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vnes怦然心动中英互译

作者:高考题库网
来源:https://www.bjmy2z.cn/gaokao
2020-12-21 20:04
tags:whispered

亲情式的爱情-稳压电路

2020年12月21日发(作者:艾显)
The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped. Honestly, one look at him and I became a
lunatic.
It's his eyes. Something in his eyes. They're blue, andframed in the blackness of his
lashes, they're dazzling. Absolutely breathtaking. 遇见布莱斯·罗斯基的第一天,我就对他
怦然心动。呃,好吧,实际上我 对他完全是一见钟情。是因为他的眼睛。他的眼神里有某种
东西。他有一双蓝色的眼睛,在黑色睫毛下一 闪一闪的,让我忍不住屏住了呼吸。
It's been over six years now, and I learned long ago to hide my feelings, but oh, those
first days. Those first years! I thought I would die for wantingto be with him. 六年了 ,我早
就学会隐藏自己的感觉了。不过想想最初的日子,还是让人哭笑不得。最初的那几年,我想
我大概是太执着地想跟他在一起了。
Two days before the second grade is when it started, although the anticipation began
weeks before—ever since my mother had told me thatthere was a family with a boy my
age moving into the new house 事情源于二年级开学 的前两天,虽然几周之前就有了先兆
——妈妈告诉我,有一家人要搬到对街的新房子,带着一个跟我同龄 的男孩。
right across the camp had ended, and I'd been so bored because
there was nobody, absolutelynobody, in the neighborhood to play with. Oh, there werekids,
but every one of them was older. That was dandy for my brothers, but what it left me was
home alone. 足球夏令营已经结束了 ,街坊邻居没有一个人陪我玩,真是无聊死了。附近也
有几个孩子,可他们全都是大孩子。对我哥哥们来 说当然不错,可我却只能一个人孤零零地
留在家里。
My mother was there, but she had better things to do than kick a soccer ball around.
So she said, anyway. At the time I didn't think there wasanything better than kicking a
soccer ball around, especially not the likes of laundry or dishesor vacuuming, but my
mother didn't agree. And thedanger of being home alone with her was that she'd recruit
me to help her wash or dust orvacuum, and she wouldn't tolerate the dribbling of asoccer
ball around the house as I moved from chore to chore. 妈妈也在家,不过她有的是比踢球
更重要的事情要做。反正她是这么说的。对于当年的我 来说,没有什么比踢球更好的了,尤
其是跟洗衣服、刷盘子、拖地板比起来。但我妈妈不同意。单独跟妈 妈待在家里就有这个危
险,她会抓住我帮她洗衣服、刷盘子、拖地板。而且她绝对不能容忍我在做家务的 间隙踢两
脚球。
To play it safe, I waited outside for weeks, just in case the new neighbors moved in
early.
Literally, it was weeks. I entertained myself by playingsoccer with our dog, Champ. Mostly
he'd just block because a dog can't exactly kick andscore, but once in a while he'd dribble
with his nose. Thescent of a ball must overwhelm a dog, though, because Champ would
eventually try tochomp it, then lose the ball to me. 为保险起见,我在屋子外边晃荡了几个
星期,生怕邻居来早了。真的,足有几个星期。为 了自娱自乐,我开始跟我的狗“冠军”踢球。
大多数时间它只能把球扑住,毕竟狗不是真的会“踢”球。 但它有时会用鼻子去捅。不过,球
的气味对狗来说一定是难以抵挡的诱惑,因为到最后“冠军”总会试图 把它吃下去,然后输球
给我。
When the Loskis' moving van finally arrived, everyone in my family was happy. “Little
Julianna” was finally going to have a playmate. 当罗斯基家的卡车终于到来的那一天,我
家里的每个人都欢欣鼓舞。“小朱莉安娜”终于有个玩伴了。
My mother, being the truly sensible adult that she is, made me wait more than an
hour
before going over to meet him. “Give them a chance tostretch their legs, Julianna,” she
said. “They'll want some time to adjust.” She wouldn't evenlet me watch from the yard. “I
know you, w that ball will wind up in their yard and you'll just have to
go retrieve it.” 作为一个极度敏感体贴的成年人,妈妈硬是让我在家里待了足足一个小时才
出门见邻居。“给他们留点时 间伸个懒腰,朱莉安娜,”她说,“他们需要一些时间休整。”她甚至
不允许我从院子里往外看,“我很 了解你,宝贝。没准儿最后你的球不知怎么就掉到人家的院
子里,而你不得不过去捡回来。
So I watched from the window, and every few minutes I'd ask, “Now?” and she'd say,
“Give them a little while longer, would you?” 所以,我只好趴在窗户 旁边,隔几分钟就问:“现
在能去了吗?”她每次都回答:“再给他们一点儿时间,好吗?”
Then the phone rang. And the minute I was sure she was good and preoccupied, I
tugged on her sleeve and asked, “Now?” 这时电话响了。当我能肯定她正心情愉悦并且全
神贯注在电话上时,我就拽着她的袖子问:“现在好了吗?”
She nodded and whispered, “Okay, but take it easy! I'll be over there in a minute.” 她
点点头,轻声说:“好吧,但是放松一点儿!我马上就过去。”
I was too excited not to charge across the street, but I did try very hard to be civilized
once I got to the moving van. I stood outside looking in for arecord-breaking length of time,
which was hard because there he was! About halfway back! My new sure-to-be best
friend, Bryce Loski. 我太兴奋了 ,忍不住横穿了马路,但我努力在接近卡车的时候保持了礼
貌。我站在车外朝里望去,破纪录地保持这个 姿势挺长时间,但是这太有难度了,因为差不
多等到一半的时候,我看到了他!我坚信即将成为我新的最 佳死党的人——布莱斯·罗斯基!
Bryce wasn't really doing much of anything. He was more hanging back, watching his
father move boxes onto the lift-gate. I remember feeling sorry for Mr. Loski because he
looked worn out, moving boxes all by himself. I also remember that he and Bryce were
wearing matching turquoisepolo shirts, which I thought was really cute. Really nice. 其实
布莱斯并没有 做什么。他只是在那边晃荡着,看他爸爸把箱子搬到汽车尾板上。记得当时我
真的很同情罗斯基先生,因 为他看上去疲惫不堪,全靠他一个人在那里搬。我还记得他和布
莱斯穿着相同款式的蓝绿色Polo衫( 一种休闲服装),非常可爱。真是太好看了。
When I couldn't stand it any longer, I called, “Hi!” into the van, which made Bryce
jump, and then quick as a cricket, he started pushing a box likehe'd been working all along.
我不好意思再呆呆地站在那儿,于是朝车里喊道:“你们好!”布莱斯惊得跳了起来,然 后像只
蟋蟀似的迅速开始推起一只箱子,假装他一直在工作。
I could tell from the way Bryce was acting so guilty that he was supposed to be
moving boxes, but he was sick of it. He'd probably been movingthings for days! It was
easy to see that he needed a rest. He needed some juice! was also easy to
see that Mr. Loski wasn't about to let him quit. He was going to keep on moving boxes
around until he collapsed, and by thenBryce might be dead. Dead before he'd had the
chance to move in! 布莱斯的内疚感让我猜到,他本来应该乖乖地帮忙搬箱子,但他却烦透
了这活 儿。没准儿他已经干了好几天了!很明显,他需要休息。他需要喝点什么,比如果汁!
同样很明显,罗斯 基先生不可能放他走。他可能准备干到自己累倒为止,那时候布莱斯估计
已经累死了——他大概都没机会 走进新家!
The tragedy of it catapulted me into the moving van. I had to help! I had to save him!
眼前的这一幕惨剧推动我走进了卡车。我必须去帮忙!我必须救他!
When I got to his side to help him shove a box forward, the poor boy was so
exhausted that he just moved aside and let me take over. Mr. Loskididn't want me to help,
but at least I saved Bryce. I'd been in the moving van all of threeminutes when his dad
sent him off to help his mother unpackthings inside the house. 我走到他身边,准备帮他一
起推箱 子,这个可怜的孩子实在太累了,他只是让出位置,把活儿交给了我。罗斯基先生不
想让我帮忙,但我至 少救出了布莱斯。我在卡车里最多只待了三分钟,他就被他爸爸发配去
屋子里帮妈妈整理行李。
I chased Bryce up the walkway, and that's when everything changed. You see, I
caught up to him and grabbed his arm, trying to stop him somaybe we could play a little
before he got trapped inside, and the next thing I know he's holding my hand, looking right
into my eyes. 我 追着他上了人行道,从这一刻起,一切都变了。这么说吧,我追上他,抓
住他的胳膊,只想在他被困在屋 里之前截住他,跟我玩一会儿。然后突然之间,他牵起我的
手,直直地看着我的眼睛。
My heart stopped. It just stopped beating. And for the first time in my life, I had that
feeling. You know, like the world is moving all around you, all beneath you, all inside you,
and you're floating. Floating in midair. And the only thing keeping you from drifting away is
the other person's eyes. 毫无原因地,我心脏就那么漏跳了一拍。我的人生中第一次有了
那样的 感觉。就像整个世界在你四周,从你身体由内而外地翻滚,而你飘浮在半空中。唯一
能绑住你不会飘走的 ,就是那双眼睛。
They're connected to yours by some invisible physical force, and they hold you fast
while therest of the world swirls and twirls and falls completely away. 当你们两个人的眼睛
被一种看不见的力量连 接在一起,在外面的世界旋转、翻腾并彻底分崩离析的时候,一把抓
住了你。
I almost got my first kiss that day. I'm sure of it. But then his mother came out the front
doorand he was so embarrassed that his cheeks turned completely red, and the next thing
you know he's hiding in the bathroom。那天,我差一点儿就得到了我的初吻。我十分肯定 。
但是紧接着他妈妈就从屋子里走出来,他尴尬得脸都红透了,接下来他就躲进了洗手间。
I was waiting for him to come out when his sister, Lynetta, saw me in the hallway. She
seemed big and mature to me, and since she wanted to know what was going on, I told
her a little bit about it. I shouldn't have, though, because she wiggled the bathroom
doorknob and started something fierce. “Hey, baby brother!” she called
through the door. “There's a hot chick out here waiting for you! Whatsa matter? Afraid
she's got cooties?” 我在门厅里等他出来,这时他的姐姐利奈特发现了我。她看 上去比我大,
更成熟一些。她问我怎么回事,我就简单地说了一点儿。不过,我不该告诉她的,因为她摇
晃着洗手间的门把手,疯狂地嘲笑起布莱斯。“嘿,小弟弟!”她朝门的那一边大声喊着,“外面
有个漂亮小姑娘在等你!你怎么不敢出来?怕她身上有虱子吗?”
It was so embarrassing! I yanked on her arm and told her to stop it, but she wouldn't,
so
finally I just left. 这太尴尬了!我拽着她的胳膊想让她停下来,但她不肯,最后我只好走开
了。
I found my mother outside talking to Mrs. Loski. Mom had given her the beautiful
lemon
Bundt cake that was supposed to be our dessert that night. The powdered sugar looked
soft and white, and the cake was still warm, sending sweet lemon smells into the air. 我看
见妈妈正在门口和罗斯基太太说话。妈 妈送给她一个漂亮的烘烤柠檬蛋糕,那恐怕应该是我
家今晚的甜点。上面的糖霜看起来又白又软,蛋糕还 热着,散发着甜甜的柠檬香气。
My mouth was watering just looking at it! But it was in Mrs. Loski's hands, and I knew
there was no getting it back. All I could do was try to eat up the smells while I listened to
the two of them discuss grocery stores and the weather forecast. 看到它我的口水就流出
来了! 但它现在属于罗斯基太太,再也回不来了。我只能在她们讨论杂货店和天气预报的时
候狠狠地吞咽着空气 中的香味。
After that Mom and I went home. It was very strange. I hadn't gotten to play with
Bryce at all. All I knew was that his eyes were a dizzying blue, that he had a sister who
was not to be trusted, and that he'd almost kissed me. 然后我就和妈妈回家了。这太奇怪
了。我根本没能和布莱斯一起玩。我只记得他 那双闪闪发亮的蓝眼睛,他有个不靠谱的姐姐,
以及他差点亲了我。
I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss
feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn't be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at
bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf
and a whippet—only science would put them on the same tree. 晚上,我想着那个本 该发
生的初吻睡着了。被人亲吻到底是什么感觉?不知怎的,我知道它一定和爸爸妈妈的晚安吻
不一样。毫无疑问,虽然它们看起来差不多,却有本质上的不同。就像狼和狗——只有科学
家才会认为它 们同属一个科目。
Looking back on the second grade, I like to think it was at least partly scientific
curiosity that made me chase after that kiss, but to be honest, it was probably more those
blue eyes. All through the second and third grades I couldn't seem to stop myself from
following him, from sitting by him, from just wanting to be near him. 回首二年级,我总是希
望自己至少有一部分是出于 对科学的好奇,才如此执着于我的初吻。但诚实地说,恐怕更重
要的原因是那双蓝眼睛。从那一刻起,直 到三年级结束,我无法自拔地追随着他,坐在他旁
边,希望自己至少能离他近一点儿。
By the fourth grade I'd learned to control myself. The sight of him—the thought of
him—stillsent my heart humming, but my legs didn't actually chase after him anymore. I
just watched and thought and dreamed. 到了四年级,我学会控制自己。看到他——想到
他——仍 然让我的心怦怦直跳,但我已经不再真的追着他跑。我只是在那里望着,想着,盼
望着。
Then in the fifth grade Shelly Stalls came into the picture. Shelly Stalls is a ninny. A
whiny,
gossipy, backstabbing ninny who says one thing to one person and the opposite to
another. Now that we're in junior high, she's the undisputed diva of drama, but even back
in elementary school she knew how to put on a performance. Especially when it came to
P.E. I never once saw her run laps or do calisthenics. Instead, she would go into her
“delicate” act, claiming her body would absolutely collapse from the strain if she ran or
jumped or stretched. 五年级的时候,忽然冒出了一个雪莉·斯道尔斯。她是个傻瓜,一个爱
发牢骚、爱传八卦、爱背后中伤别 人的家伙。她总是把一件事对一个人说成是黑的,对另一
个人说成是白的。现在我们都升上了初中,她是 个无可争议的演技派天后,就算回到小学时
代,她也知道该怎么装样子。尤其是体育课上,我既没见过她 跑圈也没见过她做操。相反,
她会奉上一出“完美”的表演,声明她的身体在跑步、
It worked. Every year. She'd bring in some note and be sure to swoon a little for the
teacher the first few days of the year, after which she'd be excused from anything that
required muscles. She never even put up her own chair at the end of the day. The only
muscles she exercised regularly were the ones around her mouth, and those she worked
out nonstop. If there was an Olympic contest for talking, Shelly Stalls would sweep the
event. Well, she'd at least win the gold and silver— one medal for each side of her mouth.
这很管用,每年都很管用。她带来医生的证明,并在学年开始的那几天小小地晕倒几次, 然
后逃过一年当中任何需要力量的事情。甚至放学的时候都不搬自己的椅子。唯一经常得到锻
炼 的肌肉是她的嘴唇,而且动起来几乎一刻不停。假如奥运会增加一个比赛说话的项目,雪
莉·斯道尔斯一 定能横扫一切奖项。好吧,至少是金牌和银牌——上下嘴唇各得一项。
What bugged me about it was not the fact that she got out of P.E.—who'd want her on
their team, anyway? What bugged me about it was that anyone who bothered to look
would know that it wasn't asthma or weak ankles or her being “delicate” that was stopping
her. It was her hair. She had mountains of it, twisted this way or that, clipped or beaded,
braided or swirled. Her ponytails rivaled the ones on carousel horses. And on the days
she let it all hang down, she'd sort of shimmy and cuddle inside it like it was a blanket, so
that practically all you saw of her face was her nose. 其实,我烦恼的倒不是她不用上体育
课这件事——说实话,又有谁愿意跟 雪莉分在一组呢?我烦恼的是,只要谁有心,就一定能
看出妨碍她上课的根本不是哮喘、脚踝有伤或是她 表现出的那种“娇弱”,而是她的头发。她
有那么多头发,一会儿卷成这样,一会儿卷成那样;一会儿剪 短,一会儿缀上珠花;一会儿
编辫子,一会儿盘成发髻。她的马尾辫就跟旋转木马的尾巴差不多。那段时 间她总是披散着
头发,把它们当成毯子似的把自己的脑袋裹在里面,所以别人只能看到她的鼻子。
Good luck playing four-square with a blanket over your head. 在脑袋上裹着一床毯子
玩抛球游戏?还是算了吧。
My solution to Shelly Stalls was to ignore her, which worked just dandy until about
halfway through the fifth grade when I saw her holding hands with Bryce. 我对待雪莉·斯
道尔斯的方式是无视她,这一直都很奏效,直到五年级的时候我看到她握着布莱斯的手。
My Bryce. The one who was still embarrassed over holding my hand two days before
the
second grade. The one who was still too shy to say much more than hello to me. 那是我
的布莱斯,是那个始终为 了二年级开学前两天握了我的手而害羞的家伙。是那个因为太害羞,
除了“你好”以外不敢跟我多说一句 话的家伙
The one who was still walking around with my first kiss. 是那个一直还欠我一个初吻
的家伙。
How could Shelly have wormed her hand into his? That pushy little princess had no
business hanging on to him like that! 雪莉怎么敢把她的手塞进他的手心里?这个爱出风头
的娇气小公主根本没理由和他混在一起!
Bryce looked over his shoulder from time to time as they walked along, and he was
looking at me. My first thought was that he was telling me he was sorry. Then it dawned
on me— he needed my help. Absolutely, that's what it had to be! 当他们 经过的时候,布莱
斯时不时小心翼翼地回头看,他看的是我。我首先想到的是,他是在向我表示抱歉。然 后我
忽然领悟了——他是想让我帮忙。没错,只能是这个意思!
Shelly Stalls was too delicate to shake off, too swirly to be pushed away. She'd
unravel and start sniffling and oh, how embarrassing that would be for him! No, this wasn't
a job a boy could do gracefully. 雪莉·斯道尔斯太娇弱了,让布莱斯不好意思甩掉她,而且
她太缠人了,让他 挣脱不掉。她一定会心碎的,然后开始抽搐,这对布莱斯来说得有多尴尬!
这件事男生做起来姿态绝对不 好看。
This was a job for a girl. 只能由女生来代为完成。
I didn't even bother checking around for other candidates—I had her off of him in two
seconds flat. Bryce ran away the minute he was free, but not Shelly. Oh, no-no-no!
She came at me, scratching and pulling and twisting anything she could get her hands on,
telling me that Bryce was hers andthere was no way she was letting him go. 我根本没有
考虑过是否还有其他人选——两秒钟之内我就把她从他身边拽开了。一挣开,布莱斯 立刻跑
掉了,但是雪莉没跑。哦,不——不——不!她冲我过来了,对着她能够到的地方又抓又扯
又拧,说布莱斯是属于她的,她绝不放手。
How delicate. 真是太娇弱了。
I was hoping for herds of teachers to appear so they could see the real Shelly Stalls in
action,but it was too late by the time anyone arrived on the scene. I had Fluffy in a
headlock and her arm twisted back in a hammerlock, and no amount of her squawking or
scratching was going to get me to un lock her until a teacher arrived. 我满心希望这时候冒
出一大群老师,看看真实生 活中的雪莉·斯道尔斯到底是什么样子,可惜等人们来到这里已
经太晚了。我蓬头垢面地被她夹住脑袋, 而她的双手被我反剪到背后,不管她怎样尖叫、抓
人,都不可能让我在老师到达之前放开她。
In the end, Shelly went home early with a bad case of mussed-up hair, while I told my
side of things to the principal. Mrs. Shultz is a sturdy lady who probably secretly
appreciates the value of a swift kick well placed, and although she told me that it would be
better if I let other people work out their own dilemmas, she definitely understood about
Shelly Stalls and her hair and told me she was glad I'd had the self-control to do nothing
more than restrain her. 最后,雪莉带着一头乱发提前回家了,而我则留下跟校长复述情况。
舒尔茨夫人是个健硕的女 人,也许私下里会欣赏一记正确的飞踢,但是她告诉我最好还是让
别人去解决他们自己的困境,她完全明 白雪莉·斯道尔斯和她的头发是怎么回事,还说她很
高兴看到我能够控制住自己,没有做出除了制止她以 外更离谱的事。
Shelly was back the next day with a head full of braids. And of course she got
everybody
whispering about me, but I just ignored them. The facts spoke for themselves. Bryce didn't
go anywhere near her for the rest of the year. 第二天,雪莉带着满头的辫子回来了。当然,
她成功地让所有人都在私下议 论我,但我根本不理他们。事实是不言自明的。在这个学年剩
下的时间里,布莱斯从来不走近她。
That's not to say that Bryce held my hand after that, but he did start being a little
friendlier to me. Especially in the sixth grade, after Mr. Mertins sat us right next to each
other in the third row back. 这倒不是说布莱斯从此跟我走在一起了 ,但他开始变得友善一
些。尤其是六年级马丁斯先生把我们安排在倒数第三排成了同桌之后。
Sitting next to Bryce was nice. He was nice. He'd say Hi, Juli to me every morning,
and once in a while I'd catch him looking my way. He'd always blush and go back to his
own work, and I couldn't help but smile. He was so shy. And so cute! 坐在布莱斯旁边感觉
很好。他会每天早上对我说“朱莉,你好”,偶尔我会发现他在看我。 他总会脸红,转回去做
他的事,然后我就不由自主地笑了。他太害羞了,而且那么可爱!
We talked to each other more, too. Especially after Mr. Mertins moved me behind him.
Mr. Mertins had a detention policy about spelling, where if you missed more than seven
out of twenty-five words, you had to spend lunch inside with him, writing your words over
and over and over again. 我们聊天的机会也更多了。尤其是马丁斯先生安排我坐在他后面
以后。马丁斯先生会让拼 写不合格的人留堂,比如,25个词里写错7个的人午饭时分必须
跟着他,一遍又一遍地抄写自己的名字 。
The pressure of detention made Bryce panic. And even though it bothered my
conscience, I'd lean in and whisper answers to him, hoping that maybe I could spend
lunch with him instead. His hair smelled like watermelon, and his ear- lobes had fuzz. Soft,
blond fuzz. And I wondered about that. How does a boy with such black hair wind up with
blond ear fuzz? What's it doing there, anyway? I checked my own ear-lobes in the mirror
but couldn't find much of anything on them, and I didn't spot any on other people's either.
留堂的阴影把布莱斯变成了惊弓之鸟。虽然良心上有点过意不去, 但我还是会靠向他悄悄说
出答案,希望自己也许有机会和他一起吃午饭。他的头发闻起来有股西瓜味,耳 垂上长着绒
毛,柔软的金色绒毛。我十分好奇,为什么一个长着黑头发的男孩耳朵上的绒毛却是金色的?
它们为什么会长在那里?我在镜子里研究自己的耳垂,但上面什么也没有,我注意到没有一
个人 像他这样。
I thought about asking Mr. Mertins about earlobe fuzz when we were discussing
evolution in science, but I didn't. Instead, I spent the year whispering spelling words,
sniffing watermelon, and wondering if I was ever going to get my kiss. 我想过在马丁斯先
生跟我们讨论科学史的时 候,提出耳垂绒毛的问题,但我没问过。相反,整整一年时间我都
趴在他耳边拼着单词,闻着西瓜味道, 想着自己是不是和初吻无缘了。

Buddy, Beware! 哥们儿,小心点!
Seventh grade brought changes, all right, but the biggest one didn't happen at school
— it happened at home. Granddad Duncan came to live with us. 好吧,七年级是充满变化
的一年,但是最大的变化并非发生在学校,而是在家里。邓 肯外公搬来和我们一起住了。
At first it was kind of weird because none of us really knew him. Except for Mom, of
course. And even though she's spent the past year and a half trying to convince us he's a
great guy, from what I can tell, the thing he likes to do best is stare out the front- room
window. There's not much to see out there except the Bakers' front yard, but you can find
him there day or night, sitting in the big easy chair they moved in with him, staring out the
window. 最开始的时候是有点奇怪,因为我们中间没有谁真正认识他。当然,除了妈妈。
虽然她用了一年半的时间告诉我们他是个多么伟大的人,但在我看来,他最喜欢做的事就是
从临街的窗 户朝外望。除了贝克家的前院,那里没什么好看的,但他不管白天黑夜都待在那
儿,坐在和他一起搬进家 门的大号安乐椅上,望着窗外。
Okay, so he also reads Tom Clancy novels and the newspapers and does crossword
puzzles and tracks his stocks, but those things are all distractions. Given no one to justify
it to, the man would stare out the window until he fell asleep. Not that there's anything
wrong with that. It just seems so … boring. 好吧,他也读汤姆·克兰西的惊悚小说、看报纸、
做填字游戏、看看股票行情,但这些 不过是对他看街景这件事的插花。没人提出反对意见,
这人总是看着窗外直到睡着为止。虽然也说不上有 什么不对,但这样真的……挺无聊的。
Mom says he stares like that because he misses Grandma, but that's not something
Granddad had ever discussed with me. As a matter of fact, he never discussed much of
anything with me until a few months ago when he read about Juli in the newspaper. 妈妈
说,他眺望窗外 是因为想念外婆,但外公是不会和我讨论这件事的。实际上,他从来不跟我
讨论什么事,直到几个月前, 他在报纸上看到了朱莉。
Now, Juli Baker did not wind up on the front page of the Mayfield Times for being an
eighth-grade Einstein, like you might suspect. No, my friend, she got front-page coverage
because she refused to climb out of a sycamore tree. 不像你想的那样,朱莉安娜·贝克并
不是作为八年级的未来的爱因斯坦登上了《梅菲尔德时 报》头版。不,伙计,她能登上头版
是因为她不愿意从一棵无花果树上下来。
Not that I could tell a sycamore from a maple or a birch for that matter, but Juli, of
course,
knew what kind of tree it was and passed that knowledge along to every creature in her
wake. 虽然我分不清无花果树、枫树和桦树,但朱莉显然知道那是什么树,并且守在那里
把这个常识分享给她遇 见的每一个人。
So this tree, this sycamore tree, was up the hill on a vacant lot on Collier Street, and it
was massive. Massive and ugly. It was twisted and gnarled and bent, and I kept expecting
the thing to blow over in the wind. 所以,这棵树,这棵无 花果树,长在山坡上克里尔街的
一片空地里,很大很大,而且又大又丑。它的树干扭曲,长满节疤,弯弯 曲曲,我总觉得一
阵风就能把它吹倒。
One day last year I'd finally had enough of her yakking about that stupid tree. I came
right out and told her that it was not a magnificent sycamore, it was, in reality, the ugliest
tree known to man. And you know what she said? She said I was visually challenged.
Visually challenged! This from the girl who lives in a house that's the scourge of the
neighborhood. They've got bushes growing over windows, weeds sticking out all over the
place, and a barnyard's worth of animals running wild. I'm talking dogs, cats, chickens,
even snakes. I swear to God, her brothers have a boa constrictor in their room. They
dragged me in there when I was about ten and made me watch it eat a rat. A live,
beady-eyed rat. They held that rodent up by its tail and gulp, the boa swallowed it whole.
That snake gave me nightmares for a month.去年的某一天,我终于听够了她关于这棵蠢树
的唠叨 。我径直走到她面前,告诉她那棵无花果树一点儿也不美,实际上,那是有史以来最
难看的一棵树。你猜 她怎么回答?她说我的眼睛大概有毛病。眼睛有毛病!这就是那个邻里
环境破坏之王家的姑娘说出来的话 。她家的灌木长得比窗户还高,到处杂草丛生,谷仓前面
的空场快变成野生动物园了。我是说,她家有狗 、猫、鸡,甚至养了几条蛇。我敢对天发誓,
她哥哥在卧室里养了条大蟒蛇。十岁那年,他们把我拽进屋 子,强迫我看着那条大蟒蛇吞下
一只耗子。一只活蹦乱跳、眼睛滴溜溜转的耗子。他们提着那只啮齿动物 的尾巴,大蟒一下
子就整只吞下去了。这条蛇让我做了一个月的噩梦。
Anyway, normally I wouldn't care about someone's yard, but the Bakers' mess
bugged my dad big-time, and he channeled his frustration into our yard. He said it was our
neighborly duty to show them what a yard's supposed to look like. 不管怎么说,我平时很
少关心别人家的院子,但贝克家一团混乱的院子是我爸爸最大的心病,而他则把这种挫折的
情绪倾泻在 我家院子里。他说,我们有义务让邻居看看一个正常的院子该有的模样。
So while Mike and Matt are busy plumping up their boa, I'm having to mow and edge
our yard, then sweep the walkways and gutter, which is going a little overboard, if you ask
me. 所以,当麦克和马特忙于投喂蟒蛇的时候,我 只好忙着给院子除草、修剪草坪,打扫
车道和水沟,而且依我看,我好像还真干得越来越投入了。
And you'd think Juli's dad—who's a big, strong, bricklaying dude — would fix the
place up, but no. According to my mom, he spends all his free time painting. His
landscapes don't seem like anything special to me, but judging by his price tags, he thinks
quite a lot of them. We see them every year at the Mayfield County Fair, and my parents
always say the same thing: “The world would have more beauty in it if he'd fix up the yard
instead.” 如果你以为朱莉的爸爸——一位又高又壮的砖瓦工——会打理 院子,那就错了。
据我妈妈透露,他把全部业余时间都用来画画了。他的风景画对我来说没什么特别的, 但是
从价签上看,他很看重这些画。每年梅菲尔德县交易会上都能看到它们,我爸妈从来只说一
句话:“如果他肯把花在画画上的时间拿来打理院子,世界会变得更美好。”
Mom and Juli's mom do talk some. I think my mom feels sorry for Mrs. Baker — she
says
she married a dreamer, and because of that, one of the two of them will always be
unhappy. 我妈妈和朱莉的妈妈有 时聊天。我猜想妈妈比较同情贝克夫人——她说她嫁了一
个梦想家,所以,他们俩当中总有一个人过得不 快乐。
Whatever. Maybe Juli's aesthetic sensibilities have been permanently screwed up by
her
father and none of this is her fault, but Juli has always thought that that sycamore tree was
God's gift to our little corner of the universe. 那又怎样。也许朱莉对美的敏感正是遗传自她
爸爸,并不是她的错。但朱 莉总觉得那棵无花果树是上帝送给我们宇宙中这个小小角落的一
份礼物。
Back in the third and fourth grades she used to clown around with her brothers in the
branches or peel big chunks of bark off so they could slide down the crook in its trunk. It
seemed like they were playing in it whenever my mom took us somewhere in the car.
Juli'd be swinging from the branches, ready to fall and break every bone in her body, while
we were waiting at the stoplight, and my mom would shake her head and say, “Don't you
ever climb that tree like that, do you hear me, Bryce? I never want to see you doing that!
You either, Lynetta. That is much too dangerous.” 三年级和四年级的时候,她经常和哥哥
们一起坐在树杈上 ,或者剥下大块的树皮以便沿着树干滑到杈弯。无论什么时候妈妈开车带
我们出门去,总能看见他们在那 里玩。我们等红灯的时候,朱莉就在树杈间荡来荡去,总是
快要摔下来跌断每一根骨头的样子,于是妈妈 就会摇着头说:“你永远也不许像这个样子爬树,
听见没有,布莱斯?我永远也不想看到你这样!你也是 ,利奈特。实在太危险了!”
My sister would roll her eyes and say, “As if,” while I'd slump beneath the window and
pray for the light to change before Juli squealed my name for the world to hear. 姐姐一般< br>会翻个白眼,说“废话”。而我则把头躲到车窗下面,祈祷在朱莉还没把我的名字喊得震天响
之前 赶紧变灯。
I did try to climb it once in the fifth grade. It was the day after Juli had rescued my kite
from its mutant toy-eating foliage. She climbed miles up to get my kite, and when she
came down, she was actually very cool about it. She didn't hold my kite hostage and stick
her lips out like I was afraid she might. She just handed it over and then backed away. 我
确实试 着爬过那棵树,只有一次,在五年级。在那之前一天,朱莉帮我把风筝从树上那些会
“吃玩具的叶子”里 取了下来。为了取我的风筝,她爬到特别高的地方,下来之后一脸淡定。
她没有扣下风筝作为“人质”, 也没像我担心的那样噘起嘴巴不理我。她只是把风筝递给我,
然后转身走了。
I was relieved, but I also felt like a weenie. When I'd seen where my kite was trapped,
I was sure it was a goner. Not Juli. She scrambled up and got it down in no time. Man, it
was embarrassing. 我松了 口气,同时觉得自己太逊了。当时我看到风筝挂住的位置,马上
认定它已经回不来了。但朱莉不这么想。 她二话不说就爬上树帮我拿下来。嘿,这真让人尴
尬。
So I made a mental picture of how high she'd climbed, and the next day I set off to
outdo her by at least two branches. I made it past the crook, up a few limbs, and then —
just to see how I was doing — I looked down. 我默默地计算了一下她到底爬了多高,然后
第二天计划至少爬到比 她高出两根树枝的位置。我攀上了第一个大的杈弯,向上爬了两三根
枝杈,然后——只是想看看自己进展 如何——我向下看去。
Mis-take! It felt like I was on top of the Empire State Building without a bungee. I tried
looking up to where my kite had been, but it was hopeless. I was indeed a tree-climbing
weenie. 大——错——特——错!我仿佛站在帝国大厦的顶层,没系安全带。我试着抬头寻找昨天风筝挂住的位置,但是根本看不见。我是个不折不扣的爬树白痴。
Then junior high started and my dream of a Juli-free existence shattered. I had to take
the bus, and you- know-who did, too. There were about eight kids altogether at our bus
stop, which created a buffer zone, but it was no comfort zone. 上了初中,我以为朱 莉会从
此消失的梦想也破灭了。我需要坐校车,而那个名字也不能提的人也是。我们这一站大概有
八个学生一起等车,总是吵吵嚷嚷的,算是缓冲地带,但绝不是个安全地带。
Juli always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.
朱莉总想站在我身边,跟我说话,或者用别的什么方法来折磨我。
And then she started climbing. The girl is in the seventh grade, and she's climbing a
tree — way, way up in a tree. And why does she do it? So she can yell down at us that the
bus is five! four! three blocks away! Blow-by-blow traffic watch from a tree — what every
kid in junior high feels like hearing first thing in the morning. 最后她选择了爬树。 一个七年
级的女孩,开始爬树——爬得高高的。为什么?因为这样她就能居高临下地冲我们喊:校车离这儿还有五……四……三条街!一个挂在树上的流水账式的交通岗哨!每个初中同学每天
早上听到 的第一句话就是她说的。
She tried to get me to come up there with her, too. “Bryce, come on! You won't
believe the colors! It's absolutely magnificent! Bryce, you've got to come up here!” 她 想叫
我爬上去跟她待在一起:“布莱斯,上来呀!你绝对无法想象这儿的景色有多美!太神奇了!
布莱斯,你一定要上来看看!”
Yeah, I could just hear it: “Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree…” Was I ever going to leave
the
second grade behind? 是啊,我都能想象出来:“布莱斯和朱莉坐在树上……”二年级的往事,
难道还阴魂不散吗?
One morning I was specifically not looking up when out of nowhere she swings down
from a branch and practically knocks me over. Heart attack! 一天早晨,我刻意地没有向树
上看去,她忽然从树杈上跳下来,生生地撞到了我。害得 我心脏病都要犯了!
I dropped my backpack and wrenched my neck, and that did it. I refused to wait under
that tree with that maniac monkey on the loose anymore. I started leaving the house at the
very last minute. I made up my own waiting spot, and when I'd see the bus pull up, I'd
truck up the hill and get on board. 我的背包掉在地上,还 扭到了脖子,都赖她。我再也不
愿意跟这只从精神病院跑出来的发疯的猴子一起在树下等车了。从此以后 ,我总是拖到最后
一分钟才从家里出来。我设置了属于自己的校车站,看到校车快到了,就冲到山坡上去 登车。
No Juli, no problem. 没有朱莉,就没有麻烦。
And that, my friend, took care of the rest of seventh grade and almost all of eighth, too,
until one day a few months ago. That's when I heard a commotion up the hill and could
see some big trucks parked up on Collier Street where the bus pulls in. There were some
men shouting stuff up at Juli, who was, of course, five stories up in the tree. 这种状况贯穿
了七年级和八年级的大多数时间,一直延续到几个月前的一天。那天 ,我听到山坡上一阵骚
动,几辆卡车停在克里尔街平时的校车站。一些人仰着头冲朱莉喊着什么,而她当 然是在五
层楼高的树顶上。
All the other kids started to gather under the tree, too, and I could hear them telling
her she had to come down. She was fine — that was obvious to anyone with a pair of ears
— but I couldn't figure out what they were all arguing about. I trucked up the hill, and as I
got closer and saw what the men were holding, I figured out in a hurry what was making
Juli refuse to come out of the tree. 孩子们也慢慢朝树下聚拢过来,我听见他 们说她必须从
树上下来。她很好——对于任何一个耳朵没有问题的人来说都听得出来——但我不明白他们
在吵什么。我冲上山坡,当我离得近一点儿、看清那些人手里拿的是什么,我立刻明白了为
什么 朱莉拒绝从树上下来。
Chain saws. 那是一台链锯。
Don't get me wrong here, okay? The tree was an ugly mutant tangle of gnarly
branches. The girl arguing with those men was Juli — the world's peskiest, bossiest, most
know-it-all female. But all of a sudden my stomach completely bailed on me. Juli loved
that tree. Stupid as it was, she loved that tree, and cutting it down would be like cutting out
her heart. 千万别误解。这棵树长满了多瘤的树脂,纠结成难看 的一团。和那些人吵架的人
是朱莉——全世界最麻烦、最霸道、永远全知全能的女人。但是一瞬间我的胃 就抽搐起来。
朱莉爱这棵树,虽然听起来很蠢,可她就是爱这棵树,砍树就等于在她的心里砍上一刀。
Everyone tried to talk her down. Even me. But she said she wasn't coming down, not
ever,
and then she tried to talk us up. “Bryce, please! Come up here with me. They won't cut it
down if we're all up here!” 每个人都劝她下来,包括我在内。但她说 绝不下树,永远也不,
然后她试图说服我们。“布莱斯,求你了!上来跟我一起。如果我们在这儿,他们 就不敢砍树
了!”
For a second I considered it. But then the bus arrived and I talked myself out of it. It
wasn't my tree, and even though she acted like it was, it wasn't Juli's, either. 我思考了一
秒钟。但这时校车来了,我告诉自己不要卷进去,这不是我的树,同样这也不是朱莉的树,
虽然 她表现得好像是她的。
We boarded the bus and left her behind, but school was pretty much a waste. I
couldn't seem to stop thinking about Juli. Was she still up in the tree? Were they going to
arrest her? 我们登上校车,把她一个人留在那里,但这些都没有用。我忍不住一直在想朱
莉,她还在树顶上吗?他们会不会把她抓起来?
When the bus dropped us off that afternoon, Juli was gone and so was half the tree.
The top branches, the place my kite had been stuck, her favorite perch — they were all
gone. 放学后,当校车把我们送回来的时候,朱莉已经不见了,一起消失的还 有上半棵树。
顶部的树枝,我的风筝曾经卡住的地方,她最最心爱的栖身之地——统统消失了。
We watched them work for a little while, the chain saws gunning at full throttle,
smoking as they chewed through wood. The tree looked lopsided and naked, and after a
few minutes I had to get out of there. It was like watching someone dismember a body,
and for the first time in ages, I felt like crying. Crying. Over a stupid tree that I hated. 我们
在那儿看了一会儿,看链锯如何开足马力 ,冒着浓烟,就像在把木头嚼一嚼吞下去似的。大
树看起来摇摇欲坠,毫无还手之力,没过多久,我就非 得离开那里不可。这活像是在观察一
个分尸现场,有生以来,我第一次有种想要尖叫的感觉。为了一棵愚 蠢的、我痛恨已久的树
而尖叫。
I went home and tried to shake it off, but I kept wondering, Should I have gone up the
tree with her? Would it have done any good?
I thought about calling Juli to tell her I was sorry they'd cut it down, but I didn't. It
would've
been too, I don't know, weird.
She didn't show at the bus stop the next morning and didn't ride the bus home that
afternoon,
either.
Then that night, right before dinner, my grandfather summoned me into the front room.
He
didn't call to me as I was walking by — that would have
bordered on friendliness. What he did was talk to my mother, who talked to me. “I
don't know
what it's about, honey,” she said. “Maybe he's just
ready to get to know you a little better.”
Great. The man's had a year and a half to get acquainted, and he chooses now to get
to
know me. But I couldn't exactly blow him off.
My grandfather's a big man with a meaty nose and greased-back salt-and-pepper
hair. He
lives in house slippers and a sports coat, and I've
never seen a whisker on him. They grow, but he shaves them off like three times a
day. It's a
real recreational activity for him.
Besides his meaty nose, he's also got big meaty hands. I suppose you'd notice his
hands
regardless, but what makes you realize just how beefy
they are is his wedding ring. That thing's never going to come off, and even though
my
mother says that's how it should be, I think he ought to get it
cut off. Another few pounds and that ring's going to amputate his finger.
When I went in to see him, those big hands of his were woven together, resting on the
newspaper in his lap. I said, “Granddad? You wanted to
see me?”
“Have a seat, son.”
Son? Half the time he didn't seem to know who I was, and now suddenly I was “son”?
I sat in
the chair opposite him and waited.
“Tell me about your friend Juli Baker.”
“Juli? She's not exactly my friend … !”
“Why is that?” he asked. Calmly. Like he had prior knowledge.
I started to justify it, then stopped myself and asked, “Why do you want to know?”
He opened the paper and pressed down the crease, and that's when I realized that
Juli
Baker had made the front page of the Mayfield Times.
There was a huge picture of her in the tree, surrounded by a fire brigade and
policemen, and
then some smaller photos I couldn't make out very
well. “Can I see that?”
He folded it up but didn't hand it over. “Why isn't she your friend, Bryce?”
“Because she's …” I shook my head and said, “You'd have to know Juli.”
“I'd like to.”
“What? Why?”
“Because the girl's got an iron backbone. Why don't you invite her over sometime?”
“An iron backbone? Granddad, you don't understand! That girl is a royal pain. She's a
show-
off, she's a know-it-all, and she is pushy beyond
belief!”
“Is that so.”
“Yes! That's absolutely so! And she's been stalking me since the second grade!”
He frowned, then looked out the window and asked, “They've lived there that long?”
“I think they were all born there!”
He frowned some more before he looked back at me and said, “A girl like that doesn't
live
next door to everyone, you know.”
“Lucky them!”
He studied me, long and hard. I said, “What?” but he didn't flinch. He just kept staring
at me,
and I couldn't take it — I had to look away.
Keep in mind that this was the first real conversation I'd had with my grandfather. This
was
the first time he'd made the effort to talk to me about
something besides passing the salt. And does he want to get to know me? No! He
wants to
know about Juli!
I couldn't just stand up and leave, even though that's what I felt like doing. Somehow I
knew
if I left like that, he'd quit talking to me at all. Even
about salt. So I sat there feeling sort of tortured. Was he mad at me? How could he
be mad
at me? I hadn't done anything wrong!
When I looked up, he was sitting there holding out the newspaper to me. “Read this,”
he said.
“Without prejudice.”
I took it, and when he went back to looking out the window, I knew — I'd been
dismissed.
By the time I got down to my room, I was mad. I slammed my bedroom door and
flopped
down on the bed, and after fuming about my sorry
excuse for a grandfather for a while, I shoved the newspaper in the bottom drawer of
my
desk. Like I needed to know any more about Juli Baker.
At dinner my mother asked me why I was so sulky, and she kept looking from me to
my
grandfather. Granddad didn't seem to need any salt,
which was a good thing because I might have thrown the shaker at him.
My sister and dad were all business as usual, though. Lynetta ate about two raisins
out of
her carrot salad, then peeled the skin and meat off her
chicken wing and nibbled gristle off the bone, while my father filled up airspace talking
about
office politics and the need for a shakedown in upper
management.
No one was listening to him — no one ever does when he gets on one of his
if-I-ran-the-
circus jags — but for once Mom wasn't even pretending.
And for once she wasn't trying to convince Lynetta that dinner was delicious either.
She just
kept eyeing me and Granddad, trying to pick up on why
we were miffed at each other.
Not that he had anything to be miffed at me about. What had I done to him, anyway?
Nothing.
Nada. But he was, I could tell. And I completely
avoided looking at him until about halfway through dinner, when I sneaked a peek.
He was studying me, all right. And even though it wasn't a mean stare, or a hard stare,
it was,
you know, firm. Steady. And it weirded me out.
What was his deal?
I didn't look at him again. Or at my mother. I just went back to eating and pretended to
listen
to my dad. And the first chance I got, I excused myself
and holed up in my room.
I was planning to call my friend Garrett like I usually do when I'm bent about
something. I
even punched in his number, but I don't know. I just hung
later when my mom came in, I faked like I was sleeping. I haven't done that in
years.
The whole night was weird like that. I just wanted to be
left alone.
Juli wasn't at the bus stop the next morning. Or Friday morning. She was at school,
but you'd
never know it if you didn't actually look. She didn't whip
her hand through the air trying to get the teacher to call on her or charge through the
halls
getting to class. She didn't make unsolicited comments for
the teacher's edification or challenge the kids who took cuts in the milk line. She just
sat.
Quiet.
I told myself I should be glad about it — it was like she wasn't even there, and isn't
that what
I'd always wanted? But still, I felt bad. About her tree,
about how she hurried off to eat by herself in the library at lunch, about how her eyes
were
red around the edges. I wanted to tell her, Man, I'm sorry
about your sycamore tree, but the words never seemed to come out.
By the middle of the next week, they'd finished taking down the tree. They cleared the
lot and
even tried to pull up the stump, but that sucker would
not budge, so they wound up grinding it down into the dirt.
Juli still didn't show at the bus stop, and by the end of the week I learned from Garrett
that
she was riding a bike. He said he'd seen her on the
side of the road twice that week, putting the chain back on the derailleur of a rusty old
ten-
speed.
I figured she'd be back. It was a long ride out to Mayfield Junior High, and once she
got over
the tree, she'd start riding the bus again. I even
caught myself looking for her. Not on the lookout, just looking.
Then one day it rained and I thought for sure she'd be up at the bus stop, but no.
Garrett said
he saw her trucking along on her bike in a bright
yellow poncho, and in math I noticed that her pants were still soaked from the knees
down.
When math let out, I started to chase after her to tell her that she ought to try riding
the bus
again, but I stopped myself in the nick of time. What
was I thinking? That Juli wouldn't take a little friendly concern and completely
misinterpret it?
Whoa now, buddy, beware! Better to just leave well
enough alone.
After all, the last thing I needed was for Juli Baker to think I missed her.

The Sycamore Tree
I love to watch my father paint. Or really, I love to hear him talk while he paints. The
words
always come out soft and somehow heavy when he's
brushing on the layers of a landscape. Not sad. Weary, maybe, but peaceful.
My father doesn't have a studio or anything, and since the garage is stuffed with
things that
everyone thinks they need but no one ever uses, he
paints outside.
Outside is where the best landscapes are, only they're nowhere near our house. So
what he
does is keep a camera in his truck. His job as a
mason takes him to lots of different locations, and he's always on the lookout for a
great
sunrise or sunset, or even just a nice field with sheep or
cows. Then he picks out one of the snapshots, clips it to his easel, and paints.
The paintings come out fine, but I've always felt a little sorry for him, having to paint
beautiful
scenes in our backyard, which is not exactly
picturesque. It never was much of a yard, but after I started raising chickens, things
didn't
exactly improve.
Dad doesn't seem to see the backyard or the chickens when he's painting, though.
It's not
just the snapshot or the canvas he sees either. It's
something much bigger. He gets this look in his eye like he's transcended the yard,
the
neighborhood, the world. And as his big, callused hands
sweep a tiny brush against the canvas, it's almost like his body has been possessed
by some
graceful spiritual being.
When I was little, my dad would let me sit beside him on the porch while he painted,
as long
as I'd be quiet. I don't do quiet easily, but I discovered
that after five or ten minutes without a peep, he'd start talking.
I've learned a lot about my dad that way. He told me all sorts of stories about what
he'd done
when he was my age, and other things, too—like
how he got his first job delivering hay, and how he wished he'd finished college.
When I got a little older, he still talked about himself and his childhood, but he also
started
asking questions about me. What were we learning at
school? What book was I currently reading? What did I think about this or that.
Then one time he surprised me and asked me about Bryce. Why was I so crazy about
Bryce?
I told him about his eyes and his hair and the way his cheeks blush, but I don't think I
explained it very well because when I was done Dad shook
his head and told me in soft, heavy words that I needed to start looking at the whole
landscape.
I didn't really know what he meant by that, but it made me want to argue with him.
How could
he possibly understand about Bryce? He didn't know
him!
But this was not an arguing spot. Those were scattered throughout the house, but not
out
here.
We were both quiet for a record- breaking amount of time before he kissed me on the
forehead and said, “Proper lighting is everything, Julianna.”
Proper lighting? What was that supposed to mean? I sat there wondering, but I was
afraid
that by asking I'd be admitting that I wasn't mature
enough to understand, and for some reason it felt obvious. Like I should understand.
After that he didn't talk so much about events as he did about ideas. And the older I
got, the
more philosophical he seemed to get. I don't know if
he really got more philosophical or if he just thought I could handle it now that I was in
the
double digits.
Mostly the things he talked about floated around me, but once in a while something
would
happen and I would understand exactly what he had
meant. “A painting is more than the sum of its parts,” he would tell me, and then go on
to
explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow
by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a
beam of
light, but put them all together and you've got magic.
I understood what he was saying, but I never felt what he was saying until one day
when I
was up in the sycamore tree.
The sycamore tree had been at the top of the hill forever. It was on a big vacant lot,
giving
shade in the summer and a place for birds to nest in the
spring. It had a built-in slide for us, too. Its trunk bent up and around in almost a
complete
spiral, and it was so much fun to ride down. My mom told
me she thought the tree must have been damaged as a sapling but survived, and
now,
maybe a hundred years later, it was still there, the biggest
tree she'd ever seen. “A testimony to endurance” is what she called it.
I had always played in the tree, but I didn't become a serious climber until the fifth
grade,
when I went up to rescue a kite that was stuck in its
branches. I'd first spotted the kite floating free through the air and then saw it
dive-bomb
somewhere up the hill by the sycamore tree.
I've flown kites before and I know—sometimes they're gone forever, and sometimes
they're
just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue
them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I've had both kinds, and a lucky kite is
definitely worth chasing after.
This kite looked lucky to me. It wasn't anything fancy, just an old-fashioned diamond
with
blue and yellow stripes. But it stuttered along in a friendly
way, and when it dive-bombed, it seemed to do so from exhaustion as opposed to
spite.
Ornery kites dive-bomb out of spite. They never get
exhausted because they won't stay up long enough to poop out. Thirty feet up they
just sort
of smirk at you and crash for the fun of it.
So Champ and I ran up to Collier Street, and after scouting out the road, Champ
started
barking at the sycamore tree. I looked up and spotted it,
too, flashing blue and yellow through the branches.
It was a long ways up, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I shinnied up the trunk, took a
shortcut
across the slide, and started climbing. Champ kept a
good eye on me, barking me along, and soon I was higher than I'd ever been. But still
the
kite seemed forever away.
Then below me I noticed Bryce coming around the corner and through the vacant lot.
And I
could tell from the way he was looking up that this was
his kite.
What a lucky, lucky kite this was turning out to be!
“Can you climb that high?” he called up to me.
“Sure!” I called back. And up, up, up I went!
The branches were strong, with just the right amount of intersections to make
climbing easy.
And the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the
view. I'd never seen a view like that! It was like being in an airplane above all the
rooftops,
above the other trees. Above the world!
Then I looked down. Down at Bryce. And suddenly I got dizzy and weak in the knees.
I was
miles off the ground! Bryce shouted, “Can you reach
it?”
I caught my breath and managed to call down, “No problem!” then forced myself to
concentrate on those blue and yellow stripes, to focus on them
and only them as I shinnied up, up, up. Finally I touched it; I grasped it; I had the kite
in my
hand!
But the string was tangled in the branches above and I couldn't seem to pull it free.
Bryce
called, “Break the string!” and somehow I managed to
do just that.
When I had the kite free, I needed a minute to rest. To recover before starting down.
So
instead of looking at the ground below me, I held on tight
and looked out. Out across the rooftops.
That's when the fear of being up so high began to lift, and in its place came the most
amazing feeling that I was flying. Just soaring above the
earth, sailing among the clouds.
Then I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. It smelled like … sunshine.
Like
sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain! I
couldn't stop breathing it in, filling my lungs again and again with the sweetest smell
I'd ever
known.
Bryce called up, “Are you stuck?” which brought me down to earth. Carefully I backed
up,
prized stripes in hand, and as I worked my way down, I
could see Bryce circling the tree, watching me to make sure I was okay.
By the time I hit the slide, the heady feeling I'd had in the tree was changing into the
heady
realization that Bryce and I were alone.
Alone!
My heart was positively racing as I held the kite out to him. But before he could take it,
Champ nudged me from behind and I could feel his cold,
wet nose against my skin.
Against my skin?!
I grabbed my jeans in back, and that's when I realized the seat of my pants was
ripped wide
open.
Bryce laughed a little nervous laugh, so I could tell he knew, and for once mine were
the
cheeks that were beet red. He took his kite and ran off,
leaving me to inspect the damage.
I did eventually get over the embarrassment of my jeans, but I never got over the view.
I kept
thinking of what it felt like to be up so high in that tree.
I wanted to see it, to feel it, again. And again.
It wasn't long before I wasn't afraid of being up so high and found the spot that
became my
spot. I could sit there for hours, just looking out at the
world. Sunsets were amazing. Some days they'd be purple and pink, some days
they'd be a
blazing orange, setting fire to clouds across the
horizon.
It was on a day like that when my father's notion of the whole being greater than the
sum of
its parts moved from my head to my heart. The view
from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors
combined.
It was magic.
And I started marveling at how I was feeling both humble and majestic. How was that
possible? How could I be so full of peace and full of
wonder? How could this simple tree make me feel so complex? So alive.
I went up the tree every chance I got. And in junior high that became almost every
day
because the bus to our school picks up on Collier Street,
right in front of the sycamore tree.
At first I just wanted to see how high I could get before the bus pulled up, but before
long I
was leaving the house early so I could get clear up to
my spot to see the sun rise, or the birds flutter about, or just the other kids converge
on the
curb.
I tried to convince the kids at the bus stop to climb up with me, even a little ways, but
all of
them said they didn't want to get dirty. Turn down a
chance to feel magic for fear of a little dirt? I couldn't believe it.
I'd never told my mother about climbing the tree. Being the truly sensible adult that
she is,
she would have told me it was too dangerous. My
brothers, being brothers, wouldn't have cared.
That left my father. The one person I knew would understand. Still, I was afraid to tell
him.
He'd tell my mother and pretty soon they'd insist that I
stop. So I kept quiet, kept climbing, and felt a somewhat lonely joy as I looked out
over the
world.
Then a few months ago I found myself talking to the tree. An entire conversation, just
me and
a tree. And on the climb down I felt like crying. Why
didn't I have someone real to talk to? Why didn't I have a best friend like everyone
else
seemed to? Sure, there were kids I knew at school, but none
of them were close friends. They'd have no interest in climbing the tree. In smelling
the
sunshine.
That night after dinner my father went outside to paint. In the cold of the night, under
the
glare of the porch light, he went out to put the finishing
touches on a sunrise he'd been working on.
I got my jacket and went out to sit beside him, quiet as a mouse.
After a few minutes he said, “What's on your mind, sweetheart?”
In all the times I'd sat out there with him, he'd never asked me that. I looked at him but
couldn't seem to speak.
He mixed two hues of orange together, and very softly he said, “Talk to me.”
I sighed so heavily it surprised even me. “I understand why you come out here, Dad.”
He tried kidding me. “Would you mind explaining it to your mother?”
“Really, Dad. I understand now about the whole being greater than the sum of the
parts.”
He stopped mixing. “You do? What happened? Tell me about it!”
So I told him about the sycamore tree. About the view and the sounds and the colors
and the
wind, and how being up so high felt like flying. Felt
like magic.
He didn't interrupt me once, and when my confession was through, I looked at him
and
whispered, “Would you climb up there with me?”
He thought about this a long time, then smiled and said, “I'm not much of a climber
anymore,
Julianna, but I'll give it a shot, sure. How about this
weekend, when we've got lots of daylight to work with?”
“Great!”
I went to bed so excited that I don't think I slept more than five minutes the whole
night.
Saturday was right around the corner. I couldn't wait!
The next morning I raced to the bus stop extra early and climbed the tree. I caught the
sun
rising through the clouds, sending streaks of fire from
one end of the world to the other. And I was in the middle of making a mental list of all
the
things I was going to show my father when I heard a noise
below.
I looked down, and parked right beneath me were two trucks. Big trucks. One of them
was
towing a long, empty trailer, and the other had a cherry
picker on it—the kind they use to work on overhead power lines and telephone poles.
There were four men standing around talking, drinking from thermoses, and I almost
called
down to them, “I'm sorry, but you can't park there….
That's a bus stop!” But before I could, one of the men reached into the back of a truck
and
started unloading tools. Gloves. Ropes. A chain.
Earmuffs. And then chain saws. Three chain saws.
And still I didn't get it. I kept looking around for what it was they could possibly be
there to cut
down. Then one of the kids who rides the bus
showed up and started talking to them, and pretty soon he was pointing up at me.
One of the men called, “Hey! You better come down from there. We gotta take this
thing
down.”
I held on to the branch tight, because suddenly it felt as though I might fall. I managed
to
choke out, “The tree?”
“Yeah, now come on down.”
“But who told you to cut it down?”
“The owner!” he called back.
“But why?”
Even from forty feet up I could see him scowl. “Because he's gonna build himself a
house,
and he can't very well do that with this tree in the way.
Now come on, girl, we've got work to do!”
By that time most of the kids had gathered for the bus. They weren't saying anything
to me,
just looking up at me and turning from time to time to
talk to each other. Then Bryce appeared, so I knew the bus was about to arrive. I
searched
across the rooftops and sure enough, there it was, less
than four blocks away.
My heart was crazy with panic. I didn't know what to do! I couldn't leave and let them
cut
down the tree! I cried, “You can't cut it down! You just
can't!”
One of the men shook his head and said, “I am this close to calling the police. You
are
trespassing and obstructing progress on a contracted job.
Now are you going to come down or are we going to cut you down?”
The bus was three blocks away. I'd never missed school for any reason other than
legitimate
illness, but I knew in my heart that I was going to
miss my ride. “You're going to have to cut me down!” I yelled. Then I had an idea.
They'd
never cut it down if all of us were in the tree. They'd have to
listen! “Hey, guys!” I called to my classmates. “Get up here with me! They can't cut it
down if
we're all up here! Marcia! Tony! Bryce! C'mon, you
guys, don't let them do this!”
They just stood there, staring up at me.
I could see the bus, one block away. “Come on, you guys! You don't have to come up
this
high. Just a little ways. Please!”
The bus blasted up and pulled to the curb in front of the trucks, and when the doors
folded
open, one by one my classmates climbed on board.
What happened after that is a bit of a blur. I remember the neighbors gathering, and
the
police with megaphones. I remember the fire brigade,
and some guy saying it was his blasted tree and I'd darn well better get out of it.
Somebody tracked down my mother, who cried and pleaded and acted not at all the
way a
sensible mother should, but I was not coming down. I
was not coming down.
Then my father came racing up. He jumped out of his pickup truck, and after talking
with my
mother for a few minutes, he got the guy in the cherry
picker to give him a lift up to where I was. After that it was all over. I started crying and
tried
to get him to look out over the rooftops, but he wouldn't.
He said that no view was worth his little girl's safety.
He got me down and he took me home, only I couldn't stay there. I couldn't stand the
sound
of chain saws in the distance.
So Dad took me with him to work, and while he put up a block wall, I sat in his truck
and cried.
I must've cried for two weeks straight. Oh, sure, I went to school and I functioned the
best I
could, but I didn't go there on the bus. I started riding
my bike instead, taking the long way so I wouldn't have to go up to Collier Street. Up
to a pile
of sawdust that used to be the earth's most
magnificent sycamore tree.
Then one evening when I was locked up in my room, my father came in with
something
under a towel. I could tell it was a painting because that's
how he transports the important ones when he shows them in the park. He sat down,
resting
the painting on the floor in front of him. “I always liked
that tree of yours,” he said. “Even before you told me about it.”
“Oh, Dad, it's okay. I'll get over it.”
“No, Julianna. No, you won't.”
I started crying. “It was just a tree….”
“I never want you to convince yourself of that. You and I both know it isn't true.”
“But Dad…”
“Bear with me a minute, would you?” He took a deep breath. “I want the spirit of that
tree to
be with you always. I want you to remember how you
felt when you were up there.” He hesitated a moment, then handed me the painting.
“So I
made this for you.”
I pulled off the towel, and there was my tree. My beautiful, majestic sycamore tree.
Through
the branches he'd painted the fire of sunrise, and it
seemed to me I could feel the wind. And way up in the tree was a tiny girl looking off
into the
distance, her cheeks flushed with wind. With joy. With
magic.
“Don't cry, Julianna. I want it to help you, not hurt you.” I wiped the tears from my
cheeks and
gave a mighty sniff. “Thank you, Daddy,” I choked out.
“Thank you.”
I hung the painting across the room from my bed. It's the first thing I see every
morning and
the last thing I see every night. And now that I can look
at it without crying, I see more than the tree and what being up in its branches meant
to me.
I see the day that my view of things around me started changing.

Brawk-Brawk-Brawk!
Eggs scare me. Chickens, too. And buddy, you can laugh at that all you want, but I'm
being
dead serious here.
It started in the sixth grade with eggs.
And a snake.
And the Baker brothers.
The Baker brothers' names are Matt and Mike, but even now I can't tell you which
one's
which. You never see one without the other. And even
though they're not twins, they do look and sound pretty much the same, and they're
both in
Lynetta's class, so maybe one of them got held back.
Although I can't exactly see a teacher voluntarily having either of those maniacs two
years in
a row.
Regardless, Matt and Mike are the ones who taught me that snakes eat eggs. And
when I
say they eat eggs, I'm talking they eat them raw and
shell-on whole.
I probably would've gone my entire life without this little bit of reptilian trivia if it hadn't
been
for Lynetta. Lynetta had this major-league thing for
Skyler Brown, who lives about three blocks down, and every chance she got, she
went down
there to hang out while he practiced the drums. Well,
boom-boom-whap, what did I care, right? But then Skyler and Juli's brothers formed a
band,
which they named Mystery Pisser.
When my mom heard about it, she completely wigged out. “What kind of parents
would allow
their children to be in a band named Mystery
Pisser? It's vile. It's disgusting!”
“That's the whole point, Mom,” Lynetta tried to explain. “It doesn't mean anything. It's
just to
get a rise out of old people.”
“Are you calling me old, young lady? Because it's certainly getting a rise out of me!”
Lynetta just shrugged, implying that my mom could draw her own conclusion.
“Go! Go to your room,” my mother snapped.
“For what?” Lynetta snapped back. “I didn't say a thing!”
“You know perfectly well what for. Now you go in there and adjust your attitude,
young lady!”
So Lynetta got another one of her teenage time-outs, and after that any time Lynetta
was two
minutes late coming home for dinner, my mother
would messenger me down to Skyler's house to drag her home. It might have been
embarrassing for Lynetta, but it was worse for me. I was still in
elementary school, and the Mystery Pisser guys were in high school. They were ripe
and
ragged, raging power chords through the neighborhood,
while I looked like I'd just gotten back from Sunday school.
I'd get so nervous going down there that my voice would squeak when I'd tell Lynetta
it was
time for dinner. It literally squeaked. But after a while
the band dropped Mystery from their name, and Pisser and its entourage got used to
me
showing up. And instead of glaring at me, they started
saying stuff like, “Hey, baby brother, come on in!” “Hey, Brycie boy, wanna jam?”
This, then, is how I wound up in Skyler Brown's garage, surrounded by high school
kids,
watching a boa constrictor swallow eggs. Since I'd
already seen it down a rat in the Baker brothers' bedroom, Pisser had lost at least
some of
the element of surprise. Plus, I picked up on the fact that
they'd been saving this little show to freak me out, and I really didn't want to give them
the
satisfaction.
This wasn't easy, though, because watching a snake swallow an egg is actually much
creepier than you might think. The boa opened its mouth to
an enormous size, then just took the egg in and glub! We could see it roll down its
throat.
But that wasn't all. After the snake had glubbed down three eggs, Matt-or-Mike said,
“So,
Brycie boy, how's he gonna digest those?”
I shrugged and tried not to squeak when I answered, “Stomach acid?”
He shook his head and pretended to confide, “He needs a tree. Or a leg.” He grinned
at me.
“Wanna volunteer yours?”
I backed away a little. I could just see that monster try to swallow my leg whole as an
after-
egg chaser. “N-no!”
He laughed and pointed at the boa slithering across the room. “Aw, too bad. He's
going the
other way. He's gonna use the piano instead!”
The piano! What kind of snake was this? How could my sister stand being in the
same room
as these dementos? I looked at her, and even
though she was pretending to be cool with the snake, I know Lynetta — she was
totally
creeped out by it.
The snake wrapped itself around the piano leg about three times, and then
Matt-or-Mike put
his hands up and said, “Shhh! Shhh! Everybody
quiet. Here goes!”
The snake stopped moving, then flexed. And as it flexed, we could hear the eggs
crunch
inside him. “Oh, gross!” the girls wailed. “Whoa, dude!”
the guys all said. Mike and Matt smiled at each other real big and said, “Dinner is
served!”
I tried to act cool about the snake, but the truth is I started having bad dreams about
the thing
swallowing eggs. And rats. And cats.
And me.
Then the real-life nightmare began.
One morning about two weeks after the boa show in Skyler's garage, Juli appears on
our
doorstep, and what's she got in her hands? A halfcarton
of eggs. She bounces around like it's Christmas, saying, “Hiya, Bryce! Remember
Abby and
Bonnie and Clyde and Dexter? Eunice and
Florence?”
I just stared at her. Somehow I remembered Santa's reindeer a little different than
that.
“You know … my chickens? The ones I hatched for the science fair last year?”
“Oh, right. How could I forget.”
“They're laying eggs!” She pushed the carton into my hands. “Here, take these!
They're for
you and your family.”
“Oh. Uh, thanks,” I said, and closed the door.
I used to really like eggs. Especially scrambled, with bacon or sausage. But even
without the
little snake incident, I knew that no matter what you
did to these eggs, they would taste nothing but foul to me. These eggs came from the
chickens that had been the chicks that had hatched from the
eggs that had been incubated by Juli Baker for our fifth-grade science fair.
It was classic Juli. She totally dominated the fair, and get this — her project was all
about
watching eggs. My friend, there is not a lot of action to
report on when you're incubating eggs. You've got your light, you've got your
container,
you've got some shredded newspaper, and that's it. You're
done.
Juli, though, managed to write an inch-thick report, plus she made diagrams and
charts —
I'm talking line charts and bar charts and pie charts —
about the activity of eggs. Eggs!
She also managed to time the eggs so that they'd hatch the night of the fair. How
does a
person do that? Here I've got a live-action erupting
volcano that I've worked pretty stinking hard on, and all anybody cares about is Juli's
chicks
pecking out of their shells. I even went over to take a
look for myself, and — I'm being completely objective here — it was boring. They
pecked for
about five seconds, then just lay there for five minutes.
I got to hear Juli jabber away to the judges, too. She had a pointer — can you believe
that?
Not a pencil, an actual retractable pointer, so she
could reach across her incubator and tap on this chart or that diagram as she
explained the
excitement of watching eggs grow for twenty-one days.
The only thing she could've done to be more overboard was put on a chicken
costume, and
buddy, I'm convinced — if she'd thought of it, she would
have done it.
But hey — I was over it. It was just Juli being Juli, right? But all of a sudden there I am
a year
later, holding a carton of home- grown eggs. And I'm
having a hard time not getting annoyed all over again about her stupid blue-ribbon
project
when my mother leans out from the hallway and says,
“Who was that, honey? What have you got there? Eggs?”
I could tell by the look on her face that she was hot to scramble. “Yeah,” I said, and
handed
them to her. “But I'm having cereal.”
She opened the carton, then closed it with a smile. “How nice!” she said. “Who
brought them
over?”
“Juli. She grew them.”
“Grew them?”
“Well, her chickens did.”
“Oh?” Her smile started falling as she opened the carton again. “Is that so. I didn't
know she
had… chickens.”
“Remember? You and Dad spent an hour watching them hatch at last year's science
fair?”
“Well, how do we know there're not … chicks inside these eggs?”
I shrugged. “Like I said, I'm having cereal.”
We all had cereal, but what we talked about were eggs. My dad thought they'd be just
fine —
he'd had farm-fresh eggs when he was a kid and
said they were delicious. My mother, though, couldn't get past the idea that she might
be
cracking open a dead chick, and pretty soon discussion
turned to the role of the rooster — something me and my Cheerios could've done
without.
Finally Lynetta said, “If they had a rooster, don't you think we'd know? Don't you think
the
whole neighborhood would know?”
Hmmm, we all said, good point. But then my mom pipes up with, “Maybe they got it
de-
yodeled. You know — like they de-bark dogs?”
“A de-yodeled rooster,” my dad says, like it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.
Then
he looks at my mom and realizes that he'd be way
better off going along with her de-yodeled idea than making fun of her. “Hmmm,” he
says,
“I've never heard of such a thing, but maybe so.”
Lynetta shrugs and says to my mom, “So just ask them, why don't you. Call up Mrs.
Baker
and ask her.”
“Oh,” my mom says. “Well, I'd hate to call her eggs into question. It doesn't seem very
polite,
now, does it?”
“Just ask Matt or Mike,” I say to Lynetta.
She scowls at me and hisses, “Shut up.”
“What? What'd I do now?”
“Haven't you noticed I haven't been going down there, you idiot?”
“Lynetta!” my mom says. Like this is the first time she's heard my sister talk to me or
something.
“Well, it's true! How can he not have noticed?” “I was going to ask you about that,
honey. Did
something happen?”
Lynetta stands up and shoves her chair in. “Like you care,” she snaps, and charges
down to
her room.
“Oh, boy,” my dad says.
Mom says, “Excuse me,” and follows Lynetta down the hall.
When my mother's gone, my dad says, “So, son, why don't you just ask Juli?”
“Dad!”
“It's just a little question, Bryce. No harm, no foul.”
“But it'll get me a half-hour answer!”
He studies me for a minute, then says, “No boy should be this afraid of a girl.”
“I'm not afraid of her…!”
“I think you are.”
“Dad!”
“Seriously, son. I want you to get us an answer. Conquer your fear and get us an
answer.”
“To whether or not they have a rooster?”
“That's right.” He gets up and clears his cereal bowl, saying, “I've got to get to work
and
you've got to get to school. I'll expect a report tonight.”
Great. Just great. The day was doomed before it had started. But then at school when
I told
Garrett about what had happened, he just shrugged
and said, “Well, she lives right across the street from you, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So just go look over the fence.”
“You mean spy?”
“Sure.”
“But … how can I tell if one of them's a rooster or not?”
“Roosters are …I don't know… bigger. And they have more feathers.”
“Feathers? Like I've got to go and count feathers?”
“No, stupid! My mom says that the male's always brighter.” Then he laughs and says,
“Although in your case I'm not so sure.”
“Thanks. You are giving me big- time help here, buddy. I really appreciate it.”
“Look, a rooster's going to be bigger and have brighter feathers. You know, those
long ones
in the back? They're redder or blacker or whatever.
And don't roosters have some rubbery red stuff growing off the top of their head? And
some
off their neck, too? Yeah, the rooster's got all sorts of
rubbery red stuff all around its face.”
“So you're saying I'm supposed to look over the fence for big feathers and rubbery
red stuff.”
“Well, come to think of it, chickens have that rubbery red stuff, too. Just not as much
of it.”
I rolled my eyes at him and was about to say, Forget it, I'll just ask Juli, but then he
says, “I'll
come with you if you want.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, dude. Seriously.”
And that, my friend, is how I wound up spying over the Bakers' back fence with
Garrett
Anderson at three-thirty that afternoon. Not my choice of
covert operations, but a necessary one in order to report back to my dad that night at
dinner.
We got there fast, too. The bell rang and we basically charged off campus because I
figured
if we got to the Bakers' quick enough, we could look
and leave before Juli was anywhere near her house. We didn't even drop off our
backpacks.
We went straight down the alley and started spying.
It's not really necessary to look over the Bakers' fence. You can see almost as well
looking
through it. But Garrett kept sticking his head up, so I
figured I should too, although in the back of my mind I was aware that Garrett didn't
have to
live in this neighborhood — I did.
The backyard was a mess. Big surprise. The bushes were out of control, there was
some
kind of hodgepodge wood-and-wire coop off to one
side, and the yard wasn't grass, it was highly fertilized dirt.
Garrett was the first to notice their dog, sacked out on the patio between two
sorry-looking
folding chairs. He points at him and says, “You think
he's going to give us trouble?”
“We're not going to be here long enough to get in trouble! Where are those stupid
chickens?”
“Probably in the coop,” he says, then picks up a rock and throws it at the mess of
plywood
and chicken wire.
At first all we hear is a bunch of feathers flapping, but then one of the birds comes
fluttering
out. Not very far, but enough so we can see it's got
feathers and rubbery red stuff.
“So?” I ask him. “Is that a rooster?”
He shrugs. “Looks like a chicken to me.”
“How can you tell?”
He shrugs again. “Just does.”
We watch it scratching at the dirt for a minute, and then I ask, “What's a hen,
anyway?”
“A hen?”
“Yeah. You got roosters, you got chickens, and then there's hens. What's a hen?”
“It's one of those,” he says, pointing into the Bakers' backyard.
“Then what's a chicken?”
He looks at me like I'm crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“Chickens! What's a chicken?”
He takes a step back from me and says, “Brycie boy, you are losin' it. That's a
chicken!” He
stoops down to pick up another rock, and he's just
about to let it fly when the sliding-glass door to the back patio opens up and Juli steps
outside.
We both duck. And as we're checking her out through the fence, I say, “When did she
get
home?”
Garrett grumbles, “While you were losing it about chickens.” Then he whispers, “But
hey,
this'll work great. She's got a basket, right? She's
probably coming out to collect eggs.”
First she had to get all mushy with that mangy mutt of hers. She got down and
nuzzled and
ruffled and patted and hugged, telling him what a good
boy he was. And when she finally let him go back to sleep, she had to stop and coo at
the
bird Garrett had scared out, and then she started singing.
Singing. At the top of her lungs, she goes, “I've got sunshine on a cloudy day. When
it's
cold outsi-ye-yide, I've got the month of May. I guess
you'd say, what can make me feel this way? My girls. Talkin' 'bout my little
gir-ur-rls …”
She looks inside the coop and coos, “Hello, Flo! Good
afternoon, Bonnie! Come on out, punkin!”
The coop wasn't big enough for her to walk in. It was more like a mini lean-to shack
that even
her dog would have trouble crawling in. Does that
stop Juli Baker? No. She gets down on her hands and knees and dives right in.
Chickens
come squawking and flapping out, and pretty soon the
yard's full of birds, and all we can see of Juli is her poop-covered shoes.
That's not all we can hear, though. She's warbling inside that coop, going, “I don't
need
money, no fortune or faaa-ya-yame. I got all the riches,
baby, anyone can claim. Well, I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way?
My
girls. Talkin' 'bout my little gir-ur-rls, my girls…”
At this point I wasn't checking the chickens out for rubbery red stuff or feathers. I was
looking
at the bottom of Juli Baker's feet, wondering how in
the world a person could be so happy tunneling through a dilapidated chicken coop
with
poop stuck all over her shoes.
Garrett got me back on track. “They're all chickens,” he says. “Look at 'em.”
I quit checking out Juli's shoes and started checking out birds. The first thing I did was
count
them. One- two-three-four-five-six. All accounted for.
After all, how could anyone forget she'd hatched six? It was the all-time school record

everyone in the county had heard about that.
But I was not really sure how to ask Garrett about what he had said. Yeah, they were
all
chickens, but what did that mean? I sure didn't want him
coming down on me again, but it still didn't make sense. Finally I asked him, “You
mean
there's no rooster?”
“Correctomundo.”
“How can you tell?”
He shrugged. “Roosters strut.”
“Strut.”
“That's right. And look — none of them have long feathers. Or very much of that
rubbery red
stuff.” He nodded. “Yeah. They're definitely all
chickens.”
That night my father got right to the point. “So, son, mission accomplished?” he asked
as he
stabbed into a mountain of fettuccine and whirled his
fork around.
I attacked my noodles too and gave him a smile. “Uhhuh,” I said as I sat up tall to
deliver the
news. “They're all chickens.”
The turning of his fork came to a grinding halt. “And…?”
I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I tried to keep the smile
plastered
on my face as I said, “And what?”
He rested his fork and stared at me. “Is that what she said? ‘They're all chickens’?”
“Uh, not exactly.”
“Then exactly what did she say?”
“Uh … she didn't exactly say anything.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I went over there and took a look for myself.” I tried very hard to sound like
this was
a major accomplishment, but he wasn't buying.
“You didn't ask her?”
“I didn't have to. Garrett knows a lot about chickens, and we went over there and
found out
for ourselves.”
Lynetta came back from rinsing the Romano sauce off her seven and a half noodles,
then
reached for the salt and scowled at me, saying, “You're
the chicken.”
“Lynetta!” my mother said. “Be nice.”
Lynetta stopped shaking the salt. “Mother, he spied. You get it? He went over there
and
looked over the fence. Are you saying you're okay with
that?”
My mom turned to me. “Bryce? Is that true?”
Everyone was staring at me now, and I felt like I had to save face. “What's the big
deal? You
told me to find out about her chickens, and I found
out about her chickens!”
“Brawk-brawk-brawk!” my sister whispered.
My father still wasn't eating. “And what you found out,” he said, like he was measuring
every
word, “was that they're all… chickens.”
“Right.”
He sighed, then took that bite of noodles and chewed it for the longest time.
It felt like I was sinking fast, but I couldn't figure out why. So I tried to bail out with,
“And you
guys can go ahead and eat those eggs, but there's no
way I'm going to touch them, so don't even ask.”
My mother's looking back and forth from my dad to me while she eats her salad, and I
can
tell she's waiting for him to address my adventure as a
neighborhood operative. But since he's not saying anything, she clears her throat and
says,
“Why's that?”
“Because there's … well, there's …I don't know how to say this nicely.”
“Just say it,” my father snaps.
“Well, there's, you know, excrement everywhere.”
“Oh, gross!” my sister says, throwing down her fork.
“You mean chicken droppings?” my mother asks.
“Yeah. There's not even a lawn. It's all dirt and, uh, you know, chicken turds. The
chickens
walk in it and peck through it and…”
“Oh, gross!” Lynetta wails.
“Well, it's true!”
Lynetta stands up and says, “You expect me to eat after this?” and stalks out of the
room.
“Lynetta! You have to eat something,” my mother calls after her.
“No, I don't!” she shouts back; then a second later she sticks her head back into the
dining
room and says, “And don't expect me to eat any of
those eggs either, Mother. Does the word salmonella mean anything to you?”
Lynetta takes off down the hall and my mother says, “Salmonella?” She turns to my
father.
“Do you suppose they could have salmonella?”
“I don't know, Patsy. I'm more concerned that our son is a coward.”
“A coward! Rick, please. Bryce is no such thing. He's a wonderful child who's — ”
“Who's afraid of a girl.”
“Dad, I'm not afraid of her, she just bugs me!”
“Why?”
“You know why! She bugs you, too. She's over the top about everything!”
“Bryce, I asked you to conquer your fear, but all you did was give in to it. If you were
in love
with her, that would be one thing. Love is something to
be afraid of, but this, this is embarrassing. So she talks too much, so she's too
enthused
about every little thing, so what? Get in, get your question
answered, and get out. Stand up to her, for cryin' out loud!”
“Rick …,” my mom was saying, “Rick, calm down. He did find out what you asked him
to — ”
“No, he didn't!”
“What do you mean?”
“He tells me they're all chickens! Of course they're all chickens! The question is how
many
are hens, and how many are roosters.”
I could almost hear the click in my brain, and man, I felt like a complete doofus. No
wonder
he was disgusted with me. I was an idiot! They were
all chickens … du-uh! Garrett acted like he was some expert on chickens, and he
didn't know
diddly- squat! Why had I listened to him?
But it was too late. My dad was convinced I was a coward, and to get me over it, he
decided
that what I should do was take the carton of eggs
back to the Bakers and tell them we didn't eat eggs, or that we were allergic to them,
or
something.
Then my mom butts in with, “What are you teaching him here, Rick? None of that is
true. If
he returns them, shouldn't he tell them the truth?”
“What, that you're afraid of salmonella poisoning?”
“Me? Aren't you a little concerned, too?”
“Patsy, that's not the point. The point is, I will not have a coward for a son!”
“But teaching him to lie?”
“Fine. Then just throw them away. But from now on I expect you to look that little tiger
square
in the eye, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then.”
I was off the hook for all of about eight days. Then there she was again, at seven in
the
morning, bouncing up and down on our porch with eggs in
her hands. “Hi, Bryce! Here you go.”
I tried to look her square in the eye and tell her, No thanks, but she was so darned
happy,
and I wasn't really awake enough to tackle the tiger.
She wound up pushing another carton into my hands, and I wound up ditching them
in the
kitchen trash before my father sat down to breakfast.
This went on for two years. Two years! And it got to a point where it was just part of
my
morning routine. I'd be on the lookout for Juli so I could
whip the door open before she had the chance to knock or ring the bell, and then I'd
bury the
eggs in the trash before my dad showed up.
Then came the day I blew it. Juli'd actually been making herself pretty scarce
because it was
around the time they'd taken the sycamore tree
down, but suddenly one morning she was back on our doorstep, delivering eggs. I
took them,
as usual, and I went to chuck them, as usual. But the
kitchen trash was so full that there wasn't any room for the carton, so I put it on top,
picked
up the trash, and beat it out the front door to empty
everything into the garbage can outside.
Well, guess who's just standing there like a statue on my porch?
The Egg Chick.
I about spilled the trash all over the porch. “What are you still doing here?” I asked
her.
“I…I don't know. I was just … thinking.”
“About what?” I was desperate. I needed a distraction. Some way around her with this
garbage before she noticed what was sitting right there on
looked away like she was embarrassed. Juli Baker embarrassed? I didn't
think it was
possible.
Whatever. The golden opportunity to whip a soggy magazine over the egg carton had
presented itself, and buddy, I took it. Then I tried to make a
fast break for the garbage can in the side yard, only she body-blocked me. Seriously.
She
stepped right in my way and put her arms out like she's
guarding the goal.
She chased me and blocked me again. “What happened?” she wants to know. “Did
they
break?”
Perfect. Why hadn't I thought of that? “Yeah, Juli,” I told her. “And I'm real sorry about
that.”
But what I'm thinking is, Please, God, oh please, God,
let me make it to the garbage can.
God must've been sleeping in. Juli tackled the trash and pulled out her precious little
carton
of eggs, and she could tell right off that they weren't
broken. They weren't even cracked.
She stood frozen with the eggs in her hands while I dumped the rest of the trash.
“Why did
you throw them out?” she asked, but her voice didn't
sound like Juli Baker's voice. It was quiet. And shaky.
So I told her we were afraid of salmonella poisoning because her yard was a mess
and that
we were just trying to spare her feelings. I told it to

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