The garden club had a chart, a thermometer, and a confident boy named Ari. For three years the town's last frost had arrived in the second week of April, and the chart made a tidy line. This year the club voted to plant the seedlings on the tenth, two weeks earlier than the cautious teacher recommended. Ari wrote the date on the greenhouse door in green marker.
园艺社有一张图表、一支温度计，还有一个自信的男孩阿里。连续三年，镇上的最后一场霜冻都在四月第二周到来，图表画出一条整齐的线。今年社团投票决定在十号种下幼苗，比谨慎的老师建议的早两周。阿里用绿色马克笔把日期写在温室门上。
The frost came on the sixth. It came quietly, without wind, and by morning the tomato seedlings were dark and soft as wet paper. The club stood in the garden in their coats, saying nothing. Ari read the chart again, as if the numbers might apologize.
霜在六号来了。它来得安静，没有风，到了早晨，番茄幼苗已经发黑、柔软，像湿透的纸。社团成员穿着外套站在园子里，谁也没说话。阿里又看了一遍图表，仿佛数字会道歉。
They did not. What changed was the chart itself. The club added a second line for the earliest possible frost and a third for the latest, and they began covering the beds at night even when the forecast looked kind. Ari kept the green date on the door. At the spring fair, he showed the dead seedlings pressed in a notebook beside the new schedule. “We were not wrong about the average,” he said. “We were wrong about the morning.”
它们没有。改变的是图表本身。社团增加了第二条线，表示可能最早出现霜冻的日期，又加了第三条，表示最晚的日期；即使预报看起来很温和，他们也夜里给苗床盖上布。阿里把那个绿色日期留在门上。春季集市上，他把压干的死苗夹在笔记本里，旁边是新的时间表。“我们关于平均值的判断没有错，”他说，“我们错的是那个早晨。”
Beatriz had never ordered three hundred copies of anything. But the novel arrived in a plain brown wrapper, and by the second page she was reading standing up, and by the fifth she had decided that everyone in town would want it. She ordered three hundred, planned a window display, and wrote to the publisher asking whether the author might visit.
贝阿特丽斯从未订过三百本书。但那本小说装在一个普通的棕色包装里送到，读到第二页时她已经站着读了，读到第五页时她认定全镇的人都会想要它。她订了三百本，计划做橱窗展示，还写信给出版社，问作者是否愿意来访。
The author did not visit. The reviews were respectful and small. By June, forty copies had sold, and the remaining two hundred and sixty sat in the storage room in towers that leaned against the wall. Beatriz's accountant used the word “mistake” twice in one sentence.
作者没有来。书评礼貌而简短。到了六月，卖出了四十本，剩下两百六十本在储藏室里堆成塔，斜靠着墙。贝阿特丽斯的会计在一句话里用了两次“错误”。
Beatriz did not return the books. She cleared the storage room, painted the wall yellow, and set the towers around a few borrowed chairs. She called it the Long Book Room and invited people to read anything they liked without buying it. Slowly, the room filled with teenagers and retired men and one dog. The novel began to move, ten copies a month, then twenty, lent and loved and finally purchased. Beatriz still calls it her worst prediction. She also calls it the room that saved the shop.
贝阿特丽斯没有退书。她清空储藏室，把墙刷成黄色，把那些书塔围在几把借来的椅子旁。她管它叫“长书室”，邀请人们来读任何想读的书，不必购买。渐渐地，房间里坐满了青少年、退休老人和一只狗。那本小说开始流动，一个月十本，然后二十本，被借出、被喜爱，最后被买下。贝阿特丽斯仍说那是她最糟的预测。她也说，那是救了这家书店的房间。
Sam had calculated the arrival to the minute. The bus from the city stopped at the corner at 5:12, his sister would walk up the hill by 5:20, and he would be waiting on the porch with the banner he had painted on an old sheet. He had practiced saying “welcome home” without crying. He had even set the kitchen clock by the radio.
萨姆把到达时间精确到了分钟。从城里来的巴士五点十二分停在街角，姐姐会在五点二十前走上山坡，而他会拿着画在旧床单上的横幅等在门廊。他练习过说“欢迎回家”而不哭。他甚至按照电台报时调好了厨房的钟。
The bus arrived at 5:19. Seven minutes late, which should not have mattered. But Sam's mother had been called into work, the banner had slipped from the porch rail, and the cake was still in the oven. By the time his sister reached the gate, Sam was on the roof of the shed, trying to rescue the sheet from a tree, and the smoke alarm was singing through the open window.
巴士五点十九分到。晚了七分钟，这本不该有什么影响。但萨姆的母亲被叫去加班，横幅从门廊栏杆上滑落，蛋糕还在烤箱里。等姐姐走到门口时，萨姆正站在棚子顶上，试图把床单从树上救下来，烟雾报警器透过敞开的窗户唱着歌。
His sister stood in the yard and laughed until she had to put down her bag. They ate the cake slightly burned, with the banner draped over the kitchen table because it would not hang straight. Sam had predicted the evening perfectly and it had gone wrong in every detail. “It's better,” his sister said. “Now I know I'm home.”
姐姐站在院子里笑，笑到不得不放下行李。他们吃了有点烤焦的蛋糕，横幅因为挂不平，只好铺在餐桌上。萨姆把那个晚上预测得完美无缺，而它在每个细节上都出了错。“这样更好，”姐姐说，“现在我知道我到家了。”