Kevin was eagerly waiting for his holidays. His mother kept on hinting there would be a big surprise for him during holidays.
Kevin took out his scrapbook. The exams were just over and summer vacation just started. Now he was free like a bird. Free to draw, paint,play cricket and watchTelevision…anything he wanted to do.
Suddenly the doorbell rang startling him.
It was his pain of a cousin, Max, “Hiii!," screamed Max as he jumped on to Kevin’s bed breaking hiscrayons in the process. “I have come to stay here for the holidays"
Kevin never expected his mother’s surprise to be this bad. If this were the starting of his vacation then the next weeks would be his worst experience.
The next few days were horrible for Kevin.
After breakfast Kevin decided to do a painting. Luckily Max was not around. Kevin spread out all his art supplies and started painting beautiful scenery.When he was doing the finishing touches Max entered the room with a Pepsi bottle. He slipped on some water spilling Pepsi all over the painting, totally ruining it.
The next day was even worsefor him.
Everything was peaceful till the evening. It all started when Max put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. After sometime Kevin heard some weird sounds from the washing machine. He went to investigate and later found that Max had put his best pair of shoes into the machine along with theclothes.
One day Kevin was going through the newspaper when some interesting news caught his attention. He read it aloud “The world famous philatelist Dick Brown’s stamps have been stolen last week in his town. Several other stamp robberies also have taken place and police suspect that all the robberies are linked."
This piece of news concluded warning all stamp collectors to keep their stamps safe.
……
【关键词】
1、hint v. 暗示
2、scrapbook n. 剪贴簿
3、cricket n. 板球
4、startle v. （使）吃惊
5、scenery n. 风景
6、the finishing touches phr. 最后的润色
7、weird adj. 离奇的；怪异的
8、philatelist n. 集邮家
9、resemble v. 与…相似；像
10、clutch n. 抓住；爪子
【译文】假期
凯文在迫切等待假日的到来。他的母亲一直在暗示说，他在假期会有一个大大的惊喜。
凯文拿出他的剪贴簿。考试刚刚结束，暑假刚刚开始。现在他像小鸟一样自由。想画就画，想涂就涂，板球想玩就玩，电视想看就看……想做啥做啥。
突然，门铃响了，吓他一跳。
原来是他那个烦人的表弟，马克斯。“嗨~~~~！”，马克斯一边大声地打着招呼，一边跳到凯文的床上，凯文的蜡笔都被弄断了。“我到这里度假来了。”
凯文从没料到母亲所谓的惊喜竟然是如此的糟糕。这才是假期的开始，接下来的几周恐将成为他最糟糕的经历。
接下来的几天可把凯文吓坏了。
早餐后，凯文决定画一幅画。幸运的是马克斯不在身边。凯文摆放好他所有的美术用品，开始画美丽的风景。正当他做最后润色时，马克斯带着一瓶百事可乐进入房间。他脚下一滑，百事可乐洒在了画上，整个画作被毁坏了。
第二天对他来说更糟糕。
直到晚上，一切都风平浪静。事情起源于马克斯将脏衣服放入洗衣机。过了一会儿，凯文听到洗衣机里传来一些奇怪的声音。他过去察看，却发现是马克斯把最好的一双鞋连同衣服一起丢进了洗衣机里。
有一天，凯文读报，一些有趣的消息引起他的注意。他大声读到：“世界著名的集邮家迪克・布朗的邮票上周在其居住的城镇被盗。此外，还发生了多起邮票抢劫案，警方怀疑所有这些抢劫案都有其关联性。“
新闻最后提醒所有集邮者要妥善保管好自己的邮票。
……
【问题】集邮册失窃案与凯文和马克斯有何关联？他俩会成为好朋友吗？可以就此展开讨论，也可以通过点击“赞赏”或直接扫描图中二维码来获取答案。
扫码时，记着留下你的电邮。我会以附件形式将全文（英汉双语）发给你。
