【正文】 t call to me as I was walking by — that would have bordered on friendliness. What he did 。t show at the bus stop the next morning and didn39。ve been too, I don39。d cut it down, but I didn39。為了一棵愚蠢的、我痛恨已久的樹而尖叫。大樹看起來搖搖欲墜，毫無還手之力，沒過多久，我就非得離開那里不可。頂部的樹枝，我的風(fēng)箏曾經(jīng)卡住的地方，她最最心愛的棲身之地——統(tǒng)統(tǒng)消失了。t seem to stop thinking about Juli. Was she still up in the tree? Were they going to arrest her? 我們登上校車，把她一個人留在那里，但這些都沒有用。但這時校車來了，我告訴自己不要卷進去，這不是我的樹，同樣這也不是朱莉的樹，雖然她表現(xiàn)得好像是她的。t Juli39。如果我們在這兒，他們就不敢砍樹了！”For a second I considered it. But then the bus arrived and I talked myself out of it. It wasn39。但她說絕不下樹，永遠也不，然后她試圖說服我們。t cut it down if we39。Everyone tried to talk her down. Even me. But she said she wasn39。但是一瞬間我的胃就抽搐起來。這棵樹長滿了多瘤的樹脂，糾結(jié)成難看的一團。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 world39。Chain saws. 那是一臺鏈鋸。她很好——對于任何一個耳朵沒有問題的人來說都聽得出來——但我不明白他們在吵什么。All the other kids started to gather under the tree, too, and I could hear them telling her she had to e down. She was fine — that was obvious to anyone with a pair of ears — but I couldn39。那天，我聽到山坡上一陣騷動，幾輛卡車停在克里爾街平時的校車站。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. That39。我設(shè)置了屬于自己的校車站，看到校車快到了，就沖到山坡上去登車。我再也不愿意跟這只從精神病院跑出來的發(fā)瘋的猴子一起在樹下等車了。d see the bus pull up, I39。ve got to e up here!” 她想叫我爬上去跟她待在一起：“布萊斯，上來呀！你絕對無法想象這兒的景色有多美！太神奇了！布萊斯，你一定要上來看看！”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，我都能想象出來：“布萊斯和朱莉坐在樹上……”二年級的往事，難道還陰魂不散嗎？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，我刻意地沒有向樹上看去，她忽然從樹杈上跳下來，生生地撞到了我。t believe the colors! It39。為什么？因為這樣她就能居高臨下地沖我們喊：校車離這兒還有五……四……三條街！一個掛在樹上的流水賬式的交通崗哨！每個初中同學(xué)每天早上聽到的第一句話就是她說的。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! Blowbyblow traffic watch from a tree — what every kid in junior high feels like hearing first thing in the morning. 最后她選擇了爬樹。Juli always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me. 朱莉總想站在我身邊，跟我說話，或者用別的什么方法來折磨我。我需要坐校車，而那個名字也不能提的人也是。我是個不折不扣的爬樹白癡。Mistake! 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 treeclimbing weenie. 大——錯——特——錯！我仿佛站在帝國大廈的頂層，沒系安全帶。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. 我默默地計算了一下她到底爬了多高，然后第二天計劃至少爬到比她高出兩根樹枝的位置。嘿，這真讓人尷尬。但朱莉不這么想。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. 我松了口氣，同時覺得自己太遜了。她只是把風(fēng)箏遞給我，然后轉(zhuǎn)身走了。為了取我的風(fēng)箏，她爬到特別高的地方，下來之后一臉淡定。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. 我確實試著爬過那棵樹，只有一次，在五年級。而我則把頭躲到車窗下面，祈禱在朱莉還沒把我的名字喊得震天響之前趕緊變燈。實在太危險了！”My sister would roll her eyes and say, “As if,” while I39。無論什么時候媽媽開車帶我們出門去，總能看見他們在那里玩。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, “Don39。但朱莉總覺得那棵無花果樹是上帝送給我們宇宙中這個小小角落的一份禮物。s gift to our little corner of the universe. 那又怎樣。Whatever. Maybe Juli39。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. 我媽媽和朱莉的媽媽有時聊天。每年梅菲爾德縣交易會上都能看到它們，我爸媽從來只說一句話：“如果他肯把花在畫畫上的時間拿來打理院子，世界會變得更美好。據(jù)我媽媽透露，他把全部業(yè)余時間都用來畫畫了。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 he39。s dad—who39。And you39。So while Mike and Matt are busy plumping up their boa, I39。s supposed to look like. 不管怎么說，我平時很少關(guān)心別人家的院子，但貝克家一團混亂的院子是我爸爸最大的心病，而他則把這種挫折的情緒傾瀉在我家院子里。s yard, but the Bakers39。Anyway, normally I wouldn39。他們提著那只嚙齒動物的尾巴，大蟒一下子就整只吞下去了。十歲那年，他們把我拽進屋子，強迫我看著那條大蟒蛇吞下一只耗子。我是說，她家有狗、貓、雞，甚至養(yǎng)了幾條蛇。眼睛有毛??！這就是那個鄰里環(huán)境破壞之王家的姑娘說出來的話。我徑直走到她面前，告訴她那棵無花果樹一點兒也不美，實際上，那是有史以來最難看的一棵樹。s worth of animals running wild. I39。s the scourge of the neighborhood. They39。One day last year I39。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，這棵樹，這棵無花果樹，長在山坡上克里爾街的一片空地里，很大很大，而且又大又丑。不，伙計，她能登上頭版是因為她不愿意從一棵無花果樹上下來。Now, Juli Baker did not wind up on the front page of the Mayfield Times for being an eighthgrade Einstein, like you might suspect. No, my friend, she got frontpage coverage because she refused to climb out of a sycamore tree. 不像你想的那樣，朱莉安娜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. 媽媽說，他眺望窗外是因為想念外婆，但外公是不會和我討論這件事的。雖然也說不上有什么不對，但這樣真的……挺無聊的。克蘭西的驚悚小說、看報紙、做填字游戲、看看股票行情，但這些不過是對他看街景這件事的插花。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 there39。雖然她用了一年半的時間告訴我們他是個多么偉大的人，但在我看來，他最喜歡做的事就是從臨街的窗戶朝外望。 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. 最開始的時候是有點奇怪，因為我們中間沒有誰真正認識他。s a great guy, from what I can tell, the thing he likes to do best is stare out the frontroom window. There39。At first it was kind of weird because none of us really knew him. Except for Mom, of course. And even though she39。t happen at school — it happened at home.