21 A Wrong Turn

Chapter 21 A Wrong Turn Now the twins were furious. The house on the rock! Coke ripped the sheet of paper out of the pad, crumpled it up into a ball, and tossed it in the trash can next to the picnic table. "What is this with a house on a rock?" he sputtered. "If they want us to go to this stupid house so badly, why don't they tell us where it is? Oh no, that would make too much sense!" "And today is June twenty-third," Pep said, checking the date on the cell phone. "We only have two days to get there." The sound of wheels on gravel made the twins look up and see the family's RV pulling into the parking lot. It was hard to believe three hours had gone by. Pep slipped her pad back into her

第二十一章拐错了弯这下双胞胎气坏了。 岩石上的房子！可乐把那张纸从便笺簿上撕下来，揉成一团，扔进了野餐桌旁边的垃圾桶里。 “岩石上的房子是怎么回事？” “如果他们这么想让我们去那所破房子，为什么不告诉我们它在哪里？” 哦，不，那太有道理了！”“今天是6月23日，”佩普边说边查看手机上的日期。 “我们只有两天的时间到达那里。” 车轮在砾石上的声音让双胞胎抬起头，看到他们家的房车停在停车场。 很难相信三个小时已经过去了。 佩普把她的护垫塞回她身上

backpack so her parents wouldn't see it. "What have you kids been doing?" Dr. McDonald said cheerfully as he hopped out of the driver's seat. The movie must have been a comedy, the twins figured. Any anger their parents felt before they left was gone. "Nothing exciting," Coke replied. "Played Frisbee mostly." Their parents sat down at the picnic table with leftovers they had brought back from dinner, and gave the food to the kids. They said they had done some thinking about the rest of the trip. Aunt Judy's wedding would be in Washington on July Fourth, so they had eleven days to drive 1,167 miles. Mrs. McDonald felt there was plenty of time to stop off at interesting spots along the way and gather information for Amazing but True. She pulled a Minnesota guidebook out of her purse.

背包，这样她父母就看不到了。 “你们这些孩子在干什么？”博士。 麦克唐纳从驾驶座上跳下来，高兴地说。 这对双胞胎心想，这部电影一定是喜剧片。 他们的父母在他们离开之前的愤怒都消失了。 “没什么令人兴奋的，”可口可乐回答。 “主要是玩飞盘。”他们的父母坐在野餐桌旁，桌上放着吃完饭带回来的剩菜，把食物分给了孩子们。 他们说他们已经考虑了接下来的旅行。 朱迪阿姨的婚礼将于7月4日在华盛顿举行，所以他们有11天的时间开车1167英里。 麦克唐纳夫人觉得有足够的时间在沿途有趣的地方停下来，为《神奇但真实》收集信息。 她从钱包里掏出一本明尼苏达旅游指南。

They were an hour and a half from Minneapolis, she told them. With that as a starting point, they could check out the Mall of America. It was one of the biggest malls in the world, and it was right nearby. In Belle Plaine, there was a two-story outhouse that attracts a lot of tourists. But that would be an hour out of the way, a long way to go to see a toilet. In Rothsay, Minnesota, there was a ninethousand- pound statue of a chicken. And in Frazee, there was the world's largest turkey. In a town called Virginia, they had a giant floating statue of the Minnesota state bird: the loon. But it was more than three hours north. And the Sandpaper Museum, in Two Harbors, Minnesota, was almost as far. Even Mrs. McDonald had second thoughts about driving three hours to look at sandpaper. If they were going to go that far north, they might as well drive a little farther to Hibbing, which was the home of the world's largest open pit iron ore mine and also the boyhood home of Bob Dylan.

她告诉他们，他们离明尼阿波利斯有一个半小时的路程。 以此为起点，他们可以去美国购物中心看看。 那是世界上最大的购物中心之一，而且就在附近。 在贝尔普莱恩，有一座两层楼的外屋吸引了很多游客。 但那要走一个小时的路，去看厕所要走很远的路。 在明尼苏达州的罗斯赛，有一座价值9000英镑的鸡雕像。 在弗雷泽，有世界上最大的火鸡。 在一个叫弗吉尼亚的小镇上，他们有一个巨大的漂浮着的明尼苏达州鸟的雕像：潜鸟。 但向北走了三个多小时。 而位于明尼苏达州两港的砂纸博物馆也几乎同样遥远。 就连麦克唐纳太太也对开三个小时的车去看砂纸一事犹豫了。 如果他们要往北走那么远，他们还不如再开远一点到希宾，那里有世界上最大的露天铁矿，也是鲍勃·迪伦童年的故乡。

"I could spend a month just in Minnesota," Mrs. McDonald said wistfully. "No wonder the state bird is a loon," Coke remarked. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/). Click Get Directions. In the A box, type Darwin MN. In the B box, type Minneapolis MN. Click Get Directions. "Anything in your guidebook about houses on rocks?" Coke asked. "No," his mother replied. "Why?" "Just wondering." There was no way for the twins to find where the mysterious house on the rock was located. They would just have to wait and hope they received another cipher. In the end, Mrs. McDonald decided to visit just one location in Minneapolis: the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. Mrs. McDonald read out loud from her

“我可以在明尼苏达州待上一个月，”麦克唐纳太太若有所思地说。 “难怪州鸟是潜鸟，”科克说。 进入谷歌Maps （http://maps.google.com/）。 点击“获取路线”。在A框中，输入Darwin MN。 在B框中，输入Minneapolis MN。 点击“获取路线”。“你们的旅游指南上有没有提到岩石上的房子？”可口可乐问道。 “不，”他妈妈回答。“为什么?”“想。” 这对双胞胎没有办法找到岩石上那所神秘房子的位置。 他们只能等着，希望能收到另一个密码。 最后，麦克唐纳夫人决定只参观明尼阿波利斯的一个地方：可疑医疗设备博物馆。 麦克唐纳太太大声念着她的话

guidebook and described this amazing museum that collected two hundred fifty weird contraptions that supposedly used electricity, radio waves, magnets, or vibrations to cure everything from arthritis to acne. A century ago, apparently, bogus scientists spent a lot of time dreaming up fraudulent devices such as the Bio- Electric Shield, the Dynameter, and Boyd's Battery, which hung around the neck to ward off the earth's magnetic rays. The Rejuvenator reversed the aging process. The Spectro-Chrome used six colored lights to cure six different diseases if you sat in front of it with no clothes on. The Psychograph was a bowl-shaped sensor that you put on your head to measure the bumps to determine your personality traits. "Anybody who used one of those things should have his head examined," Coke remarked. The next morning, June twenty-fourth, the McDonalds headed for St. Paul. The address for

这本旅游指南描述了这个神奇的博物馆，那里收集了250个奇怪的装置，据说这些装置利用电、无线电波、磁铁或振动来治疗从关节炎到痤疮的各种疾病。 显然，一个世纪以前，冒牌的科学家花了大量时间幻想出诸如生物电护盾、测力仪和挂在脖子上以抵御地球磁射线的博伊德电池等欺诈性装置。 返老还童能逆转衰老过程。 如果你不穿衣服坐在它前面，它会使用六种不同的光来治疗六种不同的疾病。 心理仪是一个碗状的传感器，你可以把它戴在头上，用来测量凸起来确定你的个性特征。 “任何使用过这些东西的人都应该去检查一下脑袋，”科克说。 第二天早上，6月24日，麦当劳一家前往圣。 保罗。的地址

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, interestingly, turned out to be the same as for the Science Museum of Minnesota. "Excuse me," Mrs. McDonald asked a lady at the information desk, "where is The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices?" "I'm very sorry," the lady replied, "but that museum is closed." "Well, when does it open?" "Uh, never," the lady said. "It closed a few years ago." "What do you mean it's closed?" Mrs. McDonald put her hands on her hips, and her voice rose. "Calm down, Bridge," Dr. McDonald said. "I'm very sorry," the lady behind the desk said. "But that museum no longer exists." "Do you know who I am?" Mrs. McDonald shouted. "I run a very popular website called Amazing but True. Maybe you've heard of it?" "Mom," Pep said. "No, I haven't heard of your website," the lady

有趣的是，可疑医疗设备博物馆和明尼苏达科学博物馆是一样的。 “对不起，”麦克唐纳夫人问问讯处的一位女士，“可疑医疗器械博物馆在哪里？”“很抱歉，”女士回答说，“博物馆关门了。” “那么，什么时候开门？”“呃，从来没有，”女士说。 “几年前就关门了。” “你说关门是什么意思？”麦克唐纳太太双手叉腰，声音提高了。 “冷静点，布里奇，”麦克唐纳博士说。 “我很抱歉，”桌子后面的女士说。 “但那个博物馆已经不存在了。” “你知道我是谁吗？”麦克唐纳太太喊道。 “我经营着一个非常受欢迎的网站，名为‘Amazing but True’。 也许你听说过？”“妈妈，”佩普说。 “不，我没听说过你们的网站，”女士说