24 The Secret Formula

Chapter 24 THE SECRET FORMULA "Oh, this one's a piece of cake," Pep said to her brother after they were back on the road. "I'll bet even you can solve it." While their parents blasted an oldies station in the front seats, Coke examined the new cipher, which his sister had written down in her notebook. 20–12–7–12–7–19–22–11–12–12–15–9–12–12–14 To Coke, it looked like a meaningless string of numbers. There were a bunch of twelves in there, and they repeated. But his brain was only good at storing and accumulating vast quantities of information. It simply wasn't hard-wired to

“哦，这是个小菜一碟，”他们重新上路后，佩普对她哥哥说。 “我敢打赌，连你都能解决。” 当他们的父母在前排播放老歌电台的时候，科克检查了妹妹写在笔记本上的新密码。 对可口可乐来说，这只是一串毫无意义的数字。 这里有一堆12，它们重复。 但他的大脑只擅长储存和积累大量的信息。 它根本就不是天生的

organize and process data. He handed the notebook back to his sister. "Look, it's simple," she told him. "First you write out the alphabet...." "Then you put a number below each letter...." "The first number in the cipher is 20, so that must be a T," she said. "Then comes the number 12, and that's an L. After that is 7, which is the letter G. And then another L …" "T-L-G-L?" Coke said. "That doesn't mean anything." Pep did it again in her head, just to make sure she hadn't made a mistake. Coke was right. The message couldn't be TLGL. She thought about it for a moment, and then

组织和处理数据。 他把笔记本还给了他妹妹。 “看，这很简单，”她告诉他。 “首先你写出字母表....” “然后你在每个字母下面加上一个数字....” “密码里的第一个数字是20，所以一定是T，”她说。 “然后是数字12，那是一个L。 之后是7，也就是字母G。 再来一个L……”“T-L-G-L?”可口可乐表示。 “那不代表什么。” 佩普在她脑子里又算了一遍，以确保她没有犯错。 可口可乐是对的。消息不可能是TLGL。 她想了一会儿，然后

brightened. "Oh, I got it!" she said. "You need to put the numbers backward!" Pep crossed out the first line of numbers and wrote it again, this time putting the number 1 below the letter Z and working back until the number 26 was below the A. Then she plugged in the corresponding letters to the numbers. GOTOTHEPOOLROOM "Go to the pool room!" Coke said, almost loud enough for his parents to hear. "What's that supposed to mean?" "He wants us to go to a house or something," Pep replied. She added the new message to the list they had received so far. 1. Go to the living room 2. Go to the TV room 3. Go to the pool room She looked to her brother, and all he could do was shrug his shoulders.

点亮了。“哦，我明白了！”她说。 “你得把数字倒过来！”佩普划掉了第一行数字，重新写了一遍，这次把数字1放在字母Z的下面，然后继续写，直到数字26在字母A的下面。 然后她把相应的字母和数字对应起来。 “去台球室！”科克说，声音大得几乎能让他的父母听到。 “这是什么意思？”“他想让我们去一个房子之类的地方，”佩普回答。 她把这条新信息添加到他们迄今为止收到的邮件列表中。 1. 到客厅去。 去看电视的房间。她看了看她哥哥，他所能做的就是耸耸肩。

It was just eight miles on Dekalb Avenue from the Waffle House into Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. The McDonalds had not been to a big city since Washington, D.C. Coke and Pep craned their necks to look up at the tall buildings as they entered downtown Atlanta. Dr. McDonald drove past Georgia State University and CNN headquarters on Marietta Street before turning right toward Centennial Olympic Park, the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Georgia Aquarium was on their left. "Is this the special place you said you were taking us to today?" Pep asked. "Are we going to the aquarium?" "No …," Mrs. McDonald said as they drove along the north side of the park. "This is the special place we're going to today." Across the street was a huge modern building, with the words WORLD OF COCA-COLA written on it.

从华夫饼屋到佐治亚州首府亚特兰大，在迪卡尔布大道上只有8英里。 自从华盛顿特区之后，麦当劳一家就再也没有去过大城市 当可口可乐和佩普进入亚特兰大市中心时，他们伸长脖子仰望高楼大厦。 麦克唐纳博士开车经过位于玛丽埃塔街的佐治亚州立大学和CNN总部，然后向右转向1996年夏季奥运会的举办地百年奥林匹克公园。 乔治亚水族馆在他们的左边。 “这就是你说今天要带我们去的那个特别的地方吗？”Pep问道。 “我们要去水族馆吗？”“不……”当他们沿着公园的北侧行驶时，麦克唐纳太太说。 “这是我们今天要去的特别的地方。” 街对面是一座巨大的现代建筑，上面写着“可口可乐世界”的字样。

"We took you to the Birthplace of Pepsi in North Carolina," said Dr. McDonald as he looked around for a parking lot. "So we figured it was only fair to take you to the birthplace of Coke too." "This is way bigger than that lame Pepsi place," marveled Coke. Pep wrinkled up her nose. She knew her brother was right, and she also remembered what had happened to her back at the Birthplace of Pepsi. They parked the RV. Coke grabbed his backpack, and Pep grabbed her Frisbee grenade, just in case.

“我们带你们去了北卡罗来纳州百事可乐的诞生地。” 麦克唐纳说，他四处寻找一个停车场。 “所以我们觉得，为了公平起见，也应该带你去可乐的诞生地看看。” 可口可乐惊叹道：“这比百事可乐的烂地方要大得多。” 佩普皱起了鼻子。她知道她哥哥是对的，她也记得她在百事诞生地发生的事情。 他们把房车停了下来。可乐抓起他的背包，佩普抓起她的飞盘手榴弹，以防万一。

"Again with the backpack?" complained Dr. McDonald. "What do you keep in there, anyway?" "My private stuff," Coke replied. "I like to have it with me in case somebody breaks into the RV." "Nobody's going to break into the RV," his mother argued. "I want it, okay?" Coke said. Seeing as how they came to the World of Coke just for him, Coke's parents dropped the argument right there and started walking toward the building. "Did you know that only two people in the world know the secret formula to Coke?" said Dr. McDonald. "Really?" Pep said. "Yeah. I read about it somewhere. In fact, those two guys aren't even allowed to fly in the same plane together." "Why not?" Coke asked. "Because if the plane crashed and they both

“又背着背包？” 麦当劳。“你到底在里面放了什么？”“我的私人物品，”可口可乐回答。 “我喜欢随身带着它，以防有人闯入房车。” “没人会闯进房车的，”他母亲争辩道。 “我想要，好吗？”可口可乐表示。 看到他们来到可口可乐世界只是为了他，可口可乐的父母在那里放下了争论，开始向大楼走去。 “你知道世界上只有两个人知道可口可乐的秘密配方吗？” 麦当劳。“真的吗?”Pep说。 “是的。我在什么地方读到过。 事实上，这两个人甚至不被允许乘坐同一架飞机。” “为什么不?”可口可乐问道。“因为如果飞机坠毁，他们俩