《姜饼博物馆之糖果、煎蛋、菠菜、冰块和饼干》是女儿写的第四本小说，我在此节译几个章节。
第一章：许可签名纸的厄运
埃弗雷特在课堂上不停地叹着气，因为他要去圣荷西艺术馆参观。埃弗雷特是一名十岁的男孩，他怎么也想象不出比艺术馆更无聊的地方，当然他也讨厌拼写测验，讨厌吃苦涩的菠菜，这些都是他仇恨的敌人。
他盯着手中的许可签名纸，也许，只是也许，他可以伪造他母亲的签名，并假装他明天要去看医生，这样就可以逃避参观艺术馆。也许不行 ...... 绝对不行，千万不能让他母亲看到许可签名纸。这似乎成了他母亲最大的心望，让他去圣荷西艺术馆获取艺术创作的灵感。
艺术创作是学校的功课 ―― 他必须拍摄照片或者素描一个雕像，然后写一篇关于创作者风格的文章。这是所有荒谬想法中最最荒谬的，世界上真有“创作者的风格”吗？埃弗雷特认为只有一种风格，叫做无聊。
铃声响了，格林老师下了课。埃弗雷特跑向他的书包收拾东西，他一遍又一遍地检查了里面的东西。数学教科书 ―― 打勾，科学教材 ―― 打勾，文件夹 ―― 打勾，绘图纸 ―― 打勾，许可签名纸 ―― 在他的课桌上。好，埃弗里特将它留在学校，格林老师可能因为他“忘记”了许可签名纸，因而惩罚他不去参观艺术馆。当然，这个幻想只在他的脑海里存留了一分钟，格林老师将许可签名纸递给他。埃弗雷特耸耸肩，想想过一会儿撕掉也行，就一溜烟地跑出教室赶校车回家了。
在完成了回家作业之后，埃弗雷特走到了餐桌旁。菠菜面在烤箱里烤过头了 ―― 呸！碎肉炖汤 ―― 啊！面包店买来的新鲜饼干 ―― 美味乘以二！埃弗雷特开始拿饼干吃，他母亲骂道，“埃弗里特！能否请你洗一下手，这一次行吗？”
哦，太棒了，埃弗雷特想，我要妈妈写纸条不能去艺术馆，结果她的吼叫将我的脑袋给炸昏了！摇晃了一下，他记起还没有来得及撕许可签名纸，他母亲已经开始在他的书包里翻找起来。
“嘿，这是私人物品！”埃弗雷特喊道。
为时已晚，狄更斯太太已经找到了许可签名纸。大笔一挥，他母亲决定了他得去博物馆。埃弗里特被送到床上去吃烤焦的菠菜面，一粒饼干屑也没有尝到，作为他没有交出许可签名纸的惩罚。
第二天，校车的喇叭声吵醒了埃弗雷特，但是几分钟后，他又开始打呼噜了。他母亲摇晃着他。 “什么 ...... ”他抱怨道。几秒钟后，他睁开了惺忪的眼睛。 “那是什么？”
埃弗雷特睡意朦胧地换上了学校制服，迷迷糊糊地上了校车，在座位上颓然倒下。当车子到达学校后，他拉着沉重的书包进了教室。嗯，说实话，他拽着沉重的书包的描述似乎更为确切。书包里头有一个防水照相机，装在一个防水照相机袋子里。
有人问为什么圣何西艺术馆那么特别。埃弗雷特真想抽那人的耳光，用那么无聊的问题，引发格林老师又臭又长的解释。
埃弗雷特勉强听到老师嗡嗡的说话声，在脑海中想象着恐怖的艺术展览。“圣何西艺术馆最初是个邮局，然后被改建成圣何西图书馆。”埃弗雷特想象着混乱无章的场面，太多的投诉信，无法递送到老板的手中，然后这些信件涌向图书馆 ...
“后来成立了美术画廊协会，然后再重建成文娱艺术画廊，最终更名为圣何西艺术馆。”埃弗雷特觉得这些信息特别枯燥，有负于这样一座历史悠久的建筑。
“这里完全乱了阵脚，许多人试图将书还进来，然后幻想故事丢得满地都是！我知道这些因为我父母的一位密友在那里工作。”埃弗里特对此表示怀疑，也许格林老师故意夸张，想让历史显得更加有趣。
格林太太继续说：“请记住，我们将在那里呆两天。第一天在一楼，第二天，我们将参观顶楼的世界巡回展览。”
埃弗雷特控制着不跑出房间尖叫，“彻头彻尾的灾难！”这确实是一场灾难，他将浪费今明两天在艺术馆里。
然后下课铃响了。
Everett groaned in the classroom. He was going to the San Jose Museum of Art. Everett, as a ten-year-old boy, could not imagine anything worse than going to an art museum, except maybe for having ten pop quizzes all about SPELLING, which was one of his enemies. His other enemy was SPINACH.
He looked at the permission slip. Maybe, just maybe, he could forge his mother’s signature and pretend that he had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, the day of the field trip. Probably not… definitely not, if his mother caught one good look at the slip. It seemed to be his mother’s greatest ambition, to get him into the San Jose Museum of Art for the sake of getting ideas for his art project.
The art project was a school assignment – he had to take a picture or sketch a sculpture, then write an essay about the style of the creator. Out of all the ridiculous ideas in the world, this was the most preposterous. What in the world was a “creator’s style”? Everett thought there was only one style, called boring.
The bell rang. The teacher, Mrs. Green, dismissed the class. Everett raced to his backpack to pack things. He checked and double checked its contents. Math textbook – check. Science textbook – check. Binder – check. Graph paper – check. The permission slip – on his desk. Good. Everett would leave it in school. Ms. Green might leave him out of the fieldtrip as a punishment for “forgetting” the slip. The fantasy was in his mind for only a minute. Then Mrs. Green passed the slip to him. He shrugged. He could rip it up later. Everett ran out of the classroom to catch the school bus to go home.
After he had done his homework, Everett went to the dining table. Spinach casserole accidentally overcooked inside the oven – yuck! Ground pork in soup – yum! Biscuits freshly bought from the bakery – yum times two! Everett started helping himself to the biscuits when his mother scolded, “Everett! Can you please wash your hands this one time?!”
Oh, great, Everett thought, I want to get mom to write on the slip that I can’t go, and she’s yelling her head off at me! With a jolt, he remembered that he had not torn it up yet. His mother started rummaging in his backpack.
“Hey, that’s private stuff!” Everett yelled.
It was too late. Mrs. Dickens had found the permission slip. With a single signature, his mother confirmed that he, Everett, would go to the museum. Everett was sent to bed to eat a dinner of overcooked spinach casserole, without a crumb of biscuit, for not showing the slip. He picked at his food all throughout the timeout.
The next day, the honking from the school bus woke up Everett, but after a few minutes he started snoring again. His mother shook him up. “Wha…?” he grumbled. A few seconds later, he opened his bleary eyes. “What was that for?”
Everett sleepily changed into his school uniform, and stumbled to the bus, which started going school-wards. For the whole trip, Everett slumped down in his seat. When it reached school, he ran to his classroom with the heavy load of his backpack. Well, in truth, he dragged his backpack all the way to class. He also had to carry a waterproof camera in a waterproof camera case.
Someone decided to ask why the San Jose Museum of Art was special. Everett could have slapped that person in the face for provoking Mrs. Green into giving a long, boring explanation.
Everett could just barely hear the teacher droning on about the museum as he imagined the terrors in the art exhibits. “The San Jose Museum of Art was originally built as the San Jose Post Office, and then it got converted into the San Jose Library.” Everett imagined that it must have gotten several letters of complaint, which they couldn’t deliver to their boss, at the time. These letters would have brought chaos to the library…
“It served as the fine arts gallery association, then reopened as the Civic Arts Gallery, and finally was renamed the San Jose Museum of Art.” Everett found the information rather boring, for such a historical building.
“It was in complete disarray, because people tried to return books there, and fantasy stories kept on popping all over the place! I know this because a close friend of my parents worked there.” Everett doubted this. Probably Mrs. Green was exaggerating to make the history more interesting.
Mrs. Green continued, “Remember, we will spend two days there. We will spend the first day at the first floor. The second day we will look at the world traveling exhibits, which are located at the top floor.”
Everett had to stop himself from running out of the room and screaming, “Total disaster!” It was a catastrophe. He would have to spend the next two days at the museum.
Then the bell rang.
