On November 5th, 1872, the ship Mary Celeste left New York for Italy. The captain (船长), his wife and daughter and seven sailors (海员) were on this ship. But something ________ happened. The captain of another ship found Mary Celeste floating (漂浮) in the sea on December 4th,1872. The captain, his family and the sailors were not on the ship and were never ________.

What happened? Why did the captain, his ________ and the sailors leave the ship? Mary Celeste was not ________. Everything was good. There was no fighting, no fire and no smoke sign. There was enough ________ and drinking water. There were signs that the captain, his family and the sailors had ________ the ship in a hurry. We could tell all these because there was half-eaten food on the table. The sailors also left all ________ clothing behind.

How and when did the people leave the ship? Some people said that the lifeboat (救生艇) was still on the ship ________ others said it was missing. The captain’s diary was found on the ship and the last passage was written on November 24th. So, we could only ________ that something happened between November 24th and December 4th.

A man went aboard the ship several times to ________ the answers to all these questions. But he could not find any. No one else has solved the mystery yet.

Mr. White was in bed and was trying to go to sleep when he heard the bell ring. He turned on the light and looked at his clock. It was twelve o’clock. “Who can it be at this time of night?” He thought. He decided to go and find out. So he got off bed, put on his dressing gown (晨衣) and went to the door. When he opened the door, there was nobody there.

“That’s very strange.” he thought. Then he went back to his bedroom, took off his dressing gown, got back into bed, turned off the light and tried to go to sleep.

A few minutes later he heard the bell ring again. Mr. White jumped out of bed very quickly and rushed to the door. He opened it, but again he found no one there. He closed the door and tried not to feel angry. Then he saw a piece of paper on the floor. He picked it up. There were some words on it, “It is now after midnight (午夜), so it is April Fool’s Day. April fool to you!”

“Oh, it was the English boy next door!” Mr. White exclaimed and almost smiled. He went back to bed and fell asleep at once. The bell did not ring again.