儿童英语读物 The Secret of the Mask CHAPTER 5 A History Mystery

The next morning, as the children pulled their bikes in front of the old blue house, they saw a young man in a robe and pajamas 1 stomping 2 around in the bushes. “May I help you?” he asked.



“Did you just move in?” asked Jessie.



“Me? Oh, dear me, no. I’m visiting from California. My grandmother lives here.”



“The nice lady in the wheelchair?” Jessie asked.



“The very same. Ah!” he dove into the bushes and came out clutching a soggy copy of the Greenfield Gazette. “The newspaper boy has a terrible throwing arm.”



“We’d like to talk to your grandmother,” said Henry. “Is she home?”



“Of course she is. The poor dear took an awful spill and broke her hip 3. She still needs a lot of rest.



“Lyle, dear,” called a voice from the house. “Have you found the Gazette?”



“I have,” he said. He smiled at the children. “Please come in and say hello. My grandmother absolutely adores company.”



The living room looked totally different than when the children had trick-or-treated. Gone was the clutter 4 of furniture and knick-knacks. All that was left were a few tables, a couple of chairs, a wheelchair folded in the corner, and a large bed. A cheerful woman with curly white hair sat propped 5 up on a mountain of pillows. “Why,” she said, smiling brightly, “who have we here?” The children introduced themselves.



“Call me Grandma Belle 6,” she said. “Everybody does. I wish I had cookies to give you. My old nurse baked all the time, but my new nurse, Nurse Rumple 7, doesn’t bake at all.” She winked 8. “I’ll make certain to have treats for your next visit. Please sit a moment.”



“May I ride your wheelchair?” asked Benny.



Grandma Belle laughed. “Why, of course.” And with that, Benny hopped 9 into the chair and began wheeling around the large room.



“Did the moving van take away all your furniture?” asked Henry.



“Moving van? Heavens, no. Whatever gave you that idea?”



He told her about the Best Movers driver who was looking for 332 Locust 10. “If you’re not moving,” said Henry, “where are all your things?”



“Well, when I broke my hip and couldn’t get around very well, I had them bring my bed down to this nice bright living room. When I hired Nurse Rumple, she couldn’t stand all my clutter. She said, “It’s not healthy to live among dusty old things,” and she moved most everything out to the garage. I must admit, it is much neater this way.” She looked around the room. “But to tell the truth, I miss having all my things around.”



“I think the house looks nice and bright,” said Violet.



“And clean,” said Grandma Belle. “These past few days, Nurse Rumple has been scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing, washing furniture and fixtures 11, floors and doors. She’s even been wearing rubber gloves to keep from making smudges. She said she wants to leave everything spic and span when the new nurse comes tomorrow.”



“Is that why she threw that old mask away?” asked Benny, turning the wheelchair around and around in circles.



“Mask? What mask?”



Benny told her about the mask in the box.



“I’m sure I had something of the sort at one time or another, but with everything packed away, there’s nothing to jog my memory,” said Grandma Belle.



She took off her eyeglasses, wiping them slowly with a tissue. “If it’s the mask I’m thinking of, it’s one of the ones my father gave me when I was a little girl. He gave me lots of things he had found in the Arizona desert when he was a boy. That’s where he grew up, you see. He and his friends came across the most interesting things—rattlesnake skeletons and animal skulls 12, kachina dolls and pots made from desert clay.”



“Do you still have them?” asked Benny.



“They’re all around here somewhere, I imagine. My father never could bear to get rid of any of his things. Nor could I. But these past few years it’s become hard for me to care for everything. Hard to wheel my chair around this house with all my things lying around. I have managed to give a few things away to friends, but I could never part with all of it.”



She lay back on the pillows. “Nurse Rumple is at the grocery store just now,” she said, “but I’ll be sure to ask her about the mask the moment she returns. I certainly hope she hasn’t mixed my precious things in with the garbage. And you must promise to come visit again soon.”



“We will,” said the children. And they left Grandma Belle to her morning nap.



As they began to walk home, a Best Movers truck rumbled 13 past them. Wash me was written in the dust on the side. “That’s the same van that stopped and asked us for directions,” said Henry. “The driver said he was looking for 332 Locust. But Grandma Belle isn’t moving.”



“And he said he was going to drive to Minnesota,” said Jessie. “So why is he still here in Greenfield?”



“I’ll bet he’s not a mover at all,” said Benny. “I’ll bet he’s a thief who just drives around, looking for people to rob.”



Henry whistled softly. “No one would suspect a moving truck driver taking things out of a house.”



“Do you think he robbed us?” asked Violet.



“Come on,” said Henry, “let’s follow him.” The four young detectives pedaled their hardest, trying to keep the truck in view. A few blocks later, it pulled up to a house on Locust. The children stopped their bikes across the street and quickly hid behind a parked car, watching the driver climb out of the truck to ring the doorbell. After a while, he rang again. When there was no answer, he walked around to the back.



“He’s seeing if anyone’s home,” Jessie said. A minute later, the front door opened. “Oh!” She gasped 14 as the driver walked out of the house carrying a TV set. “He must have broken into the back!”



The man put the TV in his truck, then went back in the house. “Let’s get the police,” said Violet.



“Hold on,” Henry said, watching as the man wheeled out a large chair and a computer, then went back inside. “I’m going to take a quick look inside his truck. If he left the keys, I can grab them so he can’t drive away.”



Henry’s heart thumped 15 like a drum as he raced across the street. He had to hurry before the driver saw him. Quickly, he climbed up on the truck’s running board. Next to the driver’s seat was a map of Greenfield and a pair of broken eyeglasses. One lens was missing, and the other was badly cracked. Henry saw a clipboard on the driver’s seat with a work order for a moving job on Locust. As he read the piece of paper, he started to smile. He jumped off the truck and ran back across the street. “I think I know what hap—”



“Hey!” shouted the driver, barreling out of the house towards them, “Hey!”



“Oh, no,” cried Benny. “Let’s get out of here!”



“It’s all right,” said Henry.



“But—”



The driver rushed up and squinted 16 at them. “Aren’t you the lemonade kids?” He broke into a wide smile. “Best danged lemonade I ever tasted. Told my wife about it. She said I should ask for your recipe.”



Benny stepped forward to speak. “Why did you tell us you were moving Grandma Belle?”



“Grandma who?”



Henry put his hands on Benny’s shoulders. “It’s all right.” He turned to the driver. “When you stopped at our house that day to ask us directions, you thought you were looking for 332 Locust, didn’t you?”



“Yup.”



“But you were really looking for …” Henry pointed 17 to the numbers on the house across the street, “882.”



The man nodded. “Broke my specs the other day.” He looked embarrassed. “Sat on ’em by mistake. I can drive okay without glasses, but when I try reading things up close like that work order, everything’s a little blurry 18. Those eights sure looked like threes to me. I was a whole five blocks off.”



Violet jotted 19 down her recipe, which was one can of frozen lemonade and three cans of water mixed with the juice of a fresh-squeezed lemon. “And my secret trick,” she said, “is to make extra lemonade a day ahead of time and freeze it in ice cube trays. Using lemonade ice cubes keeps lemonade from getting watery 20.”



“Thanks,” said the driver, tucking the recipe into his pocket. “Well, better get back to work.”



The children climbed on their bikes. “I’m hungry,” said Benny.



Henry checked his watch. It was eleven-thirty. “I guess we might as well eat before we go to the library.”



“All right!” said Benny, pedaling faster than everyone all the way to the Greenfield Diner.