4 Sweet Ride!

Chapter 4 SWEET RIDE! The Heartbreak Hotel in Memphis has an Elvis Presley theme, of course. There are pictures of Elvis all over the walls. Elvis songs blare out of hidden speakers. There's a TV in the lobby that always has an Elvis movie playing on it. From the looks of the place, you would never know that The King died back in 1977. It looks as though he's still alive. Everywhere Coke and Pep turned, there were constant reminders of Evil Elvis. It made it hard to forget what happened with Aunt Judy just a few hours earlier. Still, the twins slept soundly. It was nice to be in a regular bed for a change. After a few weeks, the RV had begun to feel like a rolling jail.

第4章愉快的旅程！孟菲斯的心碎酒店当然是以猫王为主题的。 墙上到处都是猫王的照片。 隐藏的扬声器里播放着猫王的歌曲。 大厅里有台电视，总是在播放猫王的电影。 从这个地方的外观来看，你永远不会知道国王早在1977年就去世了。 看起来他好像还活着。 无论可口可乐和佩普走到哪里，都会不断出现“邪恶猫王”的影子。 这让我很难忘记几个小时前和朱迪阿姨发生的事。 尽管如此，双胞胎还是睡得很香。 能在普通的床上换换环境真好。 几个星期后，RV开始感觉像一个滚动的监狱。

In the morning, everyone was famished. The food in the RV had been incinerated in the explosion, of course. The McDonalds came downstairs at nine o'clock and took a table in the hotel restaurant. Apart from a few lonely Elvis impersonators, the place was almost empty. A giant-screen TV on the wall was showing the young Elvis dancing with Ann- Margret in the movie Viva Las Vegas. The waitress took everyone's order and went to the kitchen. "Family meeting!" Dr. McDonald announced. "I've been thinking—" "Uh-oh," Coke muttered. "You know I've been trying to come up with a topic for my next book," Dr. McDonald continued. "I've decided that I don't want to do an Elvis Presley biography after all." "Good idea, Dad," Pep said, visibly relieved. "Yeah, there are probably a thousand books about Elvis," Dr. McDonald told them. "I was thinking that maybe for my next book I might

早上，每个人都饿了。 房车里的食物当然在爆炸中被烧成了灰烬。 麦当劳的人9点钟下楼来，在旅馆的餐厅里订了一张桌子。 除了几个孤独的猫王模仿者，这个地方几乎是空的。 墙上的大屏幕电视正在播放电影《拉斯维加斯万岁》中年轻的埃尔维斯与安-玛格丽特跳舞的情景。 女服务员接过大家点的菜，来到厨房。 “家庭会议!”麦克唐纳博士宣布。 “我一直在想——”“哦哦，”可口可乐嘟囔着。 “你知道，我一直在努力为我的下一本书寻找一个主题。” 麦当劳仍在继续。“我已经决定，我根本不想写一本埃尔维斯·普雷斯利的传记。” “好主意，爸爸，”佩普说，显然松了一口气。 “是的，关于埃尔维斯的书大概有一千本。” 麦克唐纳告诉他们。“我在想，也许在我的下一本书中，我可能会

try a novel." "A novel?!" Pep said, almost spitting out her orange juice. "Ben," said Mrs. McDonald, "you're a respected scholar, a university professor!" "That book about coal and the Industrial Revolution was awesome, Dad," Coke said. "I couldn't put it down." "See?" Mrs. McDonald said. "And you tackled an important subject. And now you want to write... a novel?" "What, you don't think I can do it?" "You can do anything you put your mind to," Pep told her father. "That's what you always say to us, right?" It was obvious that Dr. McDonald's feelings had been hurt. It may have been the 21st century, but he was still insecure over the fact that his wife was more successful than he was. It didn't seem fair to him that a million people visited her silly website every day to find out about ridiculous museums, giant balls of twine,

试试小说吧。”“小说? !”佩普说，几乎把她的橙汁吐了出来。 “本，”麦克唐纳太太说，“你是一位受人尊敬的学者，一位大学教授！”“爸爸，那本关于煤炭和工业革命的书太棒了，”科克说。 “我简直爱不释手。”“看到了吗?”麦克唐纳太太说。 “你谈到了一个重要的话题。 现在你想写… 一本小说吗?”“什么，你认为我做不到吗？”“你可以做任何你想做的事，”佩普告诉她的父亲。 “你总是这么对我们说的，对吧？”很明显。 麦当劳的感情受到了伤害。 虽然已经是21世纪了，但他仍然没有安全感，因为他的妻子比他更成功。 每天有一百万人访问她那愚蠢的网站，寻找荒谬的博物馆、巨大的线球、

and the like. Meanwhile, his book had been a flop. Sadly, not a lot of people care about the impact of coal on the Industrial Revolution. The book sold less than three thousand copies. He wanted to write something that everybody would read and talk about. He wanted to see his name on the bestseller list. "All I need to do is write a nonfiction book and add a story to it," Dr. McDonald said. "Throw in some action. Some adventure. Some conflict. How hard could that be?" "Do you have an idea for a novel, Dad?" Coke asked. "No. I'm just thinking about it." The family looked at him skeptically, and Dr. McDonald decided it would be best to drop the subject for now. He pulled out his trusty Rand McNally road atlas and opened it to the big map of the United States. Leaning over it like a general planning an invasion, he stabbed his finger at Memphis, Tennessee.

诸如此类。与此同时，他的书却一败涂地。 可悲的是，没有多少人关心煤炭对工业革命的影响。 这本书卖了不到三千册。 他想写一些人人都会读和谈论的东西。 他想看到自己的名字出现在畅销书排行榜上。 “我所要做的就是写一本非小说类的书，然后在里面加上一个故事，”他说。 麦克唐纳说。“投入一些行动。 一些冒险。一些冲突。 这能有多难呢？”“爸爸，你有写小说的想法吗？”可口可乐问道。 “没有。我只是在考虑。” 全家人都怀疑地看着他。 麦克唐纳决定最好暂时不谈这个话题。 他拿出他那本值得信赖的兰德·麦克纳利（Rand McNally）道路地图集，翻开美国的大地图。 他俯身在上面，就像一个将军在计划入侵一样，在田纳西州的孟菲斯刺伤了自己的手指。

"Okay, gang, here's how we're going to get home," he said. Dr. McDonald traced a southern route west with his finger sliding across the states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Then they would drive up to Las Vegas in the southwestern corner of Nevada, and up through California until they got back to the San Francisco area. The food arrived just after Mrs. McDonald opened her laptop and plugged in the starting and ending points for the trip. It would be about 2,200 miles, according to the computer, plus

“好了，伙计们，我们要这样回家，”他说。 麦克唐纳博士用手指在阿肯色州、俄克拉何马州、德克萨斯州、新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州之间滑动，画出了一条向西的南线。 然后他们会开车到内华达州西南角的拉斯维加斯，然后穿过加利福尼亚，直到他们回到旧金山地区。 就在麦克唐纳夫人打开笔记本电脑，输入旅行的起点和终点后，食物就端上来了。 根据电脑计算，大概有2200英里，再加上

any detours they would make. The total travel time would be one day and eleven hours, if they drove it straight. But, of course, Mrs. McDonald had no intention of traveling all those miles without stopping off along the way. "There are some cool things right here in Memphis," she informed the group. "The National Civil Rights Museum is at the site where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. And Sun Studio is here too. That's where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and all those other singers recorded their first songs." "I say we blow this pop stand," Coke said. "I second that," said Pep, glancing at her brother. "It gives me the creeps." After breakfast, the McDonalds went to the front desk to arrange for two taxis to pick them up—one for the boys and one for the girls. Pep and her mom went to the Southland Mall, just two miles from Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard. They filled a couple of

他们会绕道而行。 如果他们直行的话，总旅行时间是一天零十一个小时。 但是，当然，麦克唐纳夫人不打算走那么多英里而不中途停下来。 “孟菲斯这里有一些很酷的东西，”她告诉大家。 国家民权博物馆就在马丁·路德·金遇刺的地方。 被暗杀。Sun工作室也在这里。 埃尔维斯、杰里·李·刘易斯、卡尔·珀金斯和其他所有歌手都在那里录制了他们的第一首歌。” “我说我们炸了这个汽水摊，”可口可乐说。 “我同意，”佩普说，瞥了她哥哥一眼。 “这让我起鸡皮疙瘩。”早餐后，麦当劳夫妇去前台安排了两辆出租车来接他们——一辆给男孩，一辆给女孩。 佩普和她妈妈去了南地购物中心，在猫王大道上，离雅园只有两英里。 他们装了两个