《魔法師的外甥》第2期:開錯的門(2)大綱

"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.

“他可能關了一個瘋妻在那兒吧？"
“我也這樣想。”
“要不然，他在造假幣。”
“或許以前他是個海盜，像《金銀島》開頭的那人一樣，老在躲避過去船上的同夥。”
“真帶勁兒！”波莉說，“我從來不知道你們那幢房子這麼有趣。”
“你可能覺得有趣，”迪格雷說，“但你要是住在裏面，你就不會開心了。你總不願意半睡半醒的時候，聽見安德魯舅舅的腳步聲穿過走廊，悄悄向你走來吧？而且他的眼睛那麼令人討厭。”,
暑假剛開始，波莉和迪格雷就這樣認識了 。他們幾乎天天見面，那一年誰也沒到海邊去。
那年夏天是好幾年以來最潮溼、最陰冷的夏季之一，他們的探險便因此揭開了序幕，而他們也只能在室內活動，也就是說，是室內探險。點上一截蠟燭，在一幢大房子或一排房子裏東尋西探，實在妙不

可言。很早以前，波莉就發現，打開她家閣樓全儲藏空的小門，就會看見貯水池後面有一塊黑乎乎的地方．可以小心翼翼地鑽進去。裏面像一條長長的隧道，一邊是磚牆，一邊是斜屋項。屋項上的石板

之間有縫隙，透出光線。隧道里沒有地板．你必須從一根椽子到另一根橡子，椽子之間只有灰泥。要是踩在灰泥上，你就會掉入下面的房間。波莉曾將隧道那近水池的那片地方當作“走私者的山洞”。

她把一些舊包裝箱的散片和破廚房椅的座子一類東西搬上去，搭在椽子之間鋪成地板。她還藏了一個錢箱，裏面裝着各種各樣的寶貝，一本她正在寫的小說，通常還有幾隻蘋果。她常進去愉偷地喝上一

瓶姜啤酒，廢棄的酒瓶使那裏看上去更像“走私者的山洞”了。
迪格雷很套歡那個“山洞”（波莉是不會讓他看見那本小說的） ，但他更想去探險。
“唉呀，這條隧道有多長呢，我是說，它到你家房子的邊上就爲止了嗎？”迪格雷問。
“不，”波莉說，“牆並沒有在屋頂那兒爲止。我也不知道隧道有多長。”
“那麼，我們可以把整排房子都走通。”
“是的。”，波莉說，“哎呀！"
“怎麼了？"
“我們可以走到別人的房子裏去嘛！ "
“是的，然後再被人當成夜盜抓起來！這可不好玩。”
“別自作聰明，我剛纔在想你家後面的那修房子。”
“什麼意思？”
“唔，那是幢空房子。爸爸說，自從我們搬到這畢來，它就一直是空的。”
“那我們該去偵察一番。”迪格雷說。從他說話的方式上，你還看不出他的內心要激動得多。當然，可能像你一樣，他也在想，那幢房子爲什麼好長時間都是空的。他把可能的理由全想了一遍，波莉也

在想。然而，誰也沒提‘鬧鬼”二字。兩人都覺得，事情一旦說出口，不去就顯得太軟弱了。
“我們現在就去嗚？”迪格雷問。
“是的。”波莉說。
“如果你不願意就不勉強。”
“只要你願意．我就願意。”波莉回答。