张纸，顺着屋顶上悬挂的绳子往下爬。 在丹、艾米和内莉的注视下，猴子爬到了地上，爬过了人行道。 然后，从一辆等候的豪华轿车里伸出一双手，把猴子抱了起来。 门关上了；黑色豪华轿车疾驰而去。 “那是伊莎贝尔·卡布拉的手，”艾米说。 她小心翼翼地念着这个名字，仿佛每个音节都很痛。 是的，丹想。他没有问艾米，她怎么能从12层楼高的地方认出伊莎贝尔的手。 伊莎贝尔谋杀了艾米和丹的父母。 她在印度尼西亚时曾试图谋杀艾米和丹，在澳大利亚和南非时曾以死亡威胁他们。 还有很多次，她派她讨厌的孩子伊恩和娜塔莉去攻击他们。 在韩国的时候，卡布拉家的孩子们曾试图让艾米和丹死在一个坍塌的山洞里。 当有人如此残忍的时候

awful to you so many times, you develop a sixth sense about them. You know when they're around. Dan was just as certain as Amy that those had been Isabel's hands. Dan turned away from his sister because he couldn't stand seeing the agony on her face. He wished he could run after Isabel, beat her up, throw her in jail, take back everything she'd taken from them. But he was an eleven-year-old kid. He didn't have much to work with. The best he could do was to hock up a huge glob of phlegm and spit it out the window. He aimed precisely toward the speeding limo. "Dan!" Nellie exclaimed. "What?" Dan said innocently. "She's evil. Getting spit on her limo— that's the least she deserves." Dan could tell Nellie was trying not to laugh. The advantage of having an au pair who was only twenty was that sometimes she thought and acted like a kid herself. But then she put on a stern face. "I just don't think your aim is that good," Nellie

对你来说太可怕了，你就会对他们产生第六感。 你知道他们在的时候。 丹和艾米一样确信那是伊莎贝尔的手。 丹转身离开了他妹妹，因为他无法忍受看到她脸上痛苦的表情。 他希望他能追上伊莎贝尔，揍她，把她扔进监狱，拿回她从他们那里夺走的一切。 但他只是个11岁的孩子。 他没有太多工作要做。 他所能做的就是捏起一大团痰，吐到窗外。 他精确地瞄准了那辆超速行驶的豪华轿车。 “丹!”内莉喊道。“什么?”丹天真地说。 “她是邪恶的。在她的豪华轿车上吐口水——这是她最不应该得到的。” 丹看得出内利在努力忍住不笑。 有一个只有20岁的互惠生的好处是，有时她自己的想法和行为也像个孩子。 但随后她摆出一副严肃的面孔。 “我只是不认为你的瞄准有那么好，”内莉说

said. "Not at this distance." "Oh, yeah?" Dan said. He was glad of the distraction. He thrust the "K" coin into Nellie's hand. "Throw that out the window, anywhere you want. I promise, I'll hit it on the first try." Before Dan had a chance to really prove his spitting ability, he felt a tugging behind him. Now what? Was someone trying to steal his backpack? Right off his back? Dan whirled around. It was only Amy. "What are you doing?" he said. "We need to check the Internet," she said. "Immediately." Dan's eyes met his sister's. Sometimes he wondered how they could be related. She was shy; he was a chatterbox. She liked books and quiet libraries; he liked noisy video games and any sort of joke that involved burping or farting. Still, there had been times— especially during this Clue hunt— when Dan felt like he and Amy were practically the same person, thinking the same thought at the exact same time. Now was one of those times.

说。“在这么远的地方不行。” “哦,是吗?”丹说。他很高兴有这样的消遣。 他把“K”字的硬币塞进内莉的手里。 “把它扔出窗外，随便扔哪儿。 我保证，我第一次尝试就会成功。” 在丹有机会真正证明他的吐痰能力之前，他感到身后有人在拽他。 现在怎么办呢?有人想偷他的背包吗？ 就在他背上？丹转过身来。 那只是艾米。“你在干什么？”他说。 “我们需要检查一下互联网，”她说。 “立即”。丹的目光碰到了他妹妹的目光。 有时他想知道他们是怎么联系在一起的。 她很害羞；他是个喋喋不休的人。 她喜欢读书和安静的图书馆；他喜欢吵闹的电子游戏和任何涉及打嗝或放屁的笑话。 尽管如此，有时候——尤其是在寻找线索的过程中——丹觉得他和艾米几乎是同一个人，在同一时间有同样的想法。 现在就是这样的时刻。

"Right," Dan said. He lowered the backpack so Amy could get the laptop out faster. She handed him the cord. He plugged it into the wall while she plugged the other end into the computer. While they waited for the laptop to fire up, she gave him a pen and a piece of hotel stationery from the desk. "What are you two doing?" Nellie asked as Dan began writing on the paper. "We're figuring out the lead," Amy said. "I have a hunch, but I want to check it out online." "I thought you were giving up," Nellie said. "I thought you said you couldn't win." Dan looked at Amy and went back to writing. He'd let her explain. "I still don't think we can win," Amy said. "Not the way the Madrigals want." Once she would have said that word— Madrigals— with the same kind of fear and disgust she reserved for Isabel Kabra. But in Jamaica, Dan and Amy had found out that the Madrigals were really the good guys. The way-too-good guys, Dan thought. The ones

“好的，”丹说。他放下背包，这样艾米可以更快地取出笔记本电脑。 她把绳子递给他。他把它插到墙上，而她把另一端插到电脑上。 在他们等待笔记本电脑启动的时候，她从桌上递给他一支笔和一张酒店文具。 “你们俩在干什么？”当丹开始在纸上写字时，内莉问道。 “我们正在寻找线索，”艾米说。 “我有预感，但我想在网上查一下。” “我以为你要放弃了，”内莉说。 “我记得你说过你赢不了。” 丹看了看艾米，又继续写下去。 他会让她解释。“我还是觉得我们赢不了，”艾米说。 “不是牧歌想要的方式。” 如果有一天，她会带着对伊莎贝尔·卡布拉的那种恐惧和厌恶，说出牧歌这个词。 但在牙买加，丹和艾米发现牧歌合唱团真的是好人。 这些人太好了，丹想。 的

who think we can end this all holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" around a campfire someplace. They're nuts! "You agreed with everything the Madrigals wanted in Jamaica," Nellie said. "So did I." "Yeah," Amy said. She sounded distracted. The computer had booted up now, and she was logging on to the Internet. "It just doesn't seem possible. But if we can't win the Madrigal way, the least we can do is make sure the Kabras don't win instead." Dan looked up from his paper. "Can you imagine letting Isabel Kabra take over the world?" he asked. The words hung in the quiet hotel room. This, finally, was something Dan could hold on to. Everything the Madrigals wanted was too big and slippery: peace, love, forgiveness…. Dan hadn't even been able to keep those goals in his mind during a single uneventful plane ride. He would never be able to look Isabel Kabra right in the eye and say, "I forgive you." But keeping her from winning the Clue hunt, stopping her from gaining

他们认为我们可以在某个篝火旁牵着手唱《Kumbaya》来结束这一切。 他们坚果!“你同意牧歌队在牙买加的一切要求，”内莉说。 “我也是。”“是的，”艾米说。 她听起来心不在焉。现在电脑已经启动了，她正在上网。 “这似乎是不可能的。 但如果我们不能以牧歌的方式赢得胜利，至少我们能做的是确保卡布拉家族不能赢得胜利。” 丹从报纸上抬起头来。 “你能想象让伊莎贝尔·卡布拉接管世界吗？”他问道。 这句话挂在安静的旅馆房间里。 这终于是丹能抓住的东西了。 牧歌想要的一切都太大太滑了：和平、爱、宽恕.... 在一次平淡无奇的飞机旅行中，丹甚至都没能把这些目标记在脑子里。 他永远无法直视伊莎贝尔·卡布拉的眼睛说：“我原谅你。” 但阻止她赢得线索狩猎，阻止她获得