On his first week in the city, Sam found a folded map in the drawer of his new desk. It was old enough to show a tram line that no longer existed, and someone had drawn a pencil path from his street to the school, crossing a block that, on the map, was a park. The path was quicker than the route his mother had shown him. On Monday he decided to trust it.
搬来城里的第一周，萨姆在新书桌的抽屉里发现一张折叠的地图。它旧得还标着一条已不存在的有轨电车线路，有人用铅笔画了一条从他家到学校的路，穿过一个在地图上还是公园的街区。那条路比妈妈给他看的路线快。星期一，他决定相信它。
The park turned out to be a building site surrounded by orange netting. Sam walked its perimeter twice, then asked a woman selling newspapers where the path had gone. She looked at the map, laughed, and said the park had closed before her son was born. “But the pencil is right about one thing,” she added. “There is a way through. It just isn’t a street.”
那个公园原来是一个被橙色网围住的工地。萨姆沿着边缘走了两圈，然后问一位卖报纸的女士，那条路去哪儿了。她看了看地图，笑了，说公园在她儿子出生前就关了。“但铅笔有一点说对了，”她补充道，“确实有条路能穿过去。只是它不算街道。”
The way through began as a gap between a bakery and a shoe repair shop, then became a staircase, then a narrow lane behind six apartment blocks. Sam followed it, past laundry, a cat, and a man repairing a bicycle. The lane ended at a wall with a door in it. Beyond the door was the school’s back garden, and beyond that, the school.
那条穿过去的路，开始于面包店和修鞋铺之间的缝隙，然后变成一段楼梯，再变成六栋公寓楼后面的窄巷。萨姆跟着它走，经过晾晒的衣物、一只猫，和一个修自行车的男人。巷子尽头是一堵墙，墙上有一扇门。门后是学校的后花园，再过去就是学校。
He arrived eight minutes early and told everyone. By Friday, three classmates were following him. By the next week, the door was locked, and a caretaker explained that the lane belonged to the buildings, not the school. For a boy who had arrived three weeks ago, it was a confusing kind of no. Sam felt the map’s pencil line become a mistake he had made in public.
他提前八分钟到校，逢人就说。到星期五，三个同学跟着他走。到下一周，门锁了，一位管理员解释说，那条巷子属于那些楼房，不属于学校。对一个三周前才搬来的男孩来说，这是一种令人困惑的拒绝。萨姆觉得地图上那条铅笔线变成了一个他当众犯下的错误。
Instead of giving up, Sam started a new map. He walked the safe routes with a notebook, marking crossings, shaded benches, the bakery that gave water, the corner where the traffic light was too short. He asked the crossing guard and the shoemaker and the woman with the newspapers. Each of them added something the printed map had ignored.
萨姆没有放弃，而是开始画一张新地图。他带着笔记本走安全的路线，标出人行横道、有树荫的长椅、提供水的面包店、红绿灯时间太短的路口。他问交通协管员、鞋匠和那位卖报纸的女士。每个人都补充了一些印刷地图忽略的东西。
The finished map hung in the school office, hand-drawn and slightly crooked, with a note in the corner: “There used to be a shortcut here. It is closed now, but these ways are open.” Sam’s mother said it was a strange thing to be proud of, a map of the long way round. He disagreed. The long way, he had discovered, was full of people who knew his name.
完成的地图挂在学校办公室，手绘的，有点歪，角落里有一行字：“这里曾经有条近路，现在封闭了，但这些路是通的。”萨姆的妈妈说，为一张绕远路的地图骄傲，是件奇怪的事。他不同意。他发现，远路上满是一些知道他名字的人。