Yuki measured trees for a hobby. She kept a notebook of trunks, leaves, and cracks in the pavement, and she could tell a plane tree from a linden by the sound of the wind in it. The oldest tree on her street was a ginkgo outside the laundry, planted, according to a brass plate, in 1931. In autumn it turned the colour of butter and dropped fruit that smelled terrible and made the neighbours complain. Yuki loved it anyway.
由纪把测量树木当作爱好。她有一本笔记，记录树干、叶子和路面裂缝，还能凭风吹过树冠的声音分辨悬铃木和椴树。她那条街上最老的树是洗衣店门外的一棵银杏，据一块黄铜铭牌记载，它种于1931年。秋天，它变成黄油般的颜色，落下的果实气味难闻，引得邻居抱怨。由纪还是喜欢它。
One morning she found a red chalk mark on its trunk: a cross inside a circle, the sign the road crews used for removal. The pavement was being widened for a bus stop, and the ginkgo stood exactly where the new kerb would go. Yuki photographed the mark and took it to the town office. A clerk explained, politely, that the tree was old, its roots were lifting the pavement, and the plan had been approved. “You could plant a new one,” he said, as if that settled it.
一天早上，她发现树干上多了一个红色粉笔记号：圆圈里画着十字，是道路施工队用来标记待砍树木的符号。人行道要拓宽以修建公交站，而银杏正好站在新路缘的位置。由纪拍下记号，带着照片去了镇政厅。一位职员礼貌地解释：树太老了，根系把路面顶了起来，而且计划已经批准。“你们可以再种一棵新的，”他说，仿佛这就解决了问题。
Yuki did not shout. She went home and counted: forty-one trees on Lantern Street, one with a nest she had watched since March. She drew a map and marked every tree the plan touched. Then she visited the shops and asked what the ginkgo meant to them. The laundry owner said it shaded her queue. The baker said its leaves were the first sign of his busiest season. The nurse said patients sat beneath it after appointments they dreaded.
由纪没有大声抗议。她回家数了一遍：灯笼街上有四十一棵树，其中一棵树上有个她从三月起就在观察的鸟巢。她画了一张地图，标出计划会波及的每一棵树。然后她挨家走访商店，问那棵银杏对他们意味着什么。洗衣店老板说，它为排队等候的顾客遮阴。面包师说，它的叶子是他最忙季节到来的第一个信号。诊所的护士说，病人结束那些令他们害怕的复诊后，会坐在树下。
The surveyor arrived on a Thursday. Yuki showed him the map and the nest. He listened, then took out his red chalk and marked three more trees. “I only draw what the plan says,” he told her, not unkindly. She understood then that he was not her enemy, only a man with a list. That evening she typed a proposal: move the bus stop four metres, protect the roots with a raised kerb, and let the town adopt the trees it wanted. She sent it to every office she knew.
测量员在星期四来了。由纪给他看地图和鸟巢。他听完，掏出红粉笔，又在三棵树上做了记号。“我只负责照图纸标注，”他对她说，语气并不刻薄。她这才明白，他不是敌人；他只是一个拿着清单办事的人。那天晚上，她打出一份提案：公交站后移四米，用加高的路缘保护树根，并让市民“认养”他们想留下的树。她把提案寄给了她能想到的每一个部门。
The storm came before the council could reply. Rain fell for nine hours, and the new drainage channel on Lantern Street filled like a cup. Water poured over the pavement and into the laundry doorway. The ginkgo's roots, deep and wide after ninety years, held their patch of soil in place; the young trees planted the previous spring leaned, and one fell. By morning the street looked like a lesson nobody had wanted to learn.
市政会还没来得及回复，暴风雨就来了。雨下了九个小时，灯笼街新修的排水沟像杯子一样被灌满。水漫过人行道，流进洗衣店门口。银杏九十年来扎得又深又广的根，把自己那片泥土牢牢固定住；而去年春天种下的年轻树木倾斜了，其中一棵倒下了。到了早晨，这条街看上去就像一堂没人愿意上的课。
The council approved Yuki's proposal in June. The bus stop moved, the kerb was raised, and the ginkgo kept its corner. At the first meeting of the town's new tree committee, Yuki was appointed junior warden, with a badge, a notebook, and the right to be ignored only once per proposal. She walked home beneath the butter-coloured leaves and wrote the date in her book. The ginkgo had survived the storm, the chalk, and the plan. It would need her again, she knew, and she would be there.
六月，市政会批准了由纪的提案。公交站挪了位置，路缘加高了，银杏保住了它的角落。在镇上新成立的树木委员会第一次会议上，由纪被任命为少年护树员，得到一枚徽章、一本笔记，以及“每份提案只许被忽视一次”的权利。她走在黄油色的树叶下回家，把日期写进笔记本。银杏挺过了暴风雨、红粉笔和那份计划。它以后还会需要她，她知道，而她会一直在。