Aunt Ruth was a botanist who carried three pencils and a magnifying glass. On the last Saturday of October she took Lucas to the riverside park with a roll of red tape. “We are going to follow one leaf,” she said. They chose a maple near the footbridge and tied a thin strip of tape around its stem. The leaf was green at the edges, gold in the middle.
露丝姨妈是一位植物学家，外套口袋里总装着三支铅笔和一个放大镜。十月的最后一个星期六，她带着卢卡斯去河滨公园，还带了一卷红色胶带。“我们要跟踪一片叶子，”她说。他们在人行桥附近选了一棵枫树，在叶柄上系了一条细细的胶带。那片叶子的边缘还是绿的，中间正在变黄。
For six days they returned. The leaf darkened, curled, and began to pull away. On Thursday a storm crossed the city, and when they arrived the branch was bare. Lucas searched the grass in circles, then along the drain. “It could be anywhere,” he said. Aunt Ruth opened her notebook. “Then we follow the water,” she said.
接下来的六天，他们每天都回来。叶子颜色变深、卷曲，开始从枝头挣脱。星期四，一场暴风雨穿过城市，等他们赶到时，树枝已经空了。卢卡斯在草地上转着圈找，又找小路，又找排水沟。“它可能在任何地方，”他说。露丝姨妈只是打开笔记本。“那我们就跟着水走，”她说。
The river ran brown and quick after the storm. They walked the bank with sticks, turning over wet leaves, reading the tideline the way Aunt Ruth read a page. Lucas found a bottle cap, a glove, and a bus ticket, but no red tape. His boots filled with water. Twice he wanted to go home, and twice he said nothing, because his aunt kept walking.
暴风雨过后，河水又浑又急。他们拿着树枝沿着河岸走，翻动湿漉漉的叶子，像露丝姨妈读一页书那样读着水痕。卢卡斯找到一个瓶盖、一只手套和一张公交车票，却没有红色胶带。他的靴子灌满了水。有两次他想回家，两次都没说出口，因为姨妈一直往前走。
Near the old mill, the bank flattened into a shallow pool. A boy was crouching there with a shoebox, showing his little sister the things the flood had left behind. Inside were feathers, a marble, a broken comb. And there, pressed flat against the cardboard like a small red flag, was a maple leaf with a strip of tape around its stem.
到了老磨坊附近，河岸变平，形成一个浅浅的水洼。一个男孩蹲在那里，捧着一个鞋盒，给妹妹看洪水留下的东西。里面有羽毛、一颗玻璃弹珠、一把断齿的梳子。就在那里，一片枫叶平平地贴在纸盒上，像一面小红旗，叶柄上还系着一条胶带。
The boy's name was Idris. He had been collecting since the storm, because the river had made the whole park new. Lucas explained about the tape, and Idris listened with his mouth open. “I thought it was a label from a jar,” he said. He did not want to give the leaf up, and Lucas understood. So they made a trade.
男孩叫伊德里斯。风暴之后他一直在收集，因为河水把整个公园都变成了新的。卢卡斯讲了胶带的事，伊德里斯张着嘴听。“我还以为那是罐头上的标签，”他说。他不想把叶子交出去，卢卡斯也理解。于是他们做了一笔交换。
That evening Aunt Ruth pressed the leaf between two sheets of newspaper and set a dictionary on top. “You lost the leaf and found the story,” she said. Lucas drew the pool, the mill, and the boy with the shoebox in his notebook. Under it he wrote: Day seven. Wind, then water, then a stranger. He decided that was a better ending.
那天晚上，露丝姨妈把叶子夹在两张报纸之间，又压上一本词典。“你丢了叶子，却找到了故事，”她说。卢卡斯在笔记本里画下水洼、磨坊，还有那个捧着鞋盒的男孩。在下面他写道：第七天。先是风，然后是水，然后是一个陌生人。他觉得这是更好的结局。