Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 LATER THAT NIGHT AROUND MIDNIGHT Charlie opened his eyes and heard Lulu screaming. "The cloud monster! The cloud monster!" He looked out the window, and a hideous green cloud was swirling in the sky. All of a sudden, it

第七章那天深夜，大约午夜时分，查理睁开眼睛，听到了露露的尖叫。 “云怪！”云怪！”他向窗外望去，一团可怕的绿云在天空中盘旋。 突然之间，它

twisted into a giant face. A giant, sneering face… a face Charlie recognized. "Aaaaaaaahhhh!" Charlie screamed. And then everything went dark. Charlie's heart pounded. Where was Lulu? Why was it suddenly so quiet? And wait. Where was he? In bed, he realized. He'd had a nightmare. Charlie put his hand on his chest and took a deep breath. This is bad, he thought. Gordon had tormented him at school. At the beach… and now in his dreams! Charlie got out of bed and took deep breaths. He glanced in the mirror above his dresser. Even in the dim light of the moon, Charlie could see his swollen lip in the reflection. He didn't look like Charles the Great. He looked like Charles the Ugly. Charles the Scared. Charles the Weak.

扭曲成一张巨大的脸。 一张巨大的、讥讽的脸……一张查理认出来的脸。 “Aaaaaaaahhhh !”查理尖叫。 然后一切都变暗了。 查理的心怦怦直跳。露露在哪里？ 为什么突然这么安静？ 和等待。他在哪里？在床上，他意识到。 他做了个噩梦。查理把手放在胸前，深吸了一口气。 这太糟糕了，他想。戈登曾在学校折磨过他。 在海滩上，现在在他的梦里！查理下了床，深吸了几口气。 他朝梳妆台上方的镜子瞥了一眼。 即使在昏暗的月光下，查理也能在倒影中看到自己肿胀的嘴唇。 他看起来不像查理大帝。 他看起来像丑陋的查尔斯。 害怕的查尔斯。软弱的查理。

A few tears slipped out. He wiped them away. Enough, he told himself. He sat down on his bed, switched on his lantern, and reached for Meraki's book. Reading about Meraki's life always made him feel better. He'd had a rough time, too, and look at him! The most famous magician in the world. One of the best chapters was near the end, when Meraki was kidnapped by two men. Charlie settled back on his pillow and started to read. I was walking home from a show, enjoying the night, and two men stopped me. They both had guns, and they ordered me to walk with them to a filthy building. I figured out very quickly that they did not want my money. They had been sent by my enemy. He's a magician named Thedo the Powerful. For years he'd been trying to steal the secret of my most popular trick: The Floating Woman. It had taken me years to create that trick. It was my treasure.

几滴眼泪滑了出来。他把它们擦掉了。 够了，他告诉自己。他在床上坐下，打开灯笼，伸手去拿梅拉基的书。 阅读默拉基的生活总是让他感觉好些。 他也经历了一段艰难的时光，看看他！世界上最著名的魔术师。 最精彩的一章是在接近结尾的时候，梅拉基被两个男人绑架了。 查理靠在枕头上，开始看书。 我看完演出正走回家，享受着夜晚，两个男人拦住了我。 他们俩都有枪，他们命令我和他们一起走到一栋肮脏的大楼里。 我很快就明白他们并不想要我的钱。 他们是我的敌人送来的。 他是个魔法师，名叫强大的忒多。 多年来，他一直试图窃取我最受欢迎的魔术的秘密：漂浮的女人。 我花了好几年才创造出这个把戏。 那是我的宝贝。

Thedo had sent spies to my shows in the past. They'd broken into my hotel rooms looking for the sketches of how the trick was done. And now he'd sent these brutes. The men took me to a small room, sat me down at a table, and shoved a notebook in front of me. "Write it down," the taller of the men demanded. "A magician never reveals his secrets!" I replied. "Tell us or we'll shoot you," the other man said. I almost gave up. I picked up the pencil and began to draw the trick. But then a voice whispered through my mind—my own voice. You have power. But what power could that be? I wondered. These men were very strong. They both had guns. And then it came to me: my magic skills. I could use magic to trick them. To scare them into letting me go. I thought hard, and somehow came up with a plan.

他们过去曾派间谍去看我的演出。 他们闯进了我的酒店房间，想要我画出如何变戏法的草图。 现在他又派了这些畜生来。 那些人把我带到一个小房间，让我坐在一张桌子旁，把一个笔记本塞到我面前。 “写下来，”个子较高的那个要求道。 “魔术师从不泄露他的秘密！”我回答说。 “告诉我们，不然我们就开枪了。”另一个人说。 我差点就放弃了。我拿起铅笔，开始画魔术。 但这时一个声音在我的脑海里低语——我自己的声音。 你有力量。但那是什么力量呢？ 我想知道。这些人很强壮。 他们都有枪。然后我想到了我的魔术技巧。 我可以用魔法欺骗他们。 吓唬他们让我走。 我苦思冥想，终于想出了一个计划。

Luckily I always carried a few small props with me—cards, some coins, and a small vial of red liquid called magic blood. The vial was made of the thinnest glass. It was meant to be easily broken during a trick, and the shards would disappear into dust. I stood up. "I was raised by a family of snake charmers," I said to the men. (This was not true, of course, but the men didn't know that.) "I was bitten by cobras many times," I continued. (In fact I had been bitten only once by a cobra, while visiting a village in India.) "The venom gave me powers," I told the men. (Quite the opposite, that cobra bite had nearly killed me.) "And now, if you do not let me go, I will use my cobra powers to take all of the blood from your bodies. Every drop." I used a low, rasping voice. I flicked my tongue several times in a snakelike way. I swayed my body slightly, as a cobra does when it rises from a snake

幸运的是，我总是随身带着一些小道具——卡片、一些硬币和一小瓶叫做魔法血的红色液体。 这个小瓶是用最薄的玻璃做的。 这是为了在恶作剧中很容易打破，碎片会消失在灰尘中。 我站起来。“我是在一个耍蛇人的家庭里长大的，”我对他们说。 （当然，这不是真的，但这些人并不知道。）“我被眼镜蛇咬了很多次，”我继续说。 （事实上，我只在印度的一个村庄被眼镜蛇咬过一次。）“毒液给了我力量，”我告诉他们。 （恰恰相反，眼镜蛇咬伤差点要了我的命。）“现在，如果你们不放我走，我就要用眼镜蛇的力量吸干你们身上所有的血。 每一滴水。”我用低沉刺耳的声音说话。 我像蛇一样弹了几下舌头。 我微微摇晃着身体，就像眼镜蛇从蛇身上爬起来时那样

charmer's basket. I rolled my eyes up into my head so that only the whites showed. The men looked at each other in confusion. And here was my chance. I snuck my hand into my pocket and grabbed the fake blood. Keeping it hidden in my hand, I reached up to the taller man's head, right next to his ear. I squeezed the vial so it cracked. The magic blood sprayed onto the man's face, the wall, and the ceiling. It was a gruesome show.

魔术师的篮子里。我把眼睛转到头上，这样就只露出白眼了。 这些人困惑地面面相觑。 我的机会来了。我把手伸进口袋，抓起假血。 我把它藏在手里，伸手去摸那个高个子的头，紧挨着他的耳朵。 我把药瓶挤破了。 神奇的血喷到了男人的脸上、墙上和天花板上。 那是一场可怕的表演。