Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 The next few hours were a blur. The guys swarming around him, Coach B. helping him off the field, the long wait at the emergency room, Mom's and Dad's worried faces. But in the end, Lucas was fine. He just had a concussion. Sure, it was worse than the concussion he'd gotten during play-offs last season, and the one before that, during the summer after fourth grade. But he knew he would get better if he took it easy, just like the other times. That night, Dad came into Lucas's room to check on him. "Feeling okay?" he asked.

接下来的几个小时是一片模糊。 那些围着他的人，B教练。 帮助他离开球场，在急诊室漫长的等待，爸爸妈妈焦虑的表情。 但最后，卢卡斯没事了。 他只是脑震荡了。当然，这比他上个赛季在附加赛中受到的脑震荡还要严重，在那之前，在四年级后的那个夏天。 但他知道，如果他放松一点，就会好起来的，就像以前那样。 那天晚上，爸爸来到卢卡斯的房间查看他的情况。 “感觉还好吗?”他问。

"I'm good, Dad," Lucas said. He really was feeling much better. What killed him was knowing he'd be off the field for twelve days. He already missed the guys. Looking up at Dad, Lucas saw a face almost exactly like his own — they even had the same specks of green in their brown eyes. "You need anything?" Dad asked. "I'm good," Lucas said again. Lucas stayed very still, hoping Dad would stick around and talk. But Dad stood up. He leaned over and kissed Lucas on the forehead. And he was gone. Lucas's heart sank a little. There had been a time when Dad would have plopped himself down on Lucas's bed and announced his plan for their next adventure. Some nights back then, they'd wait for Mom to fall asleep so they could sneak down to the basement to work on the Seagrave. Dad and Lucas had been a team — a team of two. But then came the warehouse fire.

“我很好，爸爸，”卢卡斯说。 他真的感觉好多了。 害死他的是他知道自己要离开赛场12天。 他已经错过那些家伙了。 抬头看着爸爸，卢卡斯看到了一张几乎和自己一模一样的脸——他们棕色的眼睛里甚至有同样的绿色斑点。 “你需要什么吗?”爸爸问。 “我很好。”卢卡斯又说。 卢卡斯一动也不动，希望爸爸能留在身边和他说话。 但是爸爸站了起来。他俯身在卢卡斯的额头上亲了一下。 然后他就走了。卢卡斯的心往下一沉。 曾经有一段时间，爸爸会扑通一声坐在卢卡斯的床上，宣布他们下一次冒险的计划。 那时候有些晚上，他们会等妈妈睡着然后偷偷溜到地下室去修西格雷夫。 爸爸和卢卡斯曾经是一个团队——一个两个人的团队。 但后来仓库起火了。

Two years had passed since it happened, but the memories were still sharp — the doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, the Chief and Uncle Benny standing in the doorway, still stinking of smoke. Mom's tears. And later, the sight of Dad wrapped in bandages, his face white with pain. Lucas had always known that his dad's job was dangerous. Sometimes Dad would bring Lucas to the firehouse on his days off. Lucas would help with the chores — washing the truck, cooking lunch, checking the hoses. But what he loved most was sitting around the big, round kitchen table, listening to the guys talk about the fires they'd fought. To Lucas, they were superheroes. They ran into buildings filled with blazing orange flames and choking black smoke. They used metal spears to smash windows, rip out walls, and bash through doors. They carried people down oven-hot stairwells and dangled from ropes hundreds of feet in the air. The fires they tamed were more evil and ferocious than any video-game villain or movie monster. But it wasn't until the warehouse fire that Lucas understood what a fire could do to a real man, a

这件事已经过去两年了，但记忆依然清晰——半夜门铃响了，酋长和本尼叔叔站在门口，身上还散发着烟味。 妈妈的眼泪。后来，我看到爸爸裹着绷带，脸疼得发白。 卢卡斯一直都知道他爸爸的工作很危险。 有时爸爸会在休假的时候带卢卡斯去消防站。 卢卡斯会帮忙做家务——洗卡车，做午饭，检查水管。 但他最喜欢的是围坐在厨房的大圆桌旁，听伙计们谈论他们扑灭的大火。 对卢卡斯来说，他们是超级英雄。 他们冲进了充满橙色火焰和令人窒息的黑烟的建筑物。 他们用金属矛砸碎窗户，撕裂墙壁，砸穿门。 他们把人从滚烫的楼梯井里抬下来，吊在几百英尺高的绳子上。 他们所驯服的火焰比任何电子游戏中的恶棍或电影中的怪物都更加邪恶和凶猛。 但直到那场仓库大火，卢卡斯才明白一场大火会对一个真正的人，一个

man like his dad. Dad had never talked about what happened to him inside that warehouse. All Lucas knew was that four firemen died, and Dad was badly burned in an explosion. Even after all this time, the scars on Dad's arms were bright red and lumpy, like raw hamburger. But the burns weren't the worst of what that fire did to Dad. It took away his easy smile and booming laugh. It turned him quiet. Some days Dad barely talked at all. He'd get this look in his eyes, like his mind was somewhere else — probably sifting through the ashes in that warehouse. Lucas stopped asking when they'd get back to that model of the Seagrave, which was halff- inished and covered with dust in the basement. And when the memories of that night came back, or he started worrying that Dad would never be himself again, he'd close his eyes and imagine himself on the football field, surrounded by the guys, their voices calling out his name as he made one of his famous catches.

像他爸爸一样的人。爸爸从来没说过他在仓库里发生的事。 卢卡斯只知道四个消防员死了，爸爸在一次爆炸中被严重烧伤。 即使过了这么久，爸爸手臂上的伤疤仍然是鲜红的、凹凸不平的，就像生的汉堡包。 但这些烧伤还不是那场大火对爸爸造成的最严重的伤害。 这夺走了他从容的笑容和轰轰烈烈的笑声。 这使他安静了下来。有些日子，爸爸几乎不说话。 他的眼睛里会有这种表情，好像他的心思在别的地方——可能是在仓库的灰烬中筛选。 卢卡斯不再问他们什么时候能回到地下室的西格雷夫模型那里，那个模型只完成了一半，满是灰尘。 当那天晚上的记忆浮现，或者他开始担心爸爸再也回不来了，他就会闭上眼睛，想象自己站在橄榄球场上，被那些家伙包围着，当他接到一个著名的接球时，他们的声音在呼唤他的名字。