Chapter 1

THE SWORD THIEF PETER LORANUS

偷剑贼彼得·洛兰纳斯

CHAPTER 1 They were toast. Amy Cahill eyed the battered black duffel bag rumbling up the airport conveyor belt. It bulged at the corners. The sign above the belt said THANK YOU FOR VISITING VENICE: RANDOM PIECES OF CHECKED LUGGAGE WILL BE SEARCHED in five languages. "Oh, great," Amy said. "How random is 'random'?" "I told you, a ninja warrior must always keep his swords in his carry-on," whispered her brother, Dan, who had been operating on brain deficit for as long as Amy could remember. "Excuse me, Jackie Chan, but carry-on luggage is always X-rayed," Amy whispered back. "There are extra-special rules about samurai swords in backpacks. Even if they belong to scrawny, delusional eleven-year-olds who think they're

第一章他们完了。 艾米·卡希尔（Amy Cahill）注视着机场传送带上隆隆作响的破旧黑色行李袋。 它在角落里鼓了起来。腰带上方的牌子上写着“感谢您来威尼斯旅游”：随机托运的行李将被用五种语言检查。 “哦，太好了，”艾米说。“‘随机’到底有多随机？”“我告诉过你，忍者武士必须把剑放在随身行李里，”她的哥哥丹（Dan）低声说。从艾米记事起，他就一直在为大脑缺陷做手术。 “对不起，成龙，随身携带的行李总是要照x光的。”艾米小声回答。 “背包里的武士刀有特别的规定。 即使它们属于一个骨瘦如柴，妄想的11岁孩子，他们认为自己是

ninjas." "What was wrong with 'we need them to slice the veal parmigiana'?" Dan said. "It would have worked fine. The Italians understand food." "Can you understand 'five to twenty years, no parole'?" Dan shrugged. He lifted up a mesh-sided pet carrier, inside of which a very disgruntled-looking Egyptian Mau was eyeing him suspiciously. "Byebye, Saladin," he sang into the mesh. "Remember, when we get to Tokyo… red snapper sushi every night!" "Mrrp?" whined Saladin from inside the carrier, as Dan set it gently onto the conveyor belt. "Mmmm, hmm, ohh… aaaaaaaaghhhh!" came a strangled yelp from behind them. Although everyone else in the vicinity was turning with a look of alarm, Amy and Dan knew it was their au pair, Nellie Gomez, dancing to a tune on her iPod. She didn't care that she sounded like a dying meerkat, which was one of the many cool things about Nellie Gomez. Amy watched as the carrier disappeared

忍者。”“‘我们需要他们来切帕尔马干酪小牛肉’有什么问题吗？”丹说。 “它本来可以很好地工作。 意大利人懂得食物。” “你能理解‘五到二十年，不得假释’吗？”丹耸耸肩。 他举起一只网眼边的宠物笼，里面有一只满脸不满的埃及猫，正用怀疑的目光打量着他。 “再见，萨拉丁。”他对着网眼唱道。 “记住，等我们到了东京……每天晚上都要吃红鲷鱼寿司！”“Mrrp?”当丹把它轻轻地放到传送带上时，萨拉丁在箱子里呜咽道。 “嗯,嗯,哦……aaaaaaaaghhhh !”一个扼杀yelp来自身后。 虽然附近的所有人都惊恐地转过身来，但艾米和丹知道那是他们的保姆内莉·戈麦斯，她正随着iPod里的音乐跳舞。 她不在乎自己听起来像一只垂死的猫鼬，这是内莉·戈麦斯很多很酷的事情之一。 艾米看着搬运工消失了

through the cargo window. If the officials did search the bag, there would be alarms. Screaming Italian cops. She, Dan, and Nellie would have to run. Not that they weren't used to that. They'd been running a lot lately. It began the day they accepted the challenge in their grandmother Grace's will. They'd had to go to her mansion in Massachusetts for that— and immediately afterward the mansion went up in flames. Since then, they'd nearly been killed in a collapsing building in Philadelphia, attacked by monks in Austria, and chased by boats through the canals of Venice. They'd been the target of dirty tricks from every branch of the Cahill family. Once in a while— like every three seconds— Amy wondered why the heck they were doing this. She and Dan could have opted for a cool million dollars each, like a lot of Cahill family members did. But Grace had offered another choice: a race for 39 Clues to a secret that had been hidden for centuries, the greatest source of power the world had known. Until then, Amy and Dan had been leading

透过货舱窗户。如果官员真的搜查了这个包，就会发出警报。 尖叫的意大利警察。她、丹和内莉必须逃跑。 并不是说他们不习惯。 他们最近一直在跑步。 从他们接受祖母格蕾丝遗嘱中的挑战那天开始。 为了这件事，他们不得不去她在马萨诸塞州的豪宅，而不久后，豪宅就被大火吞噬了。 从那以后，他们在费城一栋倒塌的建筑中差点丧命，在奥地利被僧侣袭击，在威尼斯运河中被船只追赶。 他们一直是卡荷尔家族各个分支卑鄙手段的目标。 偶尔——大概每隔三秒钟——艾米就会想，他们到底为什么要这么做。 她和丹本可以选择每人一百万美元，就像卡希尔家族的很多成员一样。 但格蕾丝提供了另一个选择：一场39条线索的竞赛，这条线索可以揭开一个隐藏了几个世纪的秘密，是世界上已知的最伟大的力量源泉。 在那之前，艾米和丹一直在领导

pretty lame, ordinary lives. After their parents had died seven years ago, their crabby Aunt Beatrice had taken them in— and the only cool thing she'd ever done was hire Nellie. But now they knew they were part of something way bigger, a huge family that included ancestors like Ben Franklin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It seemed like all the great geniuses of the world had been Cahills. That was pretty amazing. "Hey, Amy, did you ever want to, like, get on the conveyor belt and see what happened? Like, 'Hey, don't mind me, I'm just hanging with the cargo'?" And then there was Dan. "Come on!" Amy grabbed her brother by the arm and headed for the departure gates. Nellie was right on their heels, spinning the wheel of her iPod with one hand and adjusting her snake nose ring with the other. Amy eyed the airport clock. 2:13. The flight was scheduled to leave at 2:37. This was an international flight. You were supposed to arrive at the airport two hours in advance, not twenty

很蹩脚，平凡的生活。 七年前他们的父母去世后，暴躁的比阿特丽斯阿姨收留了他们，她做过的唯一一件很酷的事就是雇了内莉。 但现在他们知道，他们是一个更大的家族的一部分，这个大家庭的祖先包括本·富兰克林和沃尔夫冈·阿玛迪斯·莫扎特。 似乎世界上所有伟大的天才都是卡希尔。 那真是太神奇了。“嘿，艾米，你有没有想过，爬上传送带，看看发生了什么？” 比如，‘嘿，别介意我，我只是在搬运货物’？”然后是丹。 “来吧!”艾米抓住哥哥的胳膊，朝登机口走去。 内莉紧跟在他们后面，一只手旋转着iPod的转盘，另一只手调整着她的蛇鼻环。 艾米盯着机场的钟。 13。飞机原定于2点37分起飞。 这是一架国际航班。 你应该提前两小时到达机场，而不是20小时

four minutes. "We're not going to make it!" Amy said. Now they were running toward gate 4, dodging other passengers. "Guess they didn't find Rufus and Remus, huh?" Dan called out. "Who are Rufus and Remus?" Amy asked. "The swords!" Dan said. "I named them after the founders of Italy." "It's Romulus and Remus," Amy hissed. "And they founded Rome. And don't ever say that word!" "Rome?" "No—s-w-o-r-d." Amy dropped her voice to a whisper as they pulled up to the rear of a very long security line. "Do you want us to go to j-a-il?" "O-o-p-s." "O-O-O-O…" Nellie wailed off-key to some unidentifiable punk track. The security line seemed to take, like, thirty- two hours. The worst part for Amy, as always, was having to take off her jade necklace to go through

四分钟。“我们去不了了！”艾米说。 现在他们躲着其他乘客朝4号门跑去。 “看来他们没有找到鲁弗斯和莱姆斯，对吧？”丹喊道。 “鲁弗斯和莱姆斯是谁？”艾米问。 “剑!”丹说。“我用意大利开国元勋的名字给它们命名。” “是罗穆卢斯和雷穆斯。”艾米低声说。 他们建立了罗马。永远不要说那个词！”“罗马?”“No-s-w-o-r-d。” 当他们把车停在长长的安检队伍后面时，艾米压低了声音。 “你想让我们去j-a-il吗？”“O-o-p-s。” “O-O-O-O - o……”内莉在一些无法辨认的朋克音乐中嚎啕大哭。 安检队伍似乎花了32个小时。 对艾米来说，最糟糕的是，她必须脱下玉项链才能过关