儿童英语读物 蓝色海湾之谜 Blue Bay Mystery Chapter 3 船上的学校

CHAPTER 3

Ship’s School



Sea gulls 2 flew after the boat, screaming. The cook threw out food for them. They screamed louder and louder. More and more came, until there were hundreds.



“Aren’t they beautiful!” cried Jessie. She went over to look. A big gull 1 landed on the rail near her. “They are such a lovely gray color.”



“How long will this trip be, Captain?” asked Henry.



“About two weeks,” said Captain Brown. “Then we’ll put the family off at the island, and the Sea Star will go on to Tahiti.”



“Who is the family?” asked Mike. “Am I in the family?”



“Of course,” said Benny. “I wouldn’t go without you, would I?”



“Then the Sea Star will come back for us,” Henry went on.



“Right. You will be alone on the island with Lars for two or three weeks. I understand that’s what you want?”



“Yes,” said Jessie. “We love to live like that. We like to find our own food and dishes, and we love to explore.”



The sunset 3 came then. It was beautiful. The whole sky was red and pink and violet 4. “We never saw anything like that at home,” Violet said.



It was beautiful after the sun went down. The sky was black, but the stars were wonderful.



Benny said, “I never really saw the stars before. I didn’t know they were so bright.”



The Captain said, “You can see the same stars here that you see at home. Later you will see stars you never saw before. I will show you the Southern Cross.”



Everyone was tired. They slept well all night. The next morning after breakfast a bell rang.



“What’s that?” asked Mike. “It sounds like a school bell!”



“I think it is a school bell,” said Henry laughing. “Look at Grandfather. He is ringing it.”



Mr. Alden said, “School will begin at nine o’clock every day. You can sit in your chairs and get your lessons. You will find things you need in this box.”



In the box were pens, pencils, paints and all kinds of paper.



Jessie opened her blue book. “Well, well!” she said. “Here is Lesson One about gulls and stars and fish!”



“That’s the picture I saw!” cried Mike. “It’s a flying fish.”



Soon everyone was busy reading. After a while Violet got up. She took a box of paints out of the box. She began painting a picture of a sea gull. Henry soon began making a picture of the Big Dipper in a black sky. The boys drew pictures of flying fish.



“A whale!” called Lars. Everyone rushed to the rail.



“It is very near!” shouted Mike. “Look at that tail!”



“There he goes, spouting 5 water!” said Henry. A lot of water rose in the air. Then came the porpoises 6.



“There are about two hundred of them,” said Lars. “They swim in a long line, like that, every day. They go over to one beach to eat fish and come back every night.”



“Just see them roll around!” said Mike. “Are they round?”



“No. You’ll find a picture of them in your book,” said Mr. Alden. “I think that is in Lesson Two.”



So it was every minute. The children saw something new and then they always found a picture of it in their books.



“I told you they were wonderful books,” said Grandfather. “There is a lesson about the radio room. You will like that. Bill in the radio room will show you the radar 7 tomorrow.”



The next day the children saw every part of the ship. They knew every sailor on the Sea Star. They had school every day.



One morning the family could not see land any more. The bell rang for Ship’s School and soon the five children were studying.



Henry went to the rail and looked down.



“Now this is interesting!” he cried. “Come and look!”



They all saw a long white bag. The ship was pulling it through the water.



“What is that thing?” asked Mike.



“It is a piece of cloth made into a net,” said Henry. “It catches plankton 8.”



“What is plankton?” asked Mike.



“It is made up of tiny, tiny animals and fish eggs and seaweed,” said Henry. “Some of it is too small to see. But whales live on it.”



Jessie said, “I’ve heard about it. I heard that we could feed the whole world on plankton if we wanted to.”



“Why don’t we?” asked Benny.



“People don’t like it,” said Jessie.



Mike said, “Maybe somebody will find how to make it taste good. Maybe I will when I grow up.”



“Good old Mike!” said Benny. “Maybe you will. I’d like to see what is in that net.”



The children looked up. Lars was coming. He said, “If you come below, we will pull in the net.”



“Can we see the things inside?” asked Mike.



“Some of them,” said Lars, “but some are too small to see. We have a microscope, which is fun to look into.”



“Isn’t this exciting!” cried Mike. He ran down the stairs.



A sailor had pulled in the net. He let the plankton run out into a big tub 9. The plankton was very bright colored. In the dark ship, it shone like red fire.



“Beautiful!” said Violet.



“How awful it smells!” said Mike.



“Just a good old fish smell,” said Benny. “You’ll have to learn to like fish, Mike.”



“Oh, there’s a tiny crab 10!” cried Mike. “I can see right through him!”



“And that’s a tiny little fish!” cried Violet. “And pink seaweed. And green seaweed.”



Mr. Alden had the microscope. He put it on the table. Then he gave Henry a piece of glass. “Get some of the plankton on that glass,” he said.



It was exciting when the glass went under the microscope. Henry had the first look. “After all, it’s Henry’s lesson,” said Benny.



They took turns. There were many tiny eggs and weeds and fish that they could not see without the microscope.



Mike said, “So tiny! Tiny animals. Tiny everything. And to think this is what whales eat! They grow big enough!”



Benny said, “And now we all know Henry’s lesson. That’s Grandfather for you. He thought up this Ship’s School.”



The next day they all learned 11 Violet’s lesson. At first the school was very quiet. All were studying.



Violet surprised them. She was excited about something. She said, “Everyone listen to this! You’ve all heard of Captain Cook?”



“Oh, yes,” said Mike. “He was the man who found hundreds of islands on his sea trips.”



“Yes, Mike,” said Violet. “That’s what I thought. I mean I thought it was all he did. I can hardly tell you!”



“Take it easy, Violet!” called Henry. “You’ve got lots of time. What else did your Captain Cook do?”



“Thanks, Henry! It was really more important than finding 12 islands. He found Vitamin 13 C long before anyone knew what it was. Listen to this! ‘On every long sea trip, more than half of every crew 14 died of scurvy 15. Captain Cook thought they had scurvy because they had nothing to eat but salted meat and crackers 16. So he made every sailor eat sauerkraut and onions every day! They also had to eat a kind of syrup 17 made of lemons and oranges.’ “



“That wouldn’t be too bad,” said Benny.



“No, but some sailors didn’t like sauerkraut or onions or lemons. And still they had to eat them. You see they got Vitamin C without knowing it. Even Captain Cook didn’t know what Vitamin C was. He just knew people didn’t have scurvy if they ate sauerkraut and oranges.”



“I suppose that’s why we drink orange juice every day,” said Mike.



“Exactly right, Mike!” cried Violet. “Then when Captain Cook got home after three years at sea, he had lost only one man!”



“I bet 18 that man wouldn’t eat his sauerkraut!” said Benny.



“I bet so, too,” said Mike.



Henry and Jessie looked at Violet. They both were thinking, “I never heard Violet talk so much.”



But Violet went right on. “Then another thing!” she said. “Once he was sailing 19 through cakes of ice, very far south. And he found that when he melted 21 a cake of ice, it was fresh water!”



“That’s funny!” said Henry. “I always thought salt water would freeze into salt ice. Then it would melt 20 back into salt water!”



“It doesn’t, though!” said Violet laughing. “Everyone else thought so, too. They didn’t even try. Oh, Captain Cook was such a very smart man, and so brave! You all ought to read my book!”



“I think so too, my dear,” said Mr. Alden. “I’d like to read it myself.”



Day after day the Sea Star went along through the purple sea. It had been going for almost two weeks.



Mike said, “My, I’m hot, but I like it hot.”



Lars said, “We are almost there, Mr. Mike. I think we had better get ready for our island.”