《魔法师的外甥》第2期:开错的门(2)大纲

"Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there."
"Yes, I've thought of that."
"Or perhaps he's a coiner."
"Or he might have been a pirate, like the man at the beginning of Treasure Island, and be always hiding from his old shipmates."
"How exciting!" said Polly, "I never knew your house was so interesting." .
"You may think it interesting," said Digory. "But you wouldn't like it if you had to sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrew's step to come

creeping along the passage to your room? And he has such awful eyes."
That was how Polly and Digory got to know one another: and as it was just the beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the sea that year, they met

nearly every day.
Their adventures began chiefly because it was one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove them to do indoor things: you might say, indoor

exploration. It is wonderful how much exploring you can do with a stump of candle in a big house, or in a row of houses. Polly had discovered long ago that if you opened a

certain little door in the box-room attic of her house you would find the cistern and a dark place behind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark

place was like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates. There was no floor in

this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them there was only plaster. If you stepped on this you would find yourself falling through the ceiling of the

room below. Polly had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers' cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen

chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash-box containing various treasures, and a story

she was writing and usually a few apples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers' cave.
Digory quite liked the cave (she wouldn't let him see the story) but he was more interested in exploring.
"Look here," he said. "How long does this tunnel go on for? I mean, does it stop where your house ends?"
"No," said Polly. "The walls don't go out to the roof. It goes on. I don't know how far."
"Then we could get the length of the whole row of houses."
"So we could," said Polly, "And oh, I say!"
"What?"
"We could get into the other houses."
"Yes, and get taken up for burglars! No thanks."
"Don't be so jolly clever. I was thinking of the house beyond yours." ,
"What about it?"
"Why, it's the empty one. Daddy says it's always been empty since we came here."
"I suppose we ought to have a look at it then," said Digory. He was a good deal more excited than you'd have thought from the way he spoke. For of course he was thinking, just

as you would have been, of all the reasons why the house might have been empty so long. So was Polly. Neither of them said the word "haunted". And both felt that once the thing

had been suggested, it would be feeble not to do it.
"Shall we go and try it now?" said Digory.
"Alright," said Polly.
"Don't if you'd rather not," said Digory.
"I'm game if you are," said she.

“他可能关了一个疯妻在那儿吧？"
“我也这样想。”
“要不然，他在造假币。”
“或许以前他是个海盗，像《金银岛》开头的那人一样，老在躲避过去船上的同伙。”
“真带劲儿！”波莉说，“我从来不知道你们那幢房子这么有趣。”
“你可能觉得有趣，”迪格雷说，“但你要是住在里面，你就不会开心了。你总不愿意半睡半醒的时候，听见安德鲁舅舅的脚步声穿过走廊，悄悄向你走来吧？而且他的眼睛那么令人讨厌。”,
暑假刚开始，波莉和迪格雷就这样认识了 。他们几乎天天见面，那一年谁也没到海边去。
那年夏天是好几年以来最潮湿、最阴冷的夏季之一，他们的探险便因此揭开了序幕，而他们也只能在室内活动，也就是说，是室内探险。点上一截蜡烛，在一幢大房子或一排房子里东寻西探，实在妙不

可言。很早以前，波莉就发现，打开她家阁楼全储藏空的小门，就会看见贮水池后面有一块黑乎乎的地方．可以小心翼翼地钻进去。里面像一条长长的隧道，一边是砖墙，一边是斜屋项。屋项上的石板

之间有缝隙，透出光线。隧道里没有地板．你必须从一根椽子到另一根橡子，椽子之间只有灰泥。要是踩在灰泥上，你就会掉入下面的房间。波莉曾将隧道那近水池的那片地方当作“走私者的山洞”。

她把一些旧包装箱的散片和破厨房椅的座子一类东西搬上去，搭在椽子之间铺成地板。她还藏了一个钱箱，里面装着各种各样的宝贝，一本她正在写的小说，通常还有几只苹果。她常进去愉偷地喝上一

瓶姜啤酒，废弃的酒瓶使那里看上去更像“走私者的山洞”了。
迪格雷很套欢那个“山洞”（波莉是不会让他看见那本小说的） ，但他更想去探险。
“唉呀，这条隧道有多长呢，我是说，它到你家房子的边上就为止了吗？”迪格雷问。
“不，”波莉说，“墙并没有在屋顶那儿为止。我也不知道隧道有多长。”
“那么，我们可以把整排房子都走通。”
“是的。”，波莉说，“哎呀！"
“怎么了？"
“我们可以走到别人的房子里去嘛！ "
“是的，然后再被人当成夜盗抓起来！这可不好玩。”
“别自作聪明，我刚才在想你家后面的那修房子。”
“什么意思？”
“唔，那是幢空房子。爸爸说，自从我们搬到这毕来，它就一直是空的。”
“那我们该去侦察一番。”迪格雷说。从他说话的方式上，你还看不出他的内心要激动得多。当然，可能像你一样，他也在想，那幢房子为什么好长时间都是空的。他把可能的理由全想了一遍，波莉也

在想。然而，谁也没提‘闹鬼”二字。两人都觉得，事情一旦说出口，不去就显得太软弱了。
“我们现在就去呜？”迪格雷问。
“是的。”波莉说。
“如果你不愿意就不勉强。”
“只要你愿意．我就愿意。”波莉回答。