Cara visits her cousin Bo in a town so small that the bus stops once a day. At night, Bo leads her up the hill behind the water tower. There are no streetlights here, and the sky is crowded. Cara, who lives beside a shopping center, has never seen so many stars.
卡拉到小镇看望表弟博。小镇很小，公交车一天只来一班。夜里，博带她爬上水塔后面的小山。这里没有路灯，天空挤满了星星。卡拉住在购物中心旁边，从没见过这么多星星。
Bo shows her three bright ones he calls 'the kitchen spoons,' though the real name is different. They lie on a blanket until their necks ache. Cara tries to count the stars and gives up at forty. 'You can see them because nobody built anything here,' Bo says. It sounds like a fact and a warning at the same time.
博指给她三颗亮星，管它们叫“厨房里的勺子”，虽然真正的名字并不是这个。他们躺在毯子上，直到脖子发酸。卡拉试着数星星，数到四十就放弃了。“你能看见它们，是因为这里没人建东西，”博说。这话听起来既像事实，又像警告。
The next week, a tall billboard goes up beside the road. At night it glows white and blue, and the hill loses half its stars. Bo is angry. Cara suggests they write a complaint, but the shop owner says the light brings customers. 'People need to find us,' he says, and he is not unkind.
第二个星期，路边立起一块高高的广告牌。夜里它发着白蓝色的光，小山失去了一半星星。博很生气。卡拉提议写投诉信，可店主说灯光能带来顾客。“人们得找得到我们，”他说，语气并不刻薄。
That weekend, they make a map. On brown paper they draw every star they can still see, and where the billboard stands they draw an empty square. They hang the map in the bakery window with a note: 'This is what we lost.' People stop to look on their way to work.
那个周末，他们做了一张地图。他们在牛皮纸上画出还能看见的每一颗星，又在广告牌的位置画了一个空格。他们把地图挂在面包店橱窗里，附上一张字条：“这就是我们失去的东西。”人们上班路过时都会停下来看。
An older woman says she remembers when the whole town was dark. The shop owner sees his own sign on the map and frowns. At the town meeting, he agrees to switch off the billboard at ten. It is not a perfect sky, but the hill gets its stars back for a few hours each night.
一位年长的妇人说，她记得从前整座小镇都是黑的。店主在地图上看见自己的招牌，皱起了眉。在小镇会议上，他同意十点关掉广告牌。天空并不完美，但小山每晚又能找回几个小时的星星。
Cara and Bo add a line to the bottom of the map: 'Bring a blanket. Bring a friend.' On her last night, Cara counts past forty and keeps going. Bo falls asleep beside her. The billboard clicks off in the distance, and the dark arrives quietly, like someone turning down a lamp.
卡拉和博在地图最下面添了一行字：“带上毯子，带上朋友。”在这里的最后一晚，卡拉数过了四十，还继续数下去。博在她身边睡着了。远处广告牌“咔哒”一声熄灭，黑暗静静降临，像有人调暗了一盏灯。