Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Breakup breakup (brekup) n. Dissolution of a unit, an organization, or a group of organizations. The Justice Department sometimes forces the breakup of a large corporation into several smaller companies. Jessie didn't get it. She just didn't get it. What was Evan's problem? He'd been acting like a weirdo for two days now. And it was two days ago that the letter had arrived. But why would he be so upset about that letter? This is a puzzle, Jessie told herself. And I'm good at puzzles. But it was a puzzle about feelings, and Jessie knew that feelings were her weakest subject. Jessie sat in the cool darkness of the basement

第二章分手分手（break） 解散：一个单位、组织或一组组织的解散 司法部有时会迫使一家大公司拆分为几家较小的公司。 杰西不明白。她就是不明白。 埃文的问题是什么？这两天他表现得像个怪人。 那封信是两天前到的。 但他为什么会为那封信这么难过呢？ 这是一个谜题，杰西告诉自己。 我擅长拼图。但这是一个关于感情的谜题，杰西知道感情是她最薄弱的课题。 杰西坐在地下室阴冷的黑暗里

and thought back to Monday, the day the letter had come. Everything had been normal. She and Evan were putting together a lemonade stand in the driveway when the mailman walked up and handed Jessie a bundle of letters. Evan never bothered to look at the mail, but Jessie was always entering contests and expecting to win, so she flipped through the letters right away. "Boring. Boring. Boring," said Jessie as each letter flashed by. "Hey, something from school. Addressed to Mom." She held up a plain white envelope. "What do you think it is?" "Dunno," said Evan. He was in the garage, uncovering the small wooden table they usually used for a stand. It was buried under two sno-tubes, two boogie boards, and the garden hose. Jessie watched while Evan gave a mighty pull and lifted the table up over his head. Wow, he's gotten so big, thought Jessie, remembering what Mom had said about Evan's growth spurt. Sometimes Jessie felt like Evan was growing twice as fast as she was. Growing up.

他回想起星期一，也就是收到那封信的那天。 一切都很正常。 她和埃文正在车道上摆一个柠檬水摊，这时邮递员走过来，递给杰西一捆信。 埃文从来懒得看那些信，但杰西总是参加比赛，希望能赢，所以她马上就把信翻了一遍。 “无聊。无聊。无聊，”杰西说，每封信一闪而过。 “嘿，学校的东西。 是写给妈妈的。”她举起一个普通的白色信封。 “你觉得是什么？”“不知道，”埃文说。 他在车库里，掀开他们通常用来摆摊子的小木桌。 它被埋在两个滑雪管，两个冲浪板和花园软管下面。 杰西看着埃文使劲一拉，把桌子举过头顶。 哇，他长这么大了，杰西想，想起妈妈说过的埃文的快速生长。 有时杰西觉得埃文的成长速度是她的两倍。 成长。

Growing away. "It looks important," said Jessie. It looks like bad news is what she thought in her head. Was there a problem? A complaint? A mix-up? All the nervousness she'd been feeling about skipping to fourth grade suddenly burbled up inside her. "This table's really dirty," said Evan. "Do you think we can just cover it with a lot of cups and the pitcher and no one will notice?" Jessie looked. The table was streaked with black. "No." Evan groaned. "I'll clean it," said Jessie. Evan had only agreed to have a lemonade stand because it was one of her favorite things to do. The least she could do for him was clean the gunk off the table. "Maybe," she said, holding up the envelope again, "they're postponing school? Maybe the first day isn't going to be next Tuesday? Ya think?" That got Evan's attention. "Let's ask Mom to open it," he said.

日益增长的。“看起来很重要，”杰西说。 看来她脑子里想的是坏消息。 有什么问题吗？投诉? 打架吗?她一直为跳到四年级而感到的紧张情绪突然在她心里沸腾起来。 “这张桌子真的很脏，”埃文说。 “你认为我们用很多杯子和水罐盖住它，就不会有人注意到吗？”杰西看。 桌子上有黑条纹。 “没有。”艾凡呻吟着。“我来打扫，”杰西说。 埃文同意摆一个柠檬水摊，只是因为这是她最喜欢做的事情之一。 她至少可以帮他把桌上的脏东西擦干净。 “也许，”她说着，又举起了信封，“他们要推迟上学？ 也许第一天不是下周二？ 你觉得呢?”这引起了埃文的注意。 “我们让妈妈把它打开吧，”他说。

Up in the humming cool of her office, Mrs. Treski read the letter through once. "Well," she said. "This is a curve ball." She looked right at Evan. Jessie thought her face looked worried. "Evan, you and Jessie are going to be in the same class this year. You'll both have Mrs. Overton." Jessie felt relief flood her entire body. The same class! If she could have wished for one thing in the whole world, that's what she would have wished for. She would be with Evan, and Evan would make everything easier. He would introduce her to all those fourth-graders. He would show them all that she was okay. Not some puny second-grader who didn't really belong. But Evan didn't look happy. He looked angry. "Why?" he asked in an almost-shouting voice. Mrs. Treski scanned the letter. "Well, the classes were small to start with. And now some of the fourth-graders they thought would be attending aren't because they're moving or switching to private schools. So they need to combine the two small

特雷斯基夫人在嗡嗡作响的凉爽办公室里把信从头到尾读了一遍。 “嗯，”她说。“这是一个曲线球。” 她直视着埃文。杰西觉得她的脸看起来很焦虑。 “埃文，你和杰西今年要在同一个班了。 你们俩都有奥弗顿太太。” 杰西感到全身如释重负。 同样的课！如果她能在这个世界上许一个愿望，那就是她想要的。 她会和埃文在一起，埃文会让一切变得简单。 他会把她介绍给所有的四年级学生。 他要让他们知道她没事。 而不是什么没归属感的二年级小屁孩。 但是埃文看起来并不高兴。 他看上去很生气。“为什么？”他用近乎喊叫的声音问道。 特雷斯基太太扫了一眼信。 “嗯，刚开始的时候班级很小。 现在，一些他们原本以为会上的四年级学生没有上了，因为他们要搬去或转去私立学校了。 所以他们需要把两个小的结合起来

classes into one bigger class." "That is so unfair," said Evan. "I wanted Mrs. Scobie. And I don't want—" He looked at Jessie. "That is so unfair!" Jessie was surprised. This was great news. Why didn't Evan see that? They always had fun together at home. Now they could have fun in school, too. "It'll be fun," she said to Evan. "It will not be fun," said Evan. "School. Isn't. Fun." And then he stomped downstairs and locked himself in his room for the rest of the afternoon. They never finished the lemonade stand. And here it was, two days later, and Evan was still all locked up, even though he wasn't in his room. He wouldn't talk to her, and he wouldn't play with her. So Jessie went up to her room and did what she always did when she was upset or angry or sad or confused. She started reading Charlotte's Web. She had read the book about a hundred times. She was at the good part, the happy part. Wilbur

变成一个更大的班级。” “这太不公平了，”埃文说。 “我想找斯考比太太。我不想——”他看着杰西。 “这太不公平了！”杰西很惊讶。 这是个好消息。为什么埃文没发现？ 他们总是在家里玩得很开心。 现在他们也可以在学校里玩得开心了。 “会很有趣的，”她对埃文说。 “那可不好玩，”埃文说。 ”学校。不是。有趣。”然后他跺着脚走下楼，把自己锁在房间里，一下午都没出去。 他们一直没摆完柠檬水摊。 就在这里，两天后，埃文仍然被锁着，尽管他不在自己的房间里。 他不和她说话，也不和她玩。 所以杰西回到她的房间，做了她在沮丧、生气、悲伤或困惑时总是做的事情。 她开始读《夏洛的网》。 这本书她已经读了大约一百遍了。 她看到的是好的一面，快乐的一面。 威尔伯

had just been named "some pig," and he was getting all kinds of attention from the Zuckermans and the whole town. But Jessie couldn't settle into that happy feeling, the one that usually came when Charlotte said: I dare say my trick will work and Wilbur's life can be saved. Instead, she kept noticing an unhappy feeling tap-tap-tapping on her shoulder. And it wasn't the unhappy feeling that came from knowing that Charlotte was going to die on page 171. It was Evan. She couldn't stop thinking about what he had said. Jessie could only remember one other time that Evan had said "I hate you" to her. Grandma had been over and Evan needed help with his math homework. He had that frustrated, screwed-up-mouth look that he sometimes got with math or spelling or writing reports. Mom called it his "he's-a-gonna-blow!" look. But Grandma couldn't help him because it was "all

他刚被取名为“好猪”，得到了祖克曼一家和全镇人的各种关注。 但是杰西无法沉浸在那种快乐的感觉中，那种当夏洛说：“我敢说我的把戏会奏效，威尔伯的命可以得救了。” 相反，她一直注意到一种不愉快的感觉在她的肩膀上拍啊拍啊拍。 也不是因为知道夏洛蒂要在171页死去而产生的不愉快的感觉。 是埃文。她不停地想他说过的话。 杰西只记得还有一次埃文对她说过“我恨你”。 奶奶来过了，埃文需要帮忙做数学作业。 他有一种沮丧的、嘴巴紧闭的表情，就像他有时在数学、拼写或写报告时那样。 妈妈说这是他“他要爆炸了”的表情。 但奶奶帮不了他，因为这是“全部”