3 Grow This Answer

CHAPTER THREE Grow This Answer Litmus Paper (noun). This is a piece of paper that has been treated with a special dye that changes color when it interacts with an acid or a base. When you dip it into a liquid, the paper will turn red if it's an acid or blue if it's a base. If only getting answers for my math test were this easy! MRS. EBERLIN SCANNED THE CLASSROOM. "For our volunteer, I'm going to pick Elijah. He's waiting very patiently with his hand up." Did that mean I wasn't patient? Probably. With a grin, Elijah strode up to the front of the classroom. "All right, here's the clue," said Mrs. Eberlin. "It will help you all figure out just where we are taking our field trip. Think of yourselves like explorers or scientists about to make a discovery." Almost everyone in the class was quiet. We studied our teacher, who stood up in front of her desk wearing an extra-big smile. "Okay, Elijah," said Mrs. Eberlin. "Open this box, take what's inside, and show the class." Elijah scooped something out of a

第三章培养答案石蕊试纸（名词）。 这是一张用一种特殊染料处理过的纸，这种染料与酸或碱相互作用时会改变颜色。 当你把它浸入液体时，如果它是酸性的，它会变成红色，如果它是碱性的，它会变成蓝色。 要是数学考试的答案这么容易就好了！夫人。 埃伯林扫视了一下教室。 “我们的志愿者，我会选以利亚。 他举着手，非常耐心地等待着。” 这是否意味着我没有耐心？ 可能。以利亚咧嘴一笑，大步走到教室前面。 “好吧，这就是线索，”埃伯林太太说。 “它将帮助大家弄清楚我们要去哪里进行实地考察。 把你们自己想象成即将有新发现的探险家或科学家。” 班上几乎每个人都很安静。 我们仔细打量着老师，她站在讲台前，脸上挂着大大的笑容。 “好吧，以利亚，”埃伯林太太说。 “打开这个盒子，把里面的东西拿出来，给全班看。” 以利亚从

small cardboard box. Then he held up three capsules that looked a little bit like my dad's vitamin pills. Only they were red, green, and blue. "The capsules in Elijah's hand need the number 8.1"—Mrs. Eberlin tapped the number on the whiteboard—"in order to survive and thrive." "Huh?" Phoenix dramatically slapped her hand on her forehead. "I don't get it." "Me either," I admitted. "These capsules are weird," said Elijah as he and I exchanged looks. We had no idea what our teacher was up to. Next Mrs. Eberlin pulled little strips of purplish paper out of a jar. She waved them at us, and they made a little swishing sound. Mrs. Eberlin asked us to guess what the strips of paper were for. "Little flags," suggested Avery. "Teeth whitening," called out someone else. And then, all of a sudden, I got it. My hand shot up. Only Mrs. Eberlin called on Birdie, and I had to press my lips together to stop from blurting out the answer. "The little strips would be perfect for drawing mini cartoons," said Birdie. "For who?" asked Jeremy. "Hamsters?" A bunch of kids giggled along with Birdie.

小纸板箱。然后他拿出三粒胶囊，看起来有点像我爸爸的维生素药片。 只不过它们是红的、绿的和蓝的。 “以利亚手里的胶囊需要数字8.1。” 埃伯林在白板上敲了敲数字——“为了生存和发展。” “嗯?”菲尼克斯戏剧性地用手拍了拍她的额头。 “我不明白。”“我也是，”我承认。 “这些胶囊很奇怪，”以利亚说，他和我交换了一下眼神。 我们不知道老师在做什么。 接着，埃伯林太太从罐子里抽出紫色的小纸条。 她向我们挥了挥手，它们发出了轻微的嗖嗖声。 埃伯林太太让我们猜这些纸条是干什么用的。 “小旗帜。”埃弗里建议道。 “牙齿美白，”另一个人喊道。 然后，突然之间，我明白了。 我的手一下子举了起来。只有埃伯林太太叫伯迪，我不得不紧闭双唇，以防脱口而出。 “这些小纸条非常适合画迷你漫画，”伯迪说。 “给谁？”杰里米问。“仓鼠?”一群孩子和小鸟一起咯咯地笑。

I waved my hand in the air again. "It looks like Kate might have the answer," said Mrs. Eberlin. "Yes! Those are litmus strips," I said, "which is a fancy name for pH paper. They tell us whether something is an acid or a base. An acid is like lemon juice, and a base would be like dishwashing detergent." "Exactly right, Kate." Mrs. Eberlin gazed around the room. "Okay, so I'm choosing some new volunteers." She pointed to Avery, then to Skyler Rumsky, who loped up front with his long strides. Then to Memito and me. I yelped. "Wow-weee!" Then I raced up to Mrs. Eberlin's desk. "What are we going to be testing?" I asked. When scientists test things, they always need to do it in a very systematic way. That just means it can't be all hodgepodge. My grandma Dort in Texas uses that word. Hodgepodge means a big mess. Mrs. Eberlin brought out four beverages. "Okay, here's what you'll be testing!" She pulled out a bottle of lemonade, a Coke, a Snapple raspberry tea, a

我又在空中挥了挥手。 “看起来凯特可能知道答案，”埃伯林太太说。 “是啊!“那些是石蕊试纸，”我说，“这是pH值纸的一个好听的名字。 题目告诉我们某种物质是酸还是碱。 酸就像柠檬汁，而碱就像洗洁精。” “完全正确，凯特。”埃伯林太太环视了一下房间。 “好吧，我要选一些新的志愿者。” 她指了指埃弗里，又指了指斯凯勒·拉姆斯基，后者迈着大步大步跑到前面。 然后是我和Memito。我叫喊起来。 “Wow-weee !”然后我跑到埃伯林夫人的办公桌前。 “我们要测试什么？”我问。 当科学家测试事物时，他们总是需要以一种非常系统的方式来做。 这就意味着它不可能是大杂烩。 我在德州的奶奶波特就用这个词。 Hodgepodge的意思是一团乱。 埃伯林太太拿出四杯饮料。 “好吧，这就是你要测试的内容！”她拿出一瓶柠檬水，一杯可乐，一杯斯奈普覆盆子茶，一杯

bottled water, and four flasks. Then she prepared each flask with one of the drinks. Avery dipped the pH paper into the flask with the lemonade. It turned red. "What do you think that means?" Mrs. Eberlin asked. Pretty much everyone said it was an acid. Then I mentally noted that acid meant red. Next Skyler tested the Coke. It also turned red. Memito picked the tea. More red. "Is everything an acid?" asked Memito. "Let's test the water and find out." I dipped my paper, and it turned blue. "That means this bottled water is basic." "Exactly!" said Mrs. Eberlin. "Great job, everyone." Then she shooed us back to our seats. "So let's take a look at our results. The first three drinks turned the litmus paper red, but the bottled water turned the paper blue. Now, we already know that red means acid and blue means base, but each of these colors can also be represented by a number on something called the pH scale. On the pH scale, 1 is very acidic and 14 is very basic. Anything over 7 is considered basic." On the board, she circled 8.1. "So that number means.." "Something that is just sort of basic," said Elijah.

瓶装水和四个烧瓶。 然后她在每个瓶子里准备了一种饮料。 艾弗里把pH值纸浸入装有柠檬水的烧瓶中。 它变红了。“你觉得那是什么意思？”埃伯林太太问。 几乎所有人都说那是酸。 然后我意识到酸意味着红色。 接下来，斯凯勒测试了可乐。 它也变红了。梅托摘了茶。 更红。“所有东西都是酸吗？” “让我们试水看看吧。” 我蘸了蘸纸，它变成了蓝色。 “这意味着这种瓶装水是基本的。” “没错！”埃伯林太太说。 “大家干得好。”然后她把我们赶回座位上。 “所以让我们来看看我们的结果。 前三杯饮料把石蕊试纸变成了红色，但瓶装水把试纸变成了蓝色。 现在，我们已经知道红色代表酸，蓝色代表碱，但这两种颜色也可以用pH值表示。 在pH标度上，1是酸性很强，14是碱性很强。 大于7的都被认为是基本值。” 在黑板上，她圈出了8.1。 “所以这个数字的意思是……”“一些基本的东西，”以利亚说。

"Man, that kind of sounds like an insult," said Memito. He waved his fingers at Elijah. "You're basic and boring." He yawned. "Ha-ha," said Elijah. Next Mrs. Eberlin asked for one more volunteer to help with the final step. Everyone wanted to do it. But Julia got to go up. She said she hoped that she didn't mess anything up. Mrs. Eberlin and a bunch of kids assured Julia that she would do a great job. When Julia got to the front of the room, Mrs. Eberlin instructed her to put the three capsules in the water so we could see what needed the 8.1 in order to survive. That meant something that would do well in water that was slightly more basic than acidic. "You ready?" asked Mrs. Eberlin. "I hope so," said Julia uncertainly. "Should I count to ten first?" "That's a good idea," said Mrs. Eberlin. "I bet something is going to explode," said Jeremy. "You better step back. Remember that baking soda experiment?" "Or it could—poof—disappear like a magic trick," said Phoenix in a dreamy voice. "Or make a lovely rainbow," suggested Birdie. Julia counted backward from ten and then carefully dropped the capsules in the flask of water. Everyone anxiously leaned forward.

“伙计，这听起来像是一种侮辱，”梅托说。 他朝以利亚挥了挥手。 “你很基础，很无趣。” 他打了个哈欠。“哈哈，”以利亚说。 接下来，埃伯林太太又找了一个志愿者来帮忙完成最后一步。 每个人都想这么做。但茱莉亚得上去。 她说她希望她没有搞砸任何事情。 埃伯林太太和一群孩子向朱莉娅保证，她会做得很好。 当茱莉亚走到房间前面时，埃伯林太太让她把三个胶囊放在水里，这样我们就能看到什么需要8.1才能生存。 这意味着某种物质在碱性比酸性稍强的水中表现良好。 “准备好了吗？”埃伯林太太问。 “我希望如此，”裘莉亚不确定地说。 “要我先数到十吗？”“好主意，”埃伯林太太说。 “我打赌有什么东西要爆炸了，”杰里米说。 “你最好退一步。还记得小苏打实验吗？”“或者它会——噗——像魔术一样消失。”菲尼克斯用梦幻般的声音说。 “或者做一道可爱的彩虹，”小鸟建议道。 茱莉亚从十开始倒数，然后小心翼翼地把胶囊扔进烧瓶里。 每个人都焦急地向前倾着身子。

"Nothing's happening," moaned Memito. "You guys, be patient," I said. "It's science." While we were waiting, Mrs. Eberlin said she was going to hand out a code that would also help us solve the mystery. She passed out a sheet of paper. It said: dehs ot gniog. "Maybe it's in another language," said Julia. "Is it in Portuguese?" asked Phoenix. After all, our teacher grew up in Brazil. "Nope," said Mrs. Eberlin. "Portuguese is a Latin-based language, so it looks a lot like Spanish, Italian, and French." "Wait a minute," Phoenix said. "You just said Latin. Maybe it's in Pig Latin." "No, with that you move the consonant from the beginning of the word to the end of the word and add ay," I said. Dad taught us all Pig Latin just a few months ago. "So Pig Latin in Pig Latin is ig-pay atinlay." "Hmm." Elijah flipped the sheet around. He shook his head. "Reading it upside down doesn't help." "But you're onto something," said Mrs. Eberlin.

“什么也没发生，”梅托呻吟道。 “伙计们，耐心点，”我说。 “这是科学。”在我们等待的时候，埃伯林太太说她会发给我们一个密码，这个密码也能帮助我们解开这个谜团。 她发了一张纸。 上面写着：“我不知道。”“也许是用另一种语言写的，”茱莉亚说。 “是葡萄牙文的吗？”菲尼克斯问。 毕竟我们的老师是在巴西长大的。 “不，”埃伯林太太说。 “葡萄牙语是一种以拉丁语为基础的语言，所以它看起来很像西班牙语、意大利语和法语。” “等一下，”菲尼克斯说。 “你刚才说的是拉丁语。也许是用猪拉丁文写的。” “不，那样的话，你要把辅音从单词的开头移到单词的结尾，然后加上ay，”我说。 就在几个月前，爸爸教了我们所有人猪拉丁文。 “所以Pig Latin在Pig Latin中的意思是高薪。” “嗯。”以利亚把床单翻过来。 他摇了摇头。“倒过来读是没有用的。” “但你说到点子上了，”埃伯林太太说。