21 Fun in the Sun

Chapter 21 FUN IN THE SUN "You kids missed all the fun!" Mrs. McDonald gushed when she got back to the hotel room. She and Dr. McDonald proceeded to regale Coke and Pep with stories of their adventures visiting many of the oddball museums and attractions Las Vegas had to offer. Her only regret, she said, was that the Liberace Museum had closed several years earlier. "So what did you two do while we were out?" asked Dr. McDonald. "Nothing." Everybody got a good night's sleep, and after checking out of the hotel in the morning, the family stuffed themselves at one of the many all- you-can-eat breakfast buffets found on the Strip. Mrs. McDonald started grabbing snacks to munch on in the car, but the rest of the family

第二十一章阳光下的乐趣“你们这些孩子错过了所有的乐趣！”麦克唐纳太太回到旅馆房间后滔滔不绝地说。 她和麦克唐纳博士继续向可口可乐和佩普讲述他们参观拉斯维加斯许多古怪的博物馆和景点的冒险故事。 她说，她唯一的遗憾是，利伯拉斯博物馆早在几年前就关闭了。 “那么我们出去的时候你们俩做了什么？” 麦当劳。“没什么。”每个人晚上都睡了个好觉，早上结账离开酒店后，一家人就在拉斯维加斯大道上的自助早餐餐厅里吃饱了。 麦克唐纳夫人开始在车里抓零食大嚼，但家里的其他人

convinced her that would be unethical—if not illegal—so she put everything back. "It's all-you-can-eat, Mom," Pep scolded her. "Not all-you-can-stuff-in-your-purse." Everybody had gorged themselves. It was hard to imagine being hungry after a Las Vegas buffet. "I don't want to eat again for the rest of my life," Coke said, rubbing his belly. There are only a few roads heading west out of Las Vegas. Dr. McDonald pulled the Ferrari onto I-15, also known as the Mojave Freeway. In just twenty minutes, the bright lights and glitz of Las Vegas were completely gone and the hot, flat, wide-open spaces of arid Nevada were back. One couldn't help but wonder why human beings had chosen to build a strange playground in the middle of the desert for people to lose their money on slot machines and roulette wheels. "I have an announcement to make," Dr. McDonald said shortly after leaving the city

她确信这样做即使不违法，也是不道德的，所以她把所有东西都放了回去。 “这是你能吃到的，妈妈，”佩普责备她。 “不是all-you-can-stuff-in-your-purse。” 每个人都狼吞虎咽。 很难想象在拉斯维加斯吃完自助餐后会感到饥饿。 “我这辈子都不想再吃东西了，”可口可乐一边揉着肚子一边说。 从拉斯维加斯往西走的路很少。 麦克唐纳博士把法拉利开上了I-15，也就是莫哈韦高速公路。 在短短20分钟内，拉斯维加斯的明亮灯光和浮华完全消失了，内华达州干旱的炎热、平坦、广阔的空间又回来了。 人们不禁要问，为什么人类选择在沙漠中建造一个奇怪的游乐场，让人们在老虎机和轮盘赌上输钱。 “我要宣布一件事。” 麦克唐纳在离开这座城市后不久说道

limits of Las Vegas. "Uh-oh," thought both twins. When their father had an announcement to make, it was usually not good news. "I slept on it," their father continued, "and after going to the Atomic Testing Museum yesterday, I've decided not to write that Trinity novel we talked about." "Why not, Dad?" Pep asked. "That would have been a cool story." "There are dozens of books about the first atomic test," he explained. "The world doesn't need another one. I want to write something totally original." "Dad, you should write a novel about a guy who can't come up with an idea for a novel to write," Coke suggested. "It's been done." "So what are you going to write about, Dad?" Pep asked. "I don't know," Dr. McDonald replied. "I'll come up with something."

拉斯维加斯的边界。“哦哦，”双胞胎都想。 当他们的父亲要宣布什么消息时，通常都不是好消息。 “我睡了一觉，”他们的父亲继续说，“昨天去了原子试验博物馆之后，我决定不写我们谈论过的三一小说了。” “为什么不呢，爸爸？”Pep问道。 “那将是一个很酷的故事。” “有几十本关于第一次核试验的书，”他解释说。 “这个世界不需要另一个。 我想写一些完全原创的东西。” “爸爸，你应该写一本关于一个没有小说灵感的人的小说，”科克建议道。 “已经完成了。”“那你打算写些什么呢，爸爸？”Pep问道。 “我不知道，”麦克唐纳医生回答。 “我会想办法的。”

Pep opened her notepad and turned to the page with the five ciphers they had received. She focused on the fifth one. It would be the last one, according to Dr. Warsaw's card. 8980 Numbers were harder to figure out than letters, Pep always found. And four digits didn't give her much to work with. It was obviously a very short message. The Internet wasn't much help. Pep borrowed her mother's laptop and searched for "8980," but all that came up were a bunch of street addresses and model numbers for various products. After staring at her notepad for a long time, Pep closed it with a sigh. She could work on it again later. Everyone had settled in for a long drive, but just an hour and a half after leaving Las Vegas, this sign appeared at the side of the road.

佩普打开她的记事本，翻到那一页，上面写着他们收到的五个密码。 她把注意力集中在第五件事上。 这将是最后一次。 华沙的卡片。佩普总是发现，数字比字母更难理解。 四位数并没有给她太多的工作。 这显然是一条很短的信息。 互联网也帮不上什么忙。 佩普借了她妈妈的笔记本电脑，搜索了“8980”，但得到的都是一堆街道地址和各种产品的型号。 佩普盯着她的笔记本看了很久，叹了口气合上了笔记本。 她可以稍后再写。 每个人都准备好了长途旅行，但在离开拉斯维加斯一个半小时后，这个标志出现在路边。

As if on cue, the whole family spontaneously burst into that old song—"Cal-i-forn-ia here I come, right back where I started from..." Everyone stopped right there, because nobody knew the next line of the song. "Woo-hoo!" Coke shouted. "We're home, baby!" Well, not exactly home. California is a big, long state. If you were to drive from the top to the bottom, it would be about eight hundred miles. However, if they kept driving without a stop, the McDonalds could be home that very same day. It's only about three hours from the state

仿佛得到了提示，全家人不由自主地唱起了那首老歌：“我来了，又回到了我出发的地方……” 大家都停了下来，因为没人知道这首歌的下一句是什么。 “啊!”可口可乐喊道。“我们到家了，宝贝！”嗯，不完全是家。 加州是一个又大又长的州。 如果你从山顶开车到山顶，大约有八百英里。 然而，如果他们不停地开车，麦当劳就可以在同一天回家。 离州只有三个小时的路程

line to Los Angeles, and after that it's a five- hour straight shot up I-5 to San Francisco. But just knowing that they were finally back in the state of California again made everyone feel like they were home. When you think of Southern California, you probably think of the glamour of Los Angeles— beautiful movie stars, spectacular mansions, swimming pools, and crowded freeways. But here, right near the Nevada border, there was none of that. This part of California is desert, and some of the most unforgiving desolation in the world. If not for the water and electricity supplied by Hoover Dam, parts of Southern California would be virtually uninhabitable. Mrs. McDonald dropped her Nevada guidebook in the trash. She didn't have one for California. Who buys a guidebook to their own state? She did, however, open her laptop so she could go on the internet and see if the family would be passing by anything she could use in Amazing but True.

到洛杉矶，然后沿着I-5公路坐5个小时的直线车到旧金山。 但一想到他们终于又回到了加利福尼亚州，每个人都有了家的感觉。 当你想到南加州时，你可能会想到洛杉矶的魅力——美丽的电影明星、壮观的豪宅、游泳池和拥挤的高速公路。 但在这里，就在内华达州边境附近，这些都没有。 加州的这一部分是沙漠，是世界上最无情的荒凉之地。 如果没有胡佛水坝提供的水和电，南加州的部分地区实际上将不适合居住。 麦克唐纳太太把她的内华达州旅游指南丢进了垃圾桶。 她没有加州的计划。 谁会买一本自己州的旅游指南呢？ 不过，她还是打开了笔记本电脑，这样她就可以上网了，看看这家人是否有什么东西可以在《神奇但真实》中使用。