16 Spilled Ink

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Spilled Ink Chromatography (noun). A way of separating a mixture of molecules. It's like a bunch of kids racing. At first, they're all jumbled up but soon they spread out, as faster kids take the lead. BIRDIE GRABBED MY POSTER BOARD, the one with the writing on it that said: Kate is bad at science. From her supply box, she snagged scissors. "What are you doing?" I cried. "I'm going to cut off a letter." "But that's going to mess it up." I bit my lip. "Kate, trust me. In order to get evidence, I need to cut. You can tape a piece of paper underneath and no one will know the difference." "Okay, okay," I said, hiding my eyes. "But I can't look." The scissors went snip snip. And then I peeked. Birdie had cut off a strip of the poster board with the letter K on it. "I'm getting a sample," she said. "To do some chromatography." "Oooooh, now I get it." When you see blue ink —it's way more than just blue. It's got a whole

第十六章溢墨色谱法（名词）。 分离分子混合物的一种方法。 就像一群孩子在比赛。 一开始，他们都是乱糟糟的，但很快他们就散开了，因为跑得快的孩子们领先了。 伯迪抓住我的公告板，上面写着：凯特不擅长科学。 她从她的用品盒里拿出一把剪刀。 “你在干什么？”我哭了。 “我要剪掉一封信。” “但那会把事情搞砸的。” 我咬着嘴唇。“凯特，相信我。 为了拿到证据，我得剪。 你可以在下面贴一张纸，没有人会知道其中的区别。” “好吧，好吧，”我说，捂住眼睛。 “但是我不能看。”剪刀咔嚓咔嚓地响。 然后我偷看了一下。伯迪把写着字母K的布告栏剪了一条。 “我正在采集样本，”她说。 “做一些色谱分析。” “哦哦，现在我明白了。”当你看到蓝墨水时，它不仅仅是蓝色。 它有一个整体

bunch of colors swirled together to make that particular shade. Chromatography gives you a way to separate out all of those colors. And for detective work, it's awesome since each different kind of ink is going to have a different mix of color. "Now, we know that the culprit used some kind of blue pen," said Birdie. "But since Mrs. Eberlin gave out all different kinds of pens, this blue ink is going to be unique. Since no pen was the same, no ink will look the same once we separate it." "Just like a fingerprint," I said with growing excitement. "Exactly." Birdie grabbed a beaker and filled it with water. Then she taped the strip with the K to a pencil. It dangled like a little flag. "Watch," she said. "The water is a solvent. It's going to dissolve the ink and then it will spread across the paper." She hung the pencil over the top of the beaker so that the bottom of the strip barely touched the water. As the water soaked up into the paper, the ink spread upward. Biting my lip, I glanced over at the large strips of tissue paper hanging on Birdie's poster board.

一堆颜色旋转在一起形成了那种特殊的色调。 色谱法提供了一种分离所有这些颜色的方法。 对于侦探工作来说，这是很棒的，因为每种不同的墨水都会有不同的颜色混合。 “现在，我们知道罪犯用了某种蓝色的笔，”小鸟说。 “但由于埃伯林夫人赠送了各种不同的钢笔，这种蓝色墨水将是独一无二的。” 因为没有一支笔是相同的，所以一旦我们把它分开，墨水就会变得不一样。” “就像指纹一样。”我越来越兴奋地说。 “没错。”小鸟抓起一个烧杯，盛满了水。 然后她把带K的纸条粘在铅笔上。 它像一面小旗子一样悬挂着。 “看，”她说。“水是一种溶剂。 它会溶解墨水，然后在纸上扩散。” 她把铅笔挂在烧杯的顶部，这样铅笔条的底部几乎接触不到水。 当水被纸吸收时，墨水向上扩散。 我咬着嘴唇，瞥了一眼挂在伯迪的海报板上的大块薄纸。

The blue ink had spread upward but was no longer blue. It was pinkish at the bottom and light blue where ink bloomed upward. "Whoever thought a crime could look so pretty." I bent to inspect. "Now we need to test our suspects." Fifteen minutes later, we were back in Mrs. Eberlin's room for free read, where Birdie and I usually flop down in the beanbag chairs with our books. Instead, Birdie dragged me to the bulletin board and pointed to four different haiku poems written in blue pen. "I just need to steal those poems off the wall and test them!" "Keep it down. We'll get in so much trouble!" I looked for Mrs. Eberlin. She was going over some writing with Avery up at her desk. Today, Avery's lips were a sparkly lime green. Birdie shrugged. "We don't have any other choice. Unless you want to go tell Mrs. Eberlin." I shook my head. "No way. If I tell her, she'll tell Mom. And then it will be a big deal. Everyone will talk about how the principal's daughter is getting bullied. We've got to figure this out

蓝墨水向上扩散，但不再是蓝色的了。 它的底部是粉红色的，上面有墨水的地方是浅蓝色的。 “谁会觉得犯罪的人看起来这么漂亮。” 我弯下腰去查看。“现在我们需要测试我们的嫌疑人。” 15分钟后，我们回到埃伯林夫人的房间，开始免费阅读。我和伯迪通常会在那里的豆袋椅上翻着书。 相反，伯迪把我拉到公告栏前，指着用蓝笔写的四首不同的俳句。 “我只需要把墙上的诗偷下来测试一下！”“小声点。 我们会惹上大麻烦的！”我在找埃伯林太太。 她和艾弗里在她的办公桌前审阅东西。 今天，艾弗里的嘴唇是闪亮的酸橙绿色。 小鸟耸耸肩。“我们没有其他选择。 除非你想去告诉埃伯林太太。” 我摇了摇头。“没门。如果我告诉她，她就会告诉妈妈。 然后就会成为一件大事。 每个人都会谈论校长的女儿是如何被欺负的。 我们得想个办法

ourselves." Being a principal's daughter has its perks, but it also has its downsides. "We'll just have to figure out some way to get the poems when nobody is looking," whispered Birdie. "Maybe after school?" I studied the bylines on the blue poems on the bulletin board: Avery, Jeremy, Elijah, and Rory. "We'll have to keep our eyes on them," I said. "Every one of them is a suspect." "Even Elijah?" Birdie asked. I gulped. "Even Elijah," Even though I didn't think that Elijah really could have done it. But he was the only one who saw me put the strawberry in my cubby... I had to be sure.

自己。”当校长的女儿有好处，但也有坏处。 “我们得想个办法，趁没人注意的时候拿到诗。”小鸟低声说。 “放学后怎么样？”我研究了布告栏上蓝色诗歌的署名：艾弗里、杰里米、以利亚和罗里。 “我们得盯住他们，”我说。 “他们每个人都是嫌疑人。” “即使是以利亚?”小鸟问。 我一饮而尽。“甚至以利亚”尽管我不认为以利亚真的能做到。 但他是唯一一个看到我把草莓放进我的柜子的人…… 我必须确定。