15 Disappearance

Chapter 15 Disappearance disappearance (n) a magic trick in which an object, person, or animal seems to disappear Jessie ran upstairs to get her high rain boots, then sloshed through the rising water in the basement, calling out, "Professor Hoffmann! Where are you? It's us. Come out!" She looked on all the shelves, thinking that perhaps he'd jumped up, trying to escape the flood. That would be a natural instinct in an animal: to seek higher ground. But Jessie looked on every shelf in the basement, and there was no sign of the rabbit. Evan, who didn't have rain boots, stayed on the stairs and held the flashlights. But after ten minutes he said, "Jess, we can't stay down here. The water's getting higher, and I think there's yucky stuff in it.

杰西跑上楼去拿她的高统雨靴，然后在地下室不断上涨的水里淌水，一边喊着：“霍夫曼教授！你在哪里？ 这是我们。出来!”她把所有的架子都看了一遍，心想也许是他跳了起来，想躲避洪水。 这是动物的自然本能：寻找更高的地方。 但是杰西把地下室的每个架子都找遍了，没有兔子的影子。 埃文没有雨靴，他站在楼梯上，拿着手电筒。 但十分钟后，他说：“杰西，我们不能待在这里。 水越来越高了，我觉得里面有恶心的东西。

See?" He pointed to the water near the furnace, and Jessie could see that there was an oily slick on the surface. "Come on." At the top of the stairs, Jessie pulled off her boots. "Where do you think he went?" she asked, but in her mind, she knew the answer. Professor Hoffmann had drowned, and when the storm ended and the water emptied out of the basement, they would find his small, limp body, and he would never do a magic trick again. Jessie had never loved an animal before, but she loved Professor Hoffmann. She loved him because he was quiet and predictable and simple and didn't need much. Sometimes he was calm, and sometimes he was nervous. But mostly he just wanted to eat lettuce and occasionally a radish. He needed water and his box cleaned out from time to time, and you could count on him to do his job. He was an easy rabbit to understand. She tried not to think too much about what he had gone through at the end. She told herself that rabbits

看到了什么?”他指了指火炉附近的水，杰西看到水面上有一层浮油。 “来吧。”在楼梯顶上，杰西脱下了她的靴子。 “你认为他去哪儿了？”她问，但在她心里，她知道答案。 霍夫曼教授淹死了，当暴风雨结束，水从地下室流出时，他们会发现他又小又软的尸体，他再也不会变魔术了。 杰西以前从未爱过动物，但她爱霍夫曼教授。 她爱他，因为他安静、可预测、简单、不需要太多。 他时而冷静，时而紧张。 但大多数时候，他只想吃莴苣，偶尔吃个萝卜。 他需要水，他的盒子不时被清理，你可以指望他做他的工作。 他是个容易理解的人。 她尽量不去想太多他最后所经历的事。 她告诉自己兔子

don't feel fear the same way humans do. But as the morning stretched on and the storm continued to rage, Jessie grew more and more frightened herself, and she couldn't help thinking that Professor Hoffmann had felt some of the same things she was feeling now. "Evan, the buckets are overflowing!" Jessie shouted, looking in her bedroom for the fifth time that day. It was incredible how fast they filled now that the rain was coming down harder than ever. "Give me a second," Evan called back. "There's another leak in the kitchen!" The ceiling in the kitchen had started to drip in the afternoon, and Evan and Jessie were on steady patrol, checking each room for new leaks. So far there was one in their mother's bedroom, one in the bathroom, and three in the kitchen. The only room that had managed to stay completely dry was the family room, and that's where Evan and Jessie had moved their supplies to and where they would hunker down between patrols.

不要像人类一样感到恐惧。 但是，随着时间的流逝，暴风雨继续肆虐，杰西自己也越来越害怕，她不禁想到，霍夫曼教授也有过她现在所感受到的一些同样的感受。 “艾凡，水桶都溢出来了！”杰西喊道，这是她那天第五次往卧室里看了。 现在雨下得比以前更大了，水灌得真快，真令人难以置信。 “等我一下，”埃文喊道。 “厨房又漏水了！”厨房的天花板从下午开始滴水，埃文和杰西一直在巡逻，检查每个房间是否有新的漏水。 到目前为止，他们母亲的卧室里有一个，浴室里有一个，厨房里有三个。 唯一一个完全保持干燥的房间是家庭活动室，埃文和杰西把他们的补给品搬到那里，在巡逻间隙，他们会躲在那里。

"This is hard," said Jessie at one point. She was trying to open a jar of pickles. Jessie loved pickles, but her mom never let her have more than two at a time because eating too many gave her a stomachache. "I can do it," said Evan, reaching for the pickle jar. He was eating tortilla chips dipped in cold hot-fudge sauce. "That's disgusting," said Jessie matter-of-factly. "Actually, it's not half bad," said Evan, returning the pickle jar with the lid loosened. "Don't eat more than two." "I know, I know," said Jessie. She didn't like touching food with her hands, particularly wet, cold food, so she used a fork to stab a pickle and fish it out of the jar. As she crunched, she thought of Professor Hoffmann and said again, "This is hard." "What?" "Everything. This whole storm. It's a lot of work." And a lot of sadness, she thought. "Yeah. I'm tired."

“这太难了，”杰西一度说。 她正试图打开一罐泡菜。 杰西喜欢吃泡菜，但她妈妈每次不让她吃两个以上，因为吃太多会让她胃痛。 “我能行，”埃文说着，伸手去拿泡菜罐。 他正在吃蘸着冷热软糖酱的玉米片。 “真恶心，”杰西实事求是地说。 “实际上，还不错，”埃文说着，把打开盖子的泡菜罐还给了他。 “不要吃超过两只。” “我知道，我知道，”杰西说。 她不喜欢用手触摸食物，尤其是湿冷的食物，所以她用叉子戳了一根泡菜，把它从罐子里捞了出来。 她嘎吱嘎吱地嚼着，想起了霍夫曼教授，又说了一遍：“这太难了。” “什么?”“一切。这场风暴。 这需要大量的工作。”还有很多悲伤，她想。 “是的。我累了。”

"Do we have to stay up all night? Because of the buckets?" asked Jessie. "I guess. Unless the storm stops. Do you think it's slowing down?" They both listened to the howling of the wind and the slapping of the rain against the windows. Jessie had almost gotten used to it, the storm had been going on for so long. It felt like days and days. "No," she said finally. "I don't think it's slowing down at all." "I wish we had a radio," said Evan for about the fourth time that day. "I just want to know what's going on." Jessie finished her second pickle, thought about taking a third, then put the lid back on the jar. She hadn't been very hungry all day, but she knew she should eat something to keep up her strength. She reached for the last Lorna Doone in its plastic sleeve. "You want to split it?" she asked. "Nah. I already had about ten of them." Evan leaned back and closed his eyes. Jessie thought he

“我们得通宵吗？” 因为那些水桶吗？”杰西问。 “我猜。除非风暴停止。 你认为它正在减速吗？”他们俩都听着风的呼啸声和雨拍打窗户的声音。 杰西几乎已经习惯了，暴风雨持续了这么长时间。 感觉过了好多好多天。 “不，”她最后说。“我认为它根本没有放缓。” “我希望我们有一台收音机，”埃文那天第四次说。 “我只是想知道发生了什么事。” 杰西吃完了第二个泡菜，想再吃第三个，然后把盖子盖上。 她一整天都不太饿，但她知道她应该吃点东西来保持体力。 她伸手去拿塑料套筒里的最后一支洛娜·杜恩。 “你想分吗？”她问。 “不。我已经吃了大约十个了。” 埃文靠在椅背上，闭上了眼睛。 杰西想

was going to fall asleep right there on the couch. But then he sat up and said, "I better go check the basement. To see if the water's gotten higher." Jessie hadn't gone back down to the basement since the morning. She couldn't bear it. But Evan had checked every hour, counting the number of steps that were still untouched by the water. At last check, the water had risen so high that only ten steps were still above water. What if the water reached the top step and started to spill into the kitchen? Jessie took a deep breath. "I'll come with you," she said. The thought of going down those stairs, descending into the murky darkness and all that swirling water, made Jessie feel as if she were lowering herself into a deep, dark well. Plus, it wasn't just a basement anymore. It was a graveyard. "You don't have to," said Evan. "I can go by myself." But Jessie insisted, so they rounded up every flashlight they could find—seven in all—and turned

我差点就在沙发上睡着了。 然后他坐起来说：“我最好去地下室看看。 看看水是不是涨高了。” 杰西从早上起就没回地下室了。 她受不了了。但埃文每小时都会检查一次，数一数还没被水淹的台阶。 最后一看，水已经涨得很高了，离水面只有十级台阶了。 如果水到了最上面的台阶，开始洒进厨房怎么办？ 杰西深吸了一口气。 “我和你一起去，”她说。 一想到要走下楼梯，进入浑浊的黑暗和旋转的水里，杰西就觉得自己好像掉进了一口又深又黑的井里。 而且，这里不再只是个地下室了。 这是一个墓地。“你不必这么做，”埃文说。 “我可以自己去。”但杰西坚持，所以他们把能找到的所有手电筒——总共七个——都集中起来，转过身来