Chapter 14

Chapter 14 Reconciliation reconciliation (reconciliation) n. The act of bringing together after a difference, as in to reconcile numbers on a balance sheet; resolution. "Come on, you two," Mrs. Treski called up the stairs. "If we don't go now, there won't be any room on the grass." "We're coming," shouted Evan, sticking his head out of his room. Jessie was sitting on his bed, and he was trying to get her to go to the fireworks. She had her lock box on her lap and a mulish look on her face. "Just say it's a tie," said Evan. "C'mon, Jess. This whole thing is stupid and you know it." "It's not a tie unless it's a tie," said Jessie,

第十四章和解；和解；和解； 调和，调和：在有差异后把它们合在一起的行为，如调和资产负债表上的数字；决议。 “来吧，你们两个。”特雷斯基太太在楼上喊道。 “如果我们现在不走，草地上就没有地方了。” “我们来了。”埃文喊道，把头伸出了房间。 杰西坐在他的床上，他想让她去看烟花。 她把上锁的箱子放在腿上，脸上一副愁眉苦脸的样子。 “就说这是一条领带，”埃文说。 “来吧,杰斯。这整件事都很愚蠢，你知道的。” “除非是领带，否则就不是领带，”杰西说，

knowing she sounded like a brat but not able to stop herself. "How much have you got?" "Mom's waiting," said Evan. "Put your dumb box away and let's go to the fireworks." "How much have you got?" Evan tensed up his fingers as if he were strangling an invisible ghost. "Nothing! Okay? I've got nothing. Look." He turned the pockets of his shorts inside out. Jessie looked skeptical. "You can't have nothing. You must have made something." "Well, I had expenses. So I ended up with nothing. Okay? Are you happy? You win." Evan sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the floor. Jessie felt her heart sink. "You spent all your money on mix for your Lemonade-on-Wheels stand?" Jessie asked. "All of it?" Evan nodded. Jessie felt like crawling under the bed and never coming out. "It didn't pay off so good?" she whispered. "There were a few bugs in the system," said,

我知道她听起来像个顽童，但还是控制不住自己。 “你有多少钱？”“妈妈在等，”埃文说。 “把你的哑巴盒子收起来，我们去看烟花吧。” “你有多少钱？”埃文绷紧手指，好像在勒死一个看不见的鬼魂。 “没什么!好吧?我什么都没有。 看。”他把短裤的口袋翻了出来。 杰西显得有些怀疑。“你不能什么都没有。 你一定做了些什么。” “嗯，我有开销。所以我什么都没得到。 好吧?你快乐吗？你赢了。” 埃文坐在床边，看着地板。 杰西感到她的心一沉。 “你把所有的钱都花在你的柠檬水摊上了？”杰西问。 “全部？”艾凡点点头。杰西想爬到床底下，再也不出来了。 “结果不是很好吗？”她低声说。 “系统中有一些漏洞，”他说，

Evan. That's a joke Jessie would have loved, he thought. Before the war. Now it was all just money and numbers and bad feelings. There was no room for laughing. "Oh," said Jessie, her voice the size of an ant. She stared down at the box in her lap. "I've got—" She opened the lid of the lock box, took out the change tray, and pushed aside all the scraps of paper she had collected and the comment card from Megan. She stared. "Wait a minute. This isn't my money." She picked up a handful of wrinkled, bunched-up bills. Evan lay down on the bed and covered his head with his pillow. Jessie counted the money quickly. "Sixty-two dollars and eleven cents? Where'd this come from?" "Imamummy," said Evan from underneath the pillow. "What?" said Jessie. "Take that dumb pillow away. I can't understand what you're saying." She hit the side of his leg for emphasis. "It's my money!" he shouted, still through the

埃文。杰西一定会喜欢这个笑话的，他想。 在战争之前。现在只有钱，数字和不好的感觉。 没有笑的余地。 “哦，”杰西说，她的声音像蚂蚁一样大。 她低头盯着膝上的盒子。 “我有——”她打开锁箱的盖子，拿出找零钱的托盘，把她收集的所有纸片和梅金的评论卡推到一边。 她凝视着我。“等一下。 这不是我的钱。”她拿起一把皱巴巴、捆成一团的钞票。 埃文躺在床上，用枕头蒙住头。 杰西很快数了数钱。 “六十二美元十一美分？” 这是从哪儿来的？”“妈妈。”艾文从枕头底下说。 “什么？”杰西说。“把那个愚蠢的枕头拿走。 我听不懂你在说什么。” 她打了他的腿侧边以示强调。 “这是我的钱！”他喊着，仍然隔着窗户

pillow. "It was a hundred and three dollars, but then I spent forty-one dollars for the Lemonade-on-Wheels stand. So now it's just sixty-two." "Your money? But where's my money?" Evan pulled the pillow away from his face. His eyes were closed. His nose pointed at the ceiling. He folded his arms across his chest like a dead man. "I took it." "Well, give it back," said Jessie. This time she hit the side of his leg for real. "I can't. It's gone." He lay as still as a three-day-old corpse. "Gone? Gone where?" Jessie was shrieking now. Never in her life had she worked so hard to earn money. Never in her life had she had more than one hundred dollars in her hand. Never in her life had she had a friend who trusted her like Megan had. "I don't know. It was in my shorts pocket. And then I played basketball with the guys. And then we went to Jack's house to swim. And I took off my shorts and borrowed a suit. And when I went back to

枕头。“这是103美元，但后来我花了41美元买了这个柠檬水摊。 所以现在只有62个。” “你的钱吗?可是我的钱呢？”埃文把枕头从脸上拿开。 他的眼睛闭着。他的鼻子指着天花板。 他双臂交叉在胸前，像个死人。 “我拿了。”“好吧，把它还给我，”杰西说。 这次她真的击中了他的腿侧。 “我不能。这是走了。”他静静地躺着，像一具三天的尸体。 “消失了?去哪儿了?”杰西现在在尖叫。 她一生中从未如此努力地工作赚钱。 她一生中手中的钱从来没有超过一百美元。 她这辈子从来没有遇到过像梅根这样信任她的朋友。 “我不知道。它在我的短裤口袋里。 然后我和他们一起打篮球。 然后我们去杰克家游泳。 我脱下短裤，借了一套西装。 当我回到

change, the money was gone." He sat up and faced his sister. "I'm really sorry." In a real war you fight. You fight with your hands and with weapons. You fight with anything you've got because it's a matter of life and death. Jessie felt the loss of her hard-earned money like a death, and she ripped into Evan with all the power in her body. She punched him. She kicked him. She threw her lock box at him. She wanted to tear him up into little pieces. Evan didn't try to pin her, though it would have been easy to do. Part of him just wanted to lie on the bed and take it. Take it all. For being the one who started the whole thing by saying, "I hate you." For making Jessie feel so rotten about herself just because Evan felt so rotten about himself. For taking Jessie's money and losing it to Scott. Just for being so stupid. But Jessie was really going at it, and if he didn't protect himself at least a little, he was going to end up in the emergency room and that would upset his

找零，钱就没了。” 他坐起来，面对着他的妹妹。 “我真的很抱歉。”在真正的战争中，你要战斗。 你用双手和武器战斗。 你用尽一切办法去战斗因为这是生死攸关的事。 杰西失去血汗钱的感觉就像死了一样，她用尽全身的力量向埃文扑去。 她打了他一拳。她踢了他一脚。 她把带锁的箱子扔向他。 她想把他撕成碎片。 埃文并没有试图钉住她，虽然这很容易做到。 他有点想躺在床上接受它。 全部拿走。谢谢你是那个先说“我恨你”的人 让杰西觉得自己很糟糕就因为埃文觉得自己很糟糕。 因为你拿了杰西的钱又输给了斯科特。 因为我太蠢了。但杰西真的很努力，如果他不保护自己哪怕一点点，他就会被送进急诊室那会让他的

mom. So he kept his hands up in front of his face, just enough to keep Jessie from gouging out his eyes. But he never once tried to hit her back. He was done fighting. Finally Jessie ran out of gas. She lay down on the bed and tried to make her brain work. Her body was so worn out that her brain felt like the only part of her that could work. "One of your friends stole my money?" she asked. "I think it was Scott Spencer," said Evan. "He went upstairs to go to the bathroom. And then he came down all in a hurry and said he had to go home. After that, I went upstairs and the money was gone." "He's such a jerk," said Jessie. "The biggest," said Evan. "If he gets an Xbox, I'll know it was him." "It was a lot of money," said Jessie, feeling tears start to spring from her eyes and run down her face. "It was," said Evan. "I couldn't believe how much

妈妈。所以他把双手举到脸上，刚好不让杰西挖出他的眼睛。 但他从来没有还手过。 他不再战斗了。最后，杰西的车没油了。 她躺在床上，努力让自己的大脑活动起来。 她的身体是如此疲惫，她的大脑似乎是她唯一能工作的部分。 “你的一个朋友偷了我的钱？”她问。 “我想是斯科特·斯宾塞，”埃文说。 他上楼去上厕所。 然后他匆匆忙忙地下来，说他要回家了。 然后，我上楼，钱不见了。” “他真是个混蛋，”杰西说。 “最大的，”埃文说。“如果他得到一台Xbox，我就知道是他。” “这是一大笔钱，”杰西说，感觉眼泪开始从她的眼睛里涌出，顺着她的脸流下来。 “是的，”埃文说。“我简直不敢相信