Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12 It's a small room, Ian thought, but ugly. He smiled. An old Kabra family joke. The Cahill brother— Dan— was gazing about the musty, wood-paneled room as if he were about to cry. "For this, you have a murderous, man-eating, killer beast?" he cried out. "To guard a library?" Amy was looking about the sanctum in awe. "It's… beautiful!" The girl was modest and thoughtful. How bizarre. So rarely did Ian see these qualities in others— especially during the quest for the 39 Clues. Naturally, he had been taught to avoid these behaviors at all costs and never to consort with anyone who possessed them. They were distasteful— FLO, as Papa would say. For Losers

这是一个小房间，伊恩想，但很丑。 他笑了。这是卡布拉家族的老笑话。 卡希尔家的兄弟——丹——正凝视着这个发霉的、镶着木板的房间，好像要哭出来似的。 “就为了这个，你有一只凶残的，吃人的，杀人的野兽？”他喊道。 “守卫图书馆？”艾米敬畏地环顾着密室。 “这是……漂亮!”这个女孩谦虚而体贴。 多么奇怪。所以伊恩很少在别人身上看到这些品质——尤其是在寻找39条线索的过程中。 自然，他被教导要不惜一切代价避免这些行为，永远不要与任何拥有这些行为的人交往。 它们令人讨厌——就像爸爸会说的那样。 对失败者

Only. And Kabras never lost. Yet she fascinated him. Her joy in running up Alistair's tiny lawn, her awe at this piddling cubbyhole— it didn't seem possible to gain so much happiness from so little. This gave him a curious feeling he'd never quite experienced. Something like indigestion but quite a bit more pleasant. Ah, well. Blame it on the ripped trousers, he thought. Humiliation softened the soul. He glanced at the cramped shelves, the mildewed oak walls, the cracked leather armchair, the hideous fluorescent lights, the mouse droppings in the corners, the scuffed moldings, and the artwork that seemed to have been bought at a tag sale for the color-blind. Beautiful? "It's books," Dan groaned. "Beam me up, Scotty— please!" For once, Ian rather agreed with him. "Rare books," Alistair said, gesturing grandly to a section of four glassed-in shelves, "not to mention one of the world's finest collections of secret material about the Cahill family. A lifelong

只有。卡布拉斯从未输过。 然而她却使他着迷。她在阿利斯泰尔的小草坪上奔跑的喜悦，她对这个小隔间的敬畏——似乎不可能从这么少的东西中获得这么多的幸福。 这给了他一种从未有过的奇怪感觉。 有点像消化不良，但舒服多了。 啊,好。都怪那条破裤子，他想。 屈辱软化了心灵。 他瞥了一眼狭窄的书架、发霉的橡木墙、破裂的皮革扶手椅、丑陋的荧光灯、角落里的老鼠粪便、磨损的装饰，还有那些似乎是为色盲人士在标签拍卖会上买的艺术品。 漂亮吗?“是书。”丹呻吟道。 “把我传送上去，斯科蒂——求你了！”这一次，伊恩相当同意他的意见。 “珍本书籍，”阿利斯泰尔说着，神气地指了指四个玻璃架子，“更不用说世界上最好的关于卡希尔家族的秘密资料收藏了。 终身

passion for me, as few items were ever duplicated. Here is our best hope of decoding the parchment!" Ian began to sit, but he thought of how that would make his posterior feel. Standing up wasn't pleasant, either, with the polyester trousers that felt like sandpaper on his legs. And Dan's whining just made the experience unbearable. He would have to avoid the brother. The sister, at least, was interesting. He wondered if her lack of cynicism would be contagious. How distasteful. Still… "Perhaps we should form teams," Ian suggested. "A race. Amy and I will scour the material on the top two shelves, Natalie and Dan take the bottom two." "Excellent," Alistair said. "Do you agree, Amy?" "Um…" Amy said, her eyes darting away from him. "Uh…" A pity, Ian thought. So many females had this reaction to him. It really did limit conversation. "I've never been on an extra-Kabricular team before," Natalie said, smiling at her own wittiness. "But I'll try, I suppose."

激情对我来说，因为很少有物品是复制的。 这是我们破译羊皮纸的最大希望！”伊恩开始坐下来，但他想到那样会让他的臀部有什么感觉。 站起来也不舒服，涤纶裤子在他腿上就像砂纸一样。 丹的抱怨让我无法忍受。 他得避开那个兄弟。 至少那个妹妹很有趣。 他想知道她的冷漠是否会传染。 多么令人反感。“也许我们应该组队。”伊恩建议道。 “一个种族。艾米和我把上面两个架子上的材料翻一遍，娜塔莉和丹拿下面两个架子。” “太好了，”阿利斯泰尔说。 “你同意吗，艾米？”“嗯……”艾米说，她的目光从他身上移开。 “呃……”真遗憾，伊恩想。 很多女性对他都有这种反应。 这确实限制了谈话。 “我以前从来没有参加过课外小组，”娜塔莉说，对自己的机智笑了。 “不过我想我会试试的。”

Dan was staring at an expensive but unfortunate painting of a couple quite familiar to Ian. The man's hair was piled in mangled gray wisps, his eyebrows bushy and his eyes wild. The woman had a strong face, the way a horse was strong— long-jawed and big-eared. Above them floated all kinds of strange-looking symbols. "Who's the lucky couple?" Dan asked. "Ah, yes, the ever-glamorous Gideon and Olivia, the original Cahills, painted in the early 1500s," Ian said. "Your ancestors." "The Kabras improved the bloodline," Natalie said. "Ready?" Alistair spread out the parchment on a table, then grabbed a book off the shelf. "I will help the younger team, Natalie and Dan. Set… go!" Ian ran his fingers along the line of books, some with handwritten titles along the spines: Historicus Cahilliensis: Ekaterina, Vols. I and II… Ekat Architectural Renderings… A Review of Eighteenth-Century Cahill Literature.… Some of them seemed like pamphlets, notes torn from

丹盯着一幅昂贵但不幸的画，画的是一对伊恩很熟悉的夫妇。 那人的头发乱成一缕，眉毛浓密，眼神狂野。 那女人长着一张强壮的脸，就像一匹强壮的马——长下巴，大耳朵。 在他们上面漂浮着各种奇怪的符号。 “这对幸运的夫妇是谁？”丹问道。 “啊，是的，永远迷人的吉迪恩和奥利维亚，卡希尔的原作，画于16世纪初，”伊恩说。 “你的祖先。”“卡布拉家族改善了血统，”娜塔莉说。 “准备好了吗?”阿利斯泰尔把羊皮纸摊在桌子上，然后从书架上拿了一本书。 “我会帮助年轻的队伍，娜塔莉和丹。 集……走吧!”伊恩用手指抚摸着一排书，有些书的书脊上写着手写的书名：《卡希利ensis：叶卡卡特琳娜，Vols》。 I和II. Ekat建筑效果图. 18世纪卡希尔文学回顾。有些看起来像是小册子，从

three-ring binders. It would be difficult to find anything helpful here. Amy was pulling down a thick book titled Origins of the Cahills: A Compendium of Contemporary Studies. "We're supposed to find a clue, not study history," Dan snapped. "But we know so little about the Cahill family," Amy said. Natalie looked up from a book she was skimming. "I don't know why your parents never told you which branch you were in. We knew the whole story before we were walking." Ian watched Amy as her face sank. He felt a flutter inside. Sympathy, he realized—an emotion he often felt for the Kabra banker on days when the stock market performed badly. This feeling, however, was somehow a bit more… vivid. He gave his sister a kick. "Natalie, have you lost your sense of… grace?" She glared at him for a moment, until the joke clicked in.

三环绑定。在这里很难找到有用的东西。 艾米正在拉下一本厚厚的书，书名是《卡希尔的起源：当代研究纲要》。 “我们应该找到线索，而不是研究历史。”丹厉声说。 “但是我们对卡希尔一家了解得太少了，”艾米说。 娜塔莉从正在浏览的书上抬起头来。 “我不知道为什么你的父母从来不告诉你你在哪个部门。 在我们走之前，我们就知道了整个故事。” 伊恩看着艾米的脸沉了下去。 他感到内心一阵悸动。同情，他意识到——在股市表现不佳的日子里，他经常会对卡布拉银行的银行家产生这种情感。 然而，这种感觉却更加……生动。 他踢了他妹妹一脚。 “娜塔莉，你失去了你的……优雅感了吗？”她怒视了他一会儿，直到他明白了这个笑话。

"'The Cahill family traces back to early 1500s Dublin, with the brilliant, eccentric Gideon Cahill and his wife, Olivia,'" Amy read aloud. Alistair nodded encouragingly. His niece was so excited she could barely get the words out. "'Some say Cahill had indeed made a discovery to change the course of humankind,'" Amy continued. "'But the nature of this discovery was never known. In 1507, a sudden fire swept through the Cahill home. All escaped but one. Gideon, desperate to save his life's work, was found burned to death at his desk.'" "What is it with Cahills and fire?" Dan whispered. Alistair felt a little clutch in his chest. The children had been through so much tragedy—the fire that had trapped their parents, the one that had burned Grace's house. It occurred to him why he'd never wanted children of his own. You risked caring for them. And that kind of feeling could be dangerous in the hunt for the 39 Clues. "'According to contemporary sources, at his

“‘卡希尔家族可以追溯到16世纪初的都柏林，有才华横溢、古怪的吉迪恩·卡希尔和他的妻子奥利维亚，’”艾米大声朗读。 阿利斯泰尔鼓励地点点头。 他的侄女激动得几乎说不出话来。 “有人说卡希尔确实有了一个改变人类进程的发现，”艾米继续说。 “但是这个发现的性质一直不为人所知。 1507年，一场突如其来的大火席卷了卡希尔家。 除一人外，所有人都逃脱了。吉迪恩不顾一切地挽救他毕生的事业，被发现在办公桌前被烧死。'“ ”卡希尔和火有什么关系？"丹低声说。 阿利斯泰尔感到胸口有一点紧抓。 孩子们经历了太多的悲剧——困住他们父母的那场大火，烧毁格蕾丝家的那场大火。 他突然想起他为什么从来不想要自己的孩子。 你冒着照顾他们的风险。 在寻找39条线索的过程中，这种感觉可能是危险的。 根据当时的资料，在他