Flipped – Brawk-Brawk-Brawk

感人的一段!摘录。文字和情感非常细腻的一篇小说,非常棒。

Well, guess who’s just standing there like a statue on my porch?

The Egg Chick.

I about spilled the trash all over the porch. “What are you still doing here?” I asked her.

“I… I don’t know. I was just… thinking.”

“About what?” I was desperate. I needed a distraction. Some way around her with this garbage before she noticed what was sitting right there on top.

She looked away like she was embarrassed. Juli Baker embarrassed? I didn’t think it was possible.

Whatever. The golden opportunity to whip a soggy magazin over the egg carton had presented it self, and buddy, I took it. Then I tried to make a fast break for the garbage can in the side yard, only she body-blocked me. Seriously. She stepped right in my way and put her arms out like she’s guarding the goal.

She chased me and blocked me again. “What happened?” she wants to know. “Did they break?”

Perfect. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Yeah, Juli,” I told her. “And I’m real sorry about that.” But what I’m thinking is, Please, God, oh please, God, let me make it to the garbage can.

God must’ve been sleeping in. Juli tackled the trash and pulled out her precious little carton of eggs, and she could tell right off that they were’t broken. They weren’t even cracked.

She stood frozen with the eggs in her hands while I dumped the rest of the trash. “Why did you throw them out?” she asked, but her voice didn’t sound like Juli Baker’s voice. It was quiet. And shaky.

So I told her we were afraid of salmonella poisoning because her yard was a mess and that we were just trying to spare her feelings. I told it to her like we were right and she was wrong, but I felt like a jerk. A complete cluck-faced jerk.

Then she tells me that a couple of neighbors have been buying eggs off her. Buying them. And while I’m coming to grips with this incredible bit of news, she whips out her mental calculator. “Do you realize I’ve lost over a hundred dollars giving these eggs to you?” Then she races across the street in a flood of tears.

As much as I tried to tell myself that I hadn’t asked her for the eggs —— I hadn’t said we wanted them or needed them or liked them —— the fact was, I’d never seen Juli cry before. Not when she’d broken her arm in P.E., not when she’d been teased at school or ditched by her brothers. Not even when they’d cut down the sycamore tree. I’m pretty sure she cried then, but I didn’t actually see it. To me, Juli Baker had always been too tough to cry.

I went down to my room to pack my stuff for school, feeling like the biggest jerk to ever hit the planet. I’d been sneaking around throwing out eggs for over two years, avoiding her, avoiding my father —— what did that make me ? Why hadn’t I just stood up and said, No thanks, don’t want ’em, don’t need ’em, don’t like ’em… Give them to the snake, why don’t you? Something!

Was I really afraid of hurting her feelings?

Or was I afraid of her?

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