Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 'I can't…' said Flora, shaking her head. 'I can't… actually… believe…' said Flora, still shaking her head. 'I can't… actually… believe… I was wrong,' said Flora. She was never going to stop shaking her head. 'Oh, you get used to it,' said Wogan. 'Believe me. I'm something of an expert.' It was Monday morning and the friends were sitting in their classroom waiting for Mr Wind to arrive. He was now back from his intensive three-day strategy course with Miss Fyre and was going round the school with a permanent smile plastered on his face. 'But you were right, Wogan. I was wrong and you were right. It's just… I don't know what…' 'I understand, Flora,' said Wogan, his voice full of tender concern. 'You feel like the world has turned on its head and you don't know what to believe any more?'

“我不能……”弗洛拉摇着头说。 “我不能……实际上……相信……”弗洛拉说，仍然摇着头。 “我不能……实际上……相信……我错了，”弗洛拉说。 她总是不停地摇头。 “哦，你会习惯的。”沃根说。 “相信我。我算是这方面的专家。”那是星期一的早晨，朋友们坐在教室里等待风老师的到来。 现在，他已经结束了弗尔小姐为期三天的战略强化课程，在学校里走来走去，脸上总是挂着微笑。 “但你是对的，沃根。 我错了，你是对的。 “我明白，弗洛拉，”沃根说，他的声音里充满了温柔的关心。 “你觉得整个世界都颠倒过来了，你不知道还能相信什么？”

'Yes,' said Flora simply, still shaking her head. 'I feel the same, Flora,' Wogan said. 'So let's just try to move forward and forget this ever happened. It will probably never, ever happen again.' Ironically, Wogan was right once more. 'So,' continued Wogan. 'Pull yourself together, Flora. We need you. Charlie needs you. Look at him.' They all turned to look at Charlie, who was hanging off the top of the classroom door with one hand while scratching his bum with the other. 'I need you to fix this, Flora,' said Charlie. 'And then we need to steal some gold.'

“是的，”弗洛拉简单地说，仍然摇着头。 “我也有同感，弗洛拉，”沃根说。 所以让我们试着向前看，忘记这一切。 这种事可能永远、永远不会再发生了。”讽刺的是，沃根又一次说对了。 “所以，”沃根接着说。“振作起来，弗洛拉。 我们需要你。查理需要你。 看看他。”他们都转过身来看着查理，他一只手挂在教室的门上，另一只手搔着屁股。 “我需要你来解决这个问题，弗洛拉，”查理说。 “然后我们需要偷一些金子。”

'Steal some what did you say?' Dylan had walked up to them when they weren't looking. 'None of your beeswax, Van der Gruyne,' said Mohsen. 'Yeah, if you think we're gonna tell you about our plan to steal Charlie's dad's gold back from your dad's office, you've got another think coming,' said Wogan firmly. Charlie, Flora and Mohsen all slowly turned their heads to Wogan, their mouths flapping like goldfish. 'What?' asked Wogan. 'Why are you all looking at me like that?' 'Brilliant.' Dylan rubbed his hands together. 'Thanks for that, Wogan.' 'Thanks for what?' asked Wogan. 'Why is everybody acting so weird?' 'Speaking of weird,' said Dylan. 'What's with him?' He jerked a thumb at Charlie, still hanging off the door. Good question, Dylan. So what had happened? Why had Flora been so wrong? What had Wogan got right? And why was Charlie hanging off the classroom door scratching his bum? Well, to find that out, we need to do a flashback. Strap yourselves in. Here it comes… We're going back in time… One day… Two days… One hundred and fifty million years…

“偷点儿——你说什么来着？”迪伦趁他们不注意的时候走到他们面前。 “不关你的事，范德格鲁恩，”莫森说。 “是啊，如果你以为我们会告诉你我们计划从你爸爸的办公室里偷回查理爸爸的金子，那你就大错特错了。” 查理、弗洛拉和莫森都慢慢地把头转向沃根，嘴巴像金鱼一样扑扇着。 “什么?沃根问。“你们为什么都那样看着我？”“辉煌”。迪伦搓着手。 “谢谢你，沃根。“谢谢什么？”沃根问。 “为什么每个人都这么奇怪？”“说到奇怪，”迪伦说。 “他怎么了？”他向查理竖了竖大拇指，查理还挂在门上。 问得好，迪伦。那么发生了什么？ 弗洛拉为什么错得这么离谱？ 沃根做对了什么？为什么查理挂在教室门上挠屁股？ 为了找出答案，我们需要来个闪回。 系好安全带。它来了……我们要回到过去……一天……两天……一亿五千万年前……

Whoa, that's too far now. We don't want Charlie changing into a diplodocus now, do we?fn1 So, let's go forward in time a bit. One hundred million years ago… Dinosaurs still munching everything… Sixty-six million years ago… Still dinosaurs. Jeez, dinosaurs were around for ages…fn2 One hundred thousand years ago… Finally the dinosaurs have gone but there's cavemen all over the place… Can't stop there: Wogan and Mohsen would get hit on the head by big hairy club-wielding Neanderthals… Seven hundred years ago… Still too far back: Mohsen and Wogan would probably catch the Black Death… Yesterday… That's much better. Hopefully there's nothing around yesterday that would end up with Mohsen and Wogan reaching a sticky end…*** Yesterday, Charlie was home and all was reasonably quiet. He had just got out of his seventeenth bath since the skunk incident,fn3 and was sitting in the lounge in his dressing-gown. Charlie could hear more barely restrained arguments from the kitchen between his parents about 'company deficit' and 'cash-flow crisis' and other boring stuff that Charlie didn't understand but which still gave him a knot in his stomach.

哇，现在太远了。我们可不想让查理变成梁龙，对吧？那么，让我们向前推进一点。 1亿年前，恐龙还在咀嚼一切，6600万年前，仍然是恐龙。 天哪，恐龙已经存在了很长时间了……10万年前……恐龙终于消失了，但到处都是穴居人……不能就此打住：沃根和莫森可能会被挥舞着大毛棒的尼安德特人撞到头部……700年前……仍然太遥远了：莫森和沃根可能会感染黑死病……昨天……这好多了。 希望昨天不会发生什么让莫森和沃根陷入僵局的事情……***昨天，查理在家，一切都相当安静。 自从臭鼬事件以来，他刚洗完第十七次澡，穿着晨衣坐在客厅里。 查理还能听到父母在厨房里几乎毫无节制地争论“公司赤字”和“现金流危机”，以及其他一些查理听不懂但仍令他心有余悸的无聊话题。

SmoothMove was on WhatsApp with his new girlfriend. Charlie was considering whether to turn on the PS4 when his parents walked in. 'Guys, can we just have a little word with you?' his mum said. SmoothMove glanced up from his phone and grunted. 'Well, as you boys know, the house has been up for sale,' his mum continued. Charlie's dad just looked at the floor in silence, an unreadable look on his face. 'And, in fact, we've already had an offer. We've been given some time to think it over, but we need to give

SmoothMove和他的新女友在WhatsApp上聊天。 查理正在考虑要不要打开PS4，这时他的父母走了进来。 伙计们，我们能跟你们说几句话吗？他妈妈说。 SmoothMove从手机上抬起头来，哼了一声。 “嗯，你们都知道，房子要出售了，”他妈妈继续说。 查理的爸爸只是默默地看着地板，脸上带着一种难以理解的表情。 事实上，我们已经收到了一份报价。 我们已经有时间考虑了，但我们需要付出一些时间