Jia's grandmother lived at the edge of a bamboo grove, where the light came down in long green stripes. Every summer Jia arrived with a suitcase and a plan to be interesting, and every summer she spent the first week hiding behind the washing line. This year she brought a notebook with a stiff cover and a pencil sharpened at both ends.
佳佳的奶奶住在竹林边上，阳光从竹叶间落下，成了一道道绿色的长条。每年夏天，佳佳都带着一个行李箱和一个“要变得有趣”的计划来到这里，而每年夏天，她第一周都躲在晾衣绳后面。今年她带来一本硬皮笔记本，还有一支两头都削尖的铅笔。
On the first morning she wrote: 6:40, two sparrows, one arguing. By noon she had filled a page with nothing much. A beetle crossed the step. A bamboo stalk tapped the roof. She was about to close the book when something moved in the grove, quick and low, and left a line of prints in the wet earth by the fence.
第一天早上，她写道：六点四十，两只麻雀，其中一只在吵架。到了中午，她写满了一页，却没什么内容。一只甲虫爬过台阶。一根竹竿敲着屋顶。她正要合上本子，竹林里有什么东西动了一下，又快又低，在栅栏边湿润的泥土上留下一串脚印。
Jia drew the prints. Three toes forward, one behind, small as her thumb. She decided it was a lost chicken. Then she decided it was a mongoose, and wrote a whole paragraph about its secret life. The next morning the prints were there again, but they went in a circle and stopped at a hollow log. Jia sat very still on a stone.
佳佳把脚印画了下来。前面三个脚趾，后面一个，和她的拇指一样小。她断定那是一只走失的鸡。接着她又断定那是獴，还写了一整段关于它秘密生活的话。第二天早上，脚印又出现了，但它们绕成一个圈，停在一个空心的树桩前。佳佳坐在石头上，一动不动。
An hour passed. Something clucked, softly, inside the log. Not a chicken. A bamboo partridge stepped out, grey and brown and smaller than she had imagined, followed by four chicks the size of limes. They walked through the fence and drank from the gutter. Jia did not move. She did not even breathe properly until they were gone.
一个小时过去了。树桩里传来轻轻的咯咯声。不是鸡。一只竹鸡走了出来，灰褐色，比她想象的还要小，后面跟着四只青柠大小的雏鸟。它们穿过栅栏，在水槽边喝水。佳佳没有动。她连呼吸都放轻了，直到它们离开。
After that she came every morning at the same hour, and the partridges came too, as if they had agreed on an appointment. She learned that they did not like the sound of plastic bags, and that they liked the shade under the water tank. She stopped writing about mongooses. Her pages filled with weather, time, and small ordinary facts.
从那以后，她每天早上都在同一时间来，竹鸡也来，好像它们约好了似的。她发现它们不喜欢塑料袋的声音，喜欢水箱下面的阴凉。她不再写獴了。她的本子里渐渐填满了天气、时间，和一些普通的小事。
On the last day of summer her grandmother sat with her on the step. “You have become quiet,” she said. “Is that a good thing?” Jia thought about it. “It is a busy quiet,” she said. She showed her the notebook, and her grandmother turned the pages slowly, the way people read something they intend to remember. Then the partridges came out.
夏天的最后一天，奶奶和她一起坐在台阶上。“你变安静了，”奶奶说，“这是好事吗？”佳佳想了想。“是一种很忙的安静，”她说。她把笔记本给奶奶看，奶奶慢慢地翻着，像在读一些打算记住的东西。这时，竹鸡走出来了。