儿童英语读物 The Mystery in the Snow CHAPTER 7 The Competition Begins

The Aldens had just sat down to eat when Pete burst into the dining room. He was wearing large orange boots. Their thick rubber soles left a line of snow stars on the floor as he stormed along.

Freddy followed after him. She pulled off her orange, green, and yellow gloves and stuffed them into her pockets. “Pete, listen to me,” she said. “You can be timekeeper. That’s an important job.”

Pete rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to be timekeeper!” he shouted. “I don’t want to be anything!” He stormed off.

Jimmy came along carrying his lunch tray. “What’s the matter with Pete?” he asked Freddy.

“He didn’t make the events he wanted.” She moved close to Jimmy and lowered her voice. “This whole thing — it’s not fair,” she hissed¹. “You got all the good people. Something has to be done. Something to…even things out.”

She noticed the Aldens watching her. She turned to them and smiled. “Oh, hi,” she said, her tone bright. “I was just telling Jimmy that next year, we’ll have to divide up families. It’s not fair that one team gets all that talent.” She sailed off toward the buffet² table.

Jimmy sat down. “We do have a good team,” he said. “We could win.”

“Are your parents coming for the awards dinner?” Benny asked.

Jimmy’s entire face turned red as his cheeks. “The awards dinner? I — uh — ”

“Freddy told us about it,” Henry said.

“She told us her parents were coming,” Benny said. “Will yours be here?”

Jimmy stood up abruptly³. “They wouldn’t miss it,” he said. He took his tray and moved on.

“I wonder why he rushed off like that?” Violet said.

“Maybe he didn’t want to talk about the awards dinner,” Henry said.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Jessie wondered.

Henry shrugged⁴. “The competition hasn’t even started. Maybe he thinks it’s bad luck to talk about awards so soon.”

“Pete and Freddy seemed upset, too,” Violet reminded them.

“I’m not sure I like this competition business,” Benny said. “It makes everybody act funny.”

“You can’t think about competing,” Jessie told him. “Just think about doing the best you can.”

After lunch, Benny met with the other sculptors⁵ out on the lawn in front of the lodge⁶. They were all about the same age. The only things they had made with snow were balls, forts, and people.

“We should stick to something that’s not too hard,” Benny decided⁷.

The others — Jason, Alan, and Debbie — agreed. They would build snowpeople. But what kind?

“Why not do us?” Alan asked. “We could have them — us — working on a snow sculpture.”

“That’s a great idea!” Benny said.

Violet’s ice carving⁸ group — Violet, Beth, and David — were meeting near the ski slope. No one had ever carved ice before. They were all afraid they couldn’t do it.

“It will have to be a simple shape,” Beth said.

Watch ambled⁹ over to the group. He yawned and put his head in Violet’s lap. That gave her an idea.

“How about a dog?” she asked. “We could use Watch as a model.”

Beth twisted her pony¹⁰ tail around her fingers. “The legs would be hard to carve,” she said.

Violet thought about that. Then, she said, “We won’t have to worry about the back legs if we’re making him sit.”

At the sound of the word sit, Watch perked¹¹ up his ears. Then, he sat.

Everyone laughed.

Benny and his group were having problems. They tried rolling the snow into bigger and bigger balls, but chunks¹² kept falling off.

“The snow’s too powdery,” Jason complained.

Benny had an idea. “If we had some pans, we could fill them with water and pour it on the snow,” he said. “That’d make it easy to pack.”

They got four buckets of water from the kitchen. Then, they poured the water on the snow. At first, it seemed as though Benny’s plan would work. But the water went fast.

Jason sighed. “We can’t keep going all the way back to the kitchen.”

“Even if we had enough water,” Alan said, “the snow would be too heavy to roll.”

“Then we’ll have to find some other way to build,” Debbie said.

“Like what?” Jason asked.

Benny remembered a picture he had seen in the snow-sculpting book. “If we had some sticks or something, we could build forms,” he said.

Alan liked the idea. “It’ll be easy to pack the snow around them,” he said.

They looked for something to use to make forms. Behind the lodge, they found a scrap¹³ heap next to the garage. Debbie saw an old sled under a tarpaulin¹⁴. They piled it with metal pipes and strips of wood.

“Take that wire, too,” Benny said. “It’s perfect for holding the form together.”

Now that they knew what they were doing, the work went fast. In an hour, four stick figures stood in the snow. By supper time, they had the rough beginnings of snowy self-portraits.

“I wonder how Freddy’s team is doing,” Jason said.

“Don’t worry about them,” Benny said. “Just think about doing the best we can.”

1 hissed   

发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对

参考例句：

• Have you ever been hissed at in the middle of a speech? 你在演讲中有没有被嘘过？
• The iron hissed as it pressed the wet cloth. 熨斗压在湿布上时发出了嘶嘶声。

2 buffet   

n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台

参考例句：

• Are you having a sit-down meal or a buffet at the wedding?你想在婚礼中摆桌宴还是搞自助餐？
• Could you tell me what specialties you have for the buffet?你能告诉我你们的自助餐有什么特色菜吗？

3 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

4 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 sculptors   

雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座

参考例句：

• He is one of Britain's best-known sculptors. 他是英国最有名的雕塑家之一。
• Painters and sculptors are indexed separately. 画家和雕刻家被分开，分别做了索引。

6 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

9 ambled   

v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步

参考例句：

• We ambled down to the beach. 我们漫步向海滩走去。
• The old man ambled home through the garden every evening. 那位老人每天晚上经过花园漫步回家。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 pony   

adj.小型的；n.小马

参考例句：

• His father gave him a pony as a Christmas present.他父亲给了他一匹小马驹作为圣诞礼物。
• They made him pony up the money he owed.他们逼他还债。

11 perked   

（使）活跃( perk的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）增值； 使更有趣

参考例句：

• The recent demand for houses has perked up the prices. 最近对住房的需求使房价上涨了。
• You've perked up since this morning. 你今天上午精神就好多了。

12 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

13 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

14 tarpaulin   

n.涂油防水布，防水衣，防水帽

参考例句：

• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。
• The pool furniture was folded,stacked,and covered with a tarpaulin.游泳池的设备都已经折叠起来，堆在那里，还盖上了防水布。