Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20 The Holts had come with climbing equipment. They swarmed out onto the pebble beach carrying ropes, carabiner clips, even pickaxes. "How?" Amy asked, standing there flabbergasted. It was torture to watch the other team move so efficiently toward the cliff. "How what, Amy?" Hamilton asked. He paused for a second in the midst of checking knots in his rope. "How did you solve the puzzle so fast when you didn't have anything but thread?" Amy asked. "And how did you know to bring the ropes and everything?" "Amy, we didn't solve any puzzle," Hamilton said. "We just followed you." "We put a tracking device on Nellie's rental car," Madison said, leering. "And then it was easy to check your flight plan

霍尔特一家带着登山器材来了。 他们带着绳子、钩环夹，甚至是鹤嘴锄，涌向卵石滩。 “如何?”艾米目瞪口呆地站在那里问道。 看着另一队如此高效地向悬崖移动真是一种折磨。 “怎么回事，艾米？”汉密尔顿问道。 他在检查绳子上的结时停了一会儿。 “你除了线什么都没有，怎么这么快就解出了谜题？”艾米问。 “你怎么知道要带绳子和其他东西？”“艾米，我们没有解决任何难题，”汉密尔顿说。 “我们只是跟着你。”“我们在内莉的租来的车上装了一个追踪装置，”麦迪逊斜眼说。 “然后很容易检查你的飞行计划

at the heliport," Reagan gloated. No, Amy wanted to protest. That's not fair! This was our lead! But they'd been in too much of a hurry leaving Stratford to look for tracking devices. They never would have been able to convince the safety- obsessed pilot not to file a flight plan. They hadn't had a chance. "Anyhow, we take climbing gear pretty much everywhere we go," Hamilton added. "Doesn't everyone?" He seemed to take in the stunned look on both Amy's and Dan's faces. "Oh, guess not," he muttered, turning back to his ropes. "Too bad for you." "It's like that famous Shakespeare quote," Eisenhower added, hovering nearby. He squinted, as if thinking hard. Then his face lit up. "Shakespeare always said, 'Be prepared.'" "That's not a Shakespeare quote!" Dan protested. "It's the Boy Scout motto!" "And the Girl Scouts'!" Amy added.

里根幸灾乐祸地说。 不，艾米想抗议。 这不公平！这是我们的线索！但他们离开斯特拉特福德时太匆忙了，没时间去找追踪装置。 他们永远不可能说服这位痴迷于安全的飞行员不提交飞行计划。 他们没有机会。汉密尔顿补充说：“无论如何，我们无论去哪里都带着攀岩装备。” “不是每个人都?”他似乎注意到了艾米和丹脸上惊愕的表情。 “哦，别猜了。”他喃喃自语，转身去拿绳子。 “你太不幸了。”“这就像莎士比亚的名言，”艾森豪威尔在附近徘徊，补充道。 他眯起眼睛，好像在苦苦思索。 然后他的脸亮了起来。“莎士比亚总是说，‘做好准备。’”“这不是莎士比亚的名言！”丹抗议。 “这是童子军的座右铭！”“还有女童子军！”艾米说。

Eisenhower's smug expression didn't change. "Yeah, well, what good is all that fancy knowledge doing you?" he asked. "We Holts are going to leave you down here in the dust. And us— we're going to be up there!" He pointed to the top of the cliff like it was heaven itself. "Claiming the final prize. Holts are going to rule the world forever!" He stuck his ax into the first crack in the side of the cliff. "Who's laughing at us now?" He knows, Amy thought. He knows this is the final stop. The final chance to win. Which… Dan and I aren't going to do. "So what if you can climb better than us!" Dan yelled as all five Holts began ascending the cliff. "The prize isn't just sitting up there waiting for you to claim it! There's a door and a keypad! Bet you anything the door is locked! Bet it's going to take a math puzzle to solve the keypad code! Bet you're just going to have to climb right back down here to beg for my help!" The Holts just kept climbing. This is the greatest day of my life, Eisenhower Holt thought.

艾森豪威尔自鸣得意的表情没有改变。 “是啊，那么，那些花哨的知识对你有什么好处呢？”他问道。 “我们霍尔特人要把你丢在尘土里。 还有我们——我们要到那儿去！”他指着悬崖顶上，仿佛那就是天堂。 赢得最后的大奖。 霍尔特将永远统治世界！”他把斧头插进悬崖边上的第一道裂缝里。 “现在是谁在嘲笑我们？”他知道，艾米想。 他知道这是最后一站。 最后一次获胜的机会。但我和丹不会这么做的 “就算你爬得比我们好又怎样！”丹喊道，五个霍尔特人开始爬上悬崖。 “奖品不只是坐在那里等着你去领！”有一扇门和一个键盘！我敢打赌门是锁着的！我敢打赌，破解键盘密码需要一个数学难题！我敢打赌，你只好爬回这儿来求我帮忙了！”霍尔特一家只是继续往上爬。 这是我一生中最伟大的一天，艾森豪威尔·霍尔特想。

He was dangling from a rope thousands of feet above the ground, the fresh sea air in his face, his wife and children by his side. With the exertion, the family togetherness, the adrenaline coursing through his veins— with all that, the climb itself was enough to make this a wonderful day. But this climb would be the best of his life. He'd had a horrible day yesterday, but at least it'd given him valuable information. And now he knew that ultimate victory awaited him at the top of the cliff. His family was about to win the biggest prize they could ever win— the biggest prize anyone could ever win. True, Eisenhower hadn't quite figured out what the final prize in the Clue hunt would be. But he knew it would be something so great it would outweigh everything he'd ever failed at. It would make up for getting kicked out of West Point. It would make up for losing that security guard job when he'd accidentally Tasered his own rear end. It would make up for the other Tomas laughing at him— for everyone laughing at him. And it proved that one of his favorite quotations in the whole wide world was true: "It's

他悬挂在离地面数千英尺的一根绳子上，脸上飘着新鲜的海上空气，妻子和孩子在他身边。 他的努力，家人的团聚，肾上腺素在他的血管里流淌——所有这些，攀登本身就足以让这一天变得美好。 但这次攀登将是他一生中最美好的一次。 他昨天过得很糟糕，但至少给了他有价值的信息。 现在他知道，最终的胜利就在悬崖顶上等着他。 他的家人即将赢得有史以来最大的奖金——任何人都能赢得的最大奖金。 的确，艾森豪威尔并没有完全弄清楚寻找线索的最终奖品是什么。 但他知道，这将是一件伟大的事情，它将超过他曾经失败过的一切。 这可以弥补被西点军校开除的损失。 这可以弥补他不小心用泰瑟枪电击自己屁股时失去的保安工作。 这将弥补另一个托马斯对他的嘲笑——每个人对他的嘲笑。 这证明了他在全世界最喜欢的一句话是对的：“这是

not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up." The great football coach Vince Lombardi had said that. Eisenhower wished that there'd been something in the hunt requiring Vince Lombardi quotes because Eisenhower knew them all: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." "If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" And… "Dad," Hamilton said softly beside him. "Look." Eisenhower planted his foot as firmly as he could on a three-inch spike and turned his head. Surprise almost made him lose his grip on the rope: Jonah Wizard was stepping out onto the beach from a yacht. The Kabra kids were parachuting down from a small plane. And Alistair Oh had just surfaced on the beach in something that looked vaguely like a submarine. The competition had arrived. "Guess we weren't the only ones who used a tracking device," Hamilton muttered. "The girls and I will go down and hold off our opponents," Mary-Todd volunteered.

不是你是否被击倒；而是你是否起床。” 伟大的橄榄球教练文斯·隆巴迪说过。 艾森豪威尔希望在狩猎中有一些需要文斯·隆巴迪引用的东西，因为艾森豪威尔知道所有这些：“胜利不是一切；这是唯一的办法。” “如果胜利不是一切，他们为什么要记分？”“爸爸，”汉密尔顿在他身边轻声说。 “看。”艾森豪威尔尽可能坚定地把脚踩在一根三英寸长的钉子上，转过头去。 惊讶几乎让他失去了对绳子的控制：乔纳巫师正从游艇上走到海滩上。 卡布拉家的孩子们正从一架小飞机上跳伞下来。 阿利斯泰尔·吴（Alistair Oh）刚刚在海滩上浮出水面，他的车看起来有点像潜艇。 竞争来了。 “看来我们不是唯一使用追踪装置的人，”汉密尔顿嘟囔道。 “姑娘们和我要下去拖住我们的对手，”玛丽-托德自告奋勇。

"Eisenhower, honeybun, you and Hamilton go claim the prize for all of us." Eisenhower spared a second to gaze lovingly at his wife as she and the girls began their descent. "See, that's teamwork," Eisenhower told Hamilton. "Your mother knew what had to be done, and she did it. It's all about the team. And in this family, the family is the team. I mean, the team is the family. I mean…" "I know what you mean, Dad," Hamilton said, which was a big relief for Eisenhower because he'd kind of lost track himself. Hamilton was quiet for a minute. With just about any other kid—any non-Holt—Eisenhower might have thought it was because the boy was inching up a sheer rock face with little more than a rope and a few carabiner clips between him and death. But Hamilton could climb a little old cliff like this in his sleep. "Get moving!" Eisenhower barked, because that was the only way to deal with mopey kids. But Hamilton hung for a second too long by the point of his ax. He sighed.

“艾森豪威尔，亲爱的，你和汉密尔顿去为我们所有人领奖吧。” 艾森豪威尔花了一秒钟的时间深情地凝视着他的妻子，她和女儿们开始下山。 “看，这就是团队合作，”艾森豪威尔对汉密尔顿说。 “你妈妈知道该怎么做，她就这么做了。 这一切都是关于团队的。在这个家庭里，家庭就是团队。 我是说，团队就是家人。 “我明白你的意思，爸爸，”汉密尔顿说，这让艾森豪威尔松了一口气，因为他自己也有点迷失了方向。 汉密尔顿沉默了一会儿。 就像任何其他孩子一样——任何非霍尔特的孩子——艾森豪威尔可能会认为，这是因为这个男孩在陡峭的岩壁上慢慢爬上，在他和死亡之间只有一根绳子和几个锁扣。 但汉密尔顿可以在睡梦中爬上这样的小悬崖。 “滚开!”艾森豪威尔咆哮着，因为这是对付淘气孩子的唯一办法。 但是汉密尔顿被斧头顶着的时间太长了。 他叹了口气。