9 Much Ado About Nothing

Chapter 9 Much Ado About Nothing Me and the guys went back up to the boardwalk. We walked past a Chinese fast-food restaurant there. Just seeing it made me hungry. But I couldn't get food because I spent the money my mom gave me on saltwater taffy. And I gave most of the taffy to Andrea. Bummer in the summer! "What do you wanna do?" I asked the guys. "I don't know," said Ryan. "What do you wanna do?" "I don't know," said Michael. "What do you wanna do?" "I asked you first," I said. We went back and forth like that for a while. Finally, Neil the nude kid suggested

我和伙伴们回到木板路上。 我们路过那里的一家中国快餐店。 光是看到它我就饿了。 但我买不到吃的，因为我把妈妈给我的钱花在买咸水太妃糖上了。 我把大部分太妃糖给了安德里亚。 夏天的流浪者！“你想做什么？”我问他们。 “我不知道，”瑞恩说。 “你想做什么？”“我不知道，”迈克尔说。 “你想做什么？”“我先问你的，”我说。 我们这样来来回回聊了一会儿。 最后，裸体男孩尼尔建议

we go booger boarding, which made no sense to me. Who wants to put boogers on a board? But then he said he meant boogie boarding, which is completely different and much more fun. The only problem was that we didn't have a boogie board. "We could dig a hole," suggested Ryan. "Digging holes is cool," said Michael. "Maybe we'll find buried treasure," Neil the nude kid said. "Then we can use it to buy some food." We went down to the beach to dig a hole. My friend Billy, who lives around the corner, told me that if you dig a hole deep enough, it will go all the way to China. "Hey," I told the guys, "if we dig a hole to China, maybe we'll end up near a Chinese restaurant. I bet they'll give us Chinese food."

我们去鼻屎冲浪，这对我来说毫无意义。 谁想把鼻屎放在冲浪板上？ 但后来他说他指的是冲浪，这是完全不同的，更有趣。 唯一的问题是我们没有冲浪板。 “我们可以挖个洞，”瑞恩建议道。 “挖洞很酷，”迈克尔说。 “也许我们会找到埋藏的宝藏，”裸体小孩尼尔说。 “然后我们可以用它来买一些食物。” 我们去海滩挖了一个洞。 我的朋友比利住在街角，他告诉我，如果你挖一个足够深的洞，它会一直延伸到中国。 “嘿，”我对他们说，“如果我们挖一个通往中国的洞，也许我们最后会在一家中国餐馆附近。 我打赌他们会给我们中国菜的。”

"Then we won't even need to find buried treasure," Michael said. "Great idea, A.J.!" said Ryan. That's why I'm in the gifted and talented program at school. The four of us started digging with our hands. I could almost taste the Chinese food we were going to eat once we reached China. "Hey," Ryan said, "what's the deal with jumbo shrimp? It's either jumbo or it's shrimpy. It can't be both." "Yeah," said Michael, "and how can you have sweet and sour pork? Either it's sweet or it's sour. What's up with that?" "Yeah," I said, "and how do they know which ribs are the spare ones?" Chinese food is weird. We were all digging in the sand when the strangest thing in the history of the

“那我们甚至不需要找到埋藏的宝藏，”迈克尔说。 “好主意，A.J.!”瑞恩说。 这就是为什么我参加了学校的天才项目。 我们四个人开始用手挖。 一旦我们到达中国，我几乎可以品尝到我们将要吃的中国食物。 “嘿，”瑞恩说，“大虾是怎么回事？ 要么是巨无霸，要么是小虾。 不可能两者都是。”“是啊，”迈克尔说，“你怎么能吃糖醋排骨呢？ 不是甜的就是酸的。 这是怎么回事？”“是啊，”我说，“他们怎么知道哪些肋骨是多余的呢？”中国菜很奇怪。 我们都在挖沙子的时候发生了史上最奇怪的事

world happened. "Hey!" Neil suddenly shouted. "There's something down here!" "What is it?" I asked. "Buried treasure?" "No, it's… a hand!" "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" we all screamed. "And the fingers are moving!" "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" we all screamed. "It's the sand monster!" I shouted. "My sister told me about it. It's a zombie, and it eats boys!" "Run for your lives!" shouted Neil. That's when this giant, human-shaped creature pushed its way out from under the sand. It stood up! "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" we all screamed.

世界发生了。“嘿!”尼尔突然喊道。 “下面有东西！”“什么事？”我问。 “宝藏?”“不，是……一只手！”“啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊！” “手指在动！”“啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊！” “是沙怪！”我叫道。 “是我姐姐告诉我的。 这是僵尸，它吃男孩！”“逃命！”尼尔喊道。 就在这时，这个巨大的人形生物从沙子下面钻了出来。 它站起来了！“啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊！”

The sand monster started shaking sand off itself.

沙怪开始抖掉自己身上的沙子。

And that's when I realized it wasn't a sand monster at all It was Mr. Granite, that. weird guy who swam all the way from Australia! "Thanks for digging me up, blokes," said Mr. Granite. "I must have dozed off on the beach. I guess some kids covered me with sand as a prank." Then he just walked away, like that was completely normal. Mr. Granite sure has a weird way of popping up out of nowhere. Down the beach, we saw that Mr. Sunny had put up a big fence around his sand castle. I guess he was afraid that somebody might damage it before the judging. A bunch of kids were watching him work on the castle, but Andrea wasn't around. "Where's Andrea?" I asked Mr. Sunny. "I cannot talk right now," he replied. "I must have silence with the sand."

那时我才意识到那根本不是沙怪那是花岗岩先生。 从澳大利亚一路游过来的怪家伙！“谢谢你们把我挖出来，伙计们，”格拉尼特先生说。 “我一定是在海滩上睡着了。 我猜是一些孩子恶作剧，在我身上撒了沙子。” 然后他就走开了，就像这很正常一样。 格拉尼特先生突然出现的方式真奇怪。 沿着海滩，我们看到阳光先生在他的沙堡周围竖起了一道大栅栏。 我猜他是害怕有人会在审判前把它弄坏。 一群孩子在看他建造城堡，但安德里亚不在。 “安德里亚在哪儿?”我问桑尼先生。 “我现在不能说话，”他回答。 “我必须和沙子保持沉默。”