The Mystery on the Great Wall of China

70 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Mystery</strong> on the Great Wall of China
“We’re getting out here?” asked Grant,
“Isn’t this the bottom of the mountain?”
“Yes,” said Mimi, “but the Peak Tram will
take us up in just a few minutes!”
<strong>The</strong> kids hopped out of the taxi and
looked. <strong>The</strong> Peak Tram was a small train. A
very steep track spiked up toward the top of
the mountain.
“It’s called a funicular railway,” Papa said
as they climbed aboard. “It doesn’t have an
engine; it operates on a cable that pulls it up.”
At first, the trip was fun and exciting.
But it grew scary and scarier as they scaled the
steep-sided mountain.
“Once upon a time, rich people paid
Chinese workers to haul them, in sedan chairs,
up the mountain to their expensive homes,”
Mimi explained. “<strong>The</strong> only way to get anything
up the mountain—food, building materials,
furniture—was to lug it up by hand.”
<strong>The</strong> kids stared. <strong>The</strong>y couldn’t imagine
that. <strong>The</strong>y also couldn’t imagine that they were
climbing so high in the sky. Just as they reached
the top of the mountain, the first firecracker
went off! <strong>The</strong>y hurried to a good place to view
the harbor below and watched the spectacular