It’s Wednesday. She’s running again.
今天是星期三。她又在逃跑。
And this is really no one’s fault. It’s not that Dad was a bit late picking her up, it’s just that the school day finished slightly too early. And it’s difficult making oneself invisible when the hunt starts inside the school building.
这次不是任何人的错。不是因为爸爸接她来晚了，只是今天下课早了一些。而且这场追捕是从教学楼里开始的，让她很难施展隐身术。
She doesn’t know the exact reason this time. Maybe it’s because it’s one of the last days before the Christmas holidays, and they know they won’t be able to chase anyone for several weeks now, so they have to get it out of their systems. Or maybe it’s something else altogether — it doesn’t matter. People who have never been hunted always seem to think there’s a reason for it. “They wouldn’t do it without a cause, would they? You must have done something to provoke them.” As if that’s how oppression works.
她不知道这次的原因到底是什么。可能是因为这是圣诞假期前的最后几天了，将有好长一段时间不能追赶打闹，所以他们想好好发泄一下。又或者是其他什么原因，这无关紧要。没被追捕过的人总觉得一定会有一个原因：“他们不会无缘无故追着你跑，不是吗？你一定干了什么事惹到他们。”这话说得好像“压迫”这件事天生就是这么个原理。
But it’s pointless trying to explain to these people, as fruitless as clarifying to a guy carrying around a rabbit’s foot — because of its supposed good luck — that if rabbits’ feet really were lucky, they’d still be attached to the rabbits.
试图向这种人解释是毫无意义的，就像跟佩戴兔脚（据说能带来好运）的人解释——如果兔脚真的那么灵验，那它们应该还长在兔子的身上——一样徒劳。
So Elsa runs.
所以爱莎选择逃跑。
Today it all started with Elsa’s scarf. Or at least Elsa thinks it did. She has started learning who the chasers are at school, and how they operate. Some only chase children if they prove to be weak. And some chase just for the thrill of it; they don’t even hit their victims when they catch them, just want to see the terror in their eyes. And then there are some like the boy Elsa fought about the right to be Spider-Man. He fights and chases people as a point of principle because he can’t stand anyone disagreeing with him. Especially not someone who’s different.
一切源于爱莎的围巾，至少爱莎这么认为。她已经渐渐掌握，学校里谁会追她，以及他们是如何行动的。有些人只追那些看起来软弱的孩子。而有些人只为刺激，他们抓住受害者时，甚至不会打他们，只是想看看他们眼中的恐惧。还有一些人，就像那个跟爱莎为了谁做蜘蛛侠而打架的男孩，他追打人是为了申明立场，因为他不能忍受任何反对意见，尤其是那些比较另类的人的反对意见。
“Catch her!” yells the girl somewhere behind her.
“抓住她！”一个女孩在她身后叫道。
With this girl it’s something else. She wants a reason for giving chase. A way of justifying the chase. She wants to feel like a hero while she’s chasing me, thinks Elsa with unfeasibly cool clarity as she charges towards the fence, her heart thumping like a jackhammer and her throat burning like that time Granny made jalapeño smoothies.
正在追爱莎的这个女孩则是另一种情况。她想要给这场追逐一个理由，让它合理化。“她追我的时候，觉得自己是一个英雄。”爱莎向围栏冲刺的时候，思路格外清晰，她的心脏像电钻一样突突跳，喉咙烧得就像喝了外婆做的辣椒果昔。
Elsa throws herself at the fence, and her backpack lands so hard on her head when she jumps down on the pavement on the other side that for a few seconds her eyes start to black out. She pulls hard on the straps with both hands to tighten it against her back. Hazily she blinks and looks left towards the parking area where Audi should show up at any moment. She hears the girl behind her screaming like an insulted, ravenous orc. She knows that by the time Audi arrives it’ll be too late, so she looks right instead, down the hill towards the big road. The trucks are thundering by like an invading army on its way towards a castle still held by the enemy, but in the gaps between the traffic Elsa sees the entrance to the park on the other side.
爱莎冲向围栏，跳到另一侧的人行道时，背包重重地砸在了她头上，过了几秒钟她的眼睛就开始淤青。她的双手用力拉紧背带，让它紧贴自己的背。她眨着眼睛，模糊地看向左边的停车场，奥迪应该随时会到。她听见身后女孩的尖叫声像一头被冒犯的、饿极了的半兽人。她知道等奥迪来时就太晚了，所以她看向右边坡下的大路。货运卡车轰隆隆地驶过，像一支侵略军正向敌占的城堡进发，但透过车流的间隙，她看见了另一侧公园的入口。
“Shoot-up Park,” that’s what people call it at school, because there are drug addicts there who chase children with heroin syringes. At least that’s what Elsa’s heard, and it terrifies her. It’s the sort of park that never seems to catch any daylight, and this is the kind of winter’s day when the sun never seems to rise.
“注射公园”——学校的人都这么叫它。爱莎听说里面有些瘾君子会拿着海洛因注射器追赶小孩子，这让她很害怕。它是那种似乎阳光永远也照不进去的公园，而现在正值看不到太阳高高升起的冬日。
Elsa had managed just fine until lunchtime, but not even someone who’s very good at being invisible can quite manage it in a cafeteria. The girl had materialized before her so suddenly that Elsa was startled and spilled salad dressing on her Gryffindor scarf. The girl had pointed at it and roared: “Didn’t I tell you to stop going around with that ugly bloody scarf?” Elsa had looked back at the girl in the only way one can look back at someone who has just pointed at a Gryffindor scarf and said, “Ugly bloody scarf.” Not totally dissimilar to how one would look at someone who had just seen a horse and gaily burst out, “Crocodile!” The first time the scarf caught the girl’s attention, Elsa had simply assumed that the girl was a Slytherin. Only after she’d smacked Elsa in the face, ripped her scarf, and thrown it in a toilet had Elsa grown conscious of the fact that the girl hadn’t read Harry Potter at all. She knew who he was, of course, everyone knows who Harry Potter is, but she hadn’t read the books. She didn’t even understand the most basic symbolism of a Gryffindor scarf. And while Elsa didn’t want to be elitist or anything, how could one be expected to reason with a person like that?
直到中午之前，爱莎都过得还算顺利。但即使是很擅长隐身术的人也没办法在午饭时的食堂里施展。那女孩突然出现在爱莎面前，爱莎吓一跳，把色拉酱都洒到了格兰芬多围巾上。那女孩指着围巾咆哮：“我不是跟你说过，不许再戴着这条见鬼的丑围巾出现吗？”爱莎冲那女孩瞪回去，对待这类人只有这么一种瞪法。其实就和对待那种指着马喊鳄鱼的人的瞪法一样。这条围巾第一次引起那女孩的注意时，爱莎只觉得那姑娘大概是个斯莱特林[1]。直到她在爱莎的脸上揍了一拳，扯破她的围巾扔进了马桶之后，爱莎才大概明白过来，那女孩根本就没读过《哈利·波特》。当然她知道哈利·波特是谁，每个人都知道哈利·波特是谁，但她没读过那些书。她甚至不明白格兰芬多围巾最基本的象征意义。爱莎并不想显示出任何优越感，但谁能和这样一个人讲清楚道理呢？【注：[1]《哈利·波特》中霍格沃茨的四大学院之一。这里指具有“斯莱特林”学院风格的人，有野心、精明、胜利至上。】
Muggles.
麻瓜。
It’s the distance between the classroom and the school gates that’s impossible; even a seasoned expert can’t be invisible there. So Elsa had to be strategic.
正是教室到校门之间的距离坏了事，即使是一位经验丰富的专家在那里也无法隐形。所以爱莎必须用些策略。
So today when the girl in the cafeteria had reached out to snatch away Elsa’s scarf, Elsa decided to continue the discussion on the girl’s own intellectual level. She simply threw her glass of milk at her and ran for it. Through the corridors, up to the second floor of the school, then the third, where there was a space under the stairs that the cleaners used as a storage cupboard. Elsa had curled up in there with her arms around her knees, making herself as invisible as possible while she listened to the girl and her followers run up to the fourth floor. And then she hid in the classroom for the rest of the day.
所以今天在食堂，当那女孩伸手想抢走爱莎的围巾时，爱莎决定继续就这女孩的智商水平进行一下研究。爱莎泼了她一杯牛奶，转身就跑。她穿过走廊，上到学校二楼，然后是三楼，那里的楼梯下有个清洁员用来做储藏室的隔间。爱莎在里面蜷起身体，手臂抱着膝盖，让自己尽可能地隐形，这时她听见那个女孩和她的跟班们跑上了四楼。之后她就一直躲在教室里直到放学。
First she stayed close to the teacher while her classmates were crowding to get out of the classroom. Then she slipped out the door in the general tumult and darted down the other flight of stairs, the one that does not lead to the main gates. Of course her pursuers knew she’d do that, they may even have wanted her to do it, because she’d be easier to catch on those stairs. But the lesson had finished early, and Elsa took a chance that lessons on the floor below were still in progress, so she had perhaps half a minute to run down the stairs and through the empty corridor and establish a small head start while her pursuers got entangled with the pupils welling out of the classrooms below.
首先，当她的同学们争着离开教室时，她待在老师旁边。之后她在一片混乱中溜出门，飞奔到另一边楼梯，这个楼梯不通向大门。当然，她的追逐者知道她会这么做，甚至他们也许正希望她这么做，因为在那段楼梯上，他们能更容易抓住她。但下课提早了，爱莎赌楼下的课还没结束，所以当她的追逐者们被下面教室里一拥而出的孩子所阻碍时，她就有大概半分钟时间可以跑下楼梯，穿过空荡荡的走廊，获得小小的优势。
Granny has told her thousands of stories from Miamas about pursuit and war. About evading shadows when they’re on your tail, how to lay traps for them and how to beat them with distraction. Like all hunters, shadows have one really significant weakness: they focus all their attention on the one they’re pursuing, rather than seeing their entire surroundings. The one being chased, on the other hand, devotes every scrap of attention to finding an escape route. It may not be a gigantic advantage, but it is an advantage. Elsa knows this, because she’s checked what “distraction” means.
外婆给她讲过上千个关于追逐与冲突的密阿玛斯故事。怎样摆脱尾随你的暗影，怎样给它们设陷阱，怎样设置干扰打败它们。就像所有猎人一样，暗影有一个十分明显的弱点：它们的全部注意力都集中在目标上，所以会忽视周围的整体环境。另一方面，被追逐的人却投入了每一分的注意力在找逃跑路径。这也许不是一个巨大的优势，但确实是优势。爱莎知道“干扰”是什么意思，她查过这个词。
She was right. She saw the girl and her friends no more than ten yards behind her, but they couldn’t reach her.
她是对的。她看见那女孩和她的朋友们就在身后十米，但他们追不上她。
So she shoved her hand into her jeans pocket and got out a handful of coins she kept there for emergencies. Just as the throng of children was starting to disperse and she was getting close to the second stair towards the main entrance, she dropped the coins on the floor and ran.
所以她伸手从牛仔裤口袋里掏出了一把为突发状况准备的硬币。正当那群孩子开始分散时，她靠近了通向正门入口的二楼楼梯，把硬币撒在地上，然后跑了起来。
Elsa has noticed one odd thing about people. Almost none of us can hear the tinkling sound of coins against a stone floor without instinctively stopping and looking down. The sudden crush and eager arms blocked her pursuers and gave her another few seconds to get clear of them. She made full use of the moment and bolted.
爱莎注意到人们有一个奇怪的特点。当听见硬币丁零当啷落在石头地面时，几乎所有人都会本能地停下来，朝地上看。突然的拥挤和急切的手臂阻挡住了她的追逐者们，又给了她几秒钟甩掉他们。她充分利用了这个时间逃跑。
And then she thinks about Granny’s stories from Miamas, about how one of the princes once evaded a whole flock of pursuing shadows by riding into the darkest forest in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Shadows are the foulest foulnesses ever to live in any fantasy, but even shadows feel fear, said Granny. Even those bastards are afraid of something. Because even shadows have a sense of imagination.
此时，她想起了外婆那些密阿玛斯的故事。有一次一位王子骑马跑进了不眠大陆的幽暗森林，摆脱了一大群追逐他的暗影。外婆说，暗影是所有幻想中最邪恶的存在，但即使是暗影也会恐惧，也有害怕的东西。因为它们也有想象力。
But she hears them throwing themselves at the fence now. Trendy winter boots scraping against the buckled steel wire. Just a few more moments until they catch her. Elsa looks left, towards the parking area. No Audi. Looks right, down at the chaos of the road and the black silence of the park. She looks left again, thinks to herself that this would be the safe option if Dad turned up on time for once. Then she looks right, feels an abrasive fear in her gut when she glimpses the park between the roaring trucks.
但是现在她听见他们开始翻围栏了。时髦的冬靴刮擦着变形的钢丝。再有一会儿他们就会抓住她了。爱莎看了看左边的停车场，奥迪还没来。看了看右边混乱的马路和黑暗寂静的公园。她又看向左边，想着如果爸爸能准时到一次，那就是安全的选择。然后她看向右边，透过咆哮的卡车瞥见公园，一阵猛烈的恐惧感涌上心头。
“Sometimes the safest place is when you flee to what seems the most dangerous,” said Granny, and then she described how the prince rode right into the darkest forest and the shadows stopped, hissing, at the edge. For not even they were sure what might be lurking inside, on the other side of the trees, and nothing scares anyone more than the unknown, which can only be known by reliance on the imagination. “When it comes to terror, reality’s got nothing on the power of the imagination,” Granny said.
“所以，有时候，最危险的地方就是最安全的。”外婆说过，然后她描述了那位王子是怎样进入幽暗森林的。而暗影们都在边缘停下、咒骂，就连它们也不知道有什么东西潜伏在里面，在树林的另一侧。未知是最大的恐惧，未知的事物只能通过想象力来理解。“所以恐惧到来时，想象力比真实情况管用得多。”外婆说。
She opens her eyes and there’s deafening noise all around her. She can hear them yelling. Can hear that they’re running. And then she hears The Monster’s voice. Something is booming out of him, like a primeval power.
她睁开眼睛，周围是震耳欲聋的喧闹声。她听见他们在尖叫，听见他们在逃跑。然后她听见了怪物的声音，那声音低沉，有一种原始的力量。
Elsa holds her breath.
爱莎屏住呼吸。
So Elsa runs to the right. She can smell the burning rubber when the cars brake on the ice. That’s how Renault smells almost all the time. She darts between the trucks and hears their blaring horns and her pursuers screaming at her. She’s reached the pavement when she feels the first of them grab her backpack. She is so near the park that she could reach into the darkness with her hand, but it’s too late. By the time she’s being pulled down into the snow, Elsa knows that the blows and kicks will rain down on her quicker than her hands can shield her, but she pulls up her knees and closes her eyes and tries to cover her face so Mum won’t be upset again.
所以爱莎向右边跑去。她能闻到汽车在冰面上急刹车时橡胶轮胎的焦糊味。雷诺闻上去就一直是这个气味。她在卡车间穿行，听见它们的喇叭声，她的追逐者冲她尖叫。她到达人行道时，感觉到他们中速度最快的人抓住了她的背包。公园近在咫尺，一伸手就可以够到那片黑暗，但太迟了。被拉倒在雪地上时，爱莎知道拳脚将马上落在她的身上，来不及用手护住自己，所以她抬起膝盖，闭上眼睛，试图遮住脸让妈妈不用难过。
But nothing happens.
但什么事都没有发生。
She waits for the dull thuds against the back of her head. Often it doesn’t hurt when they hit her; usually it doesn’t hurt until the day after. The pain she feels during the actual beating is a different kind of pain.
她等待着重击落在她的后脑勺上。通常他们打她时不会痛，直到第二天才会感觉到疼痛。她在挨打时感受到的是另一种痛苦。
Nothing.
没事。
When Elsa turns around she sees the girl who doesn’t read Harry Potter and her friends scattering like bits of paper thrown into the wind.
爱莎转过身，看见不读《哈利·波特》的女孩和她的朋友们颤抖得像风中的纸片。
Elsa’s eardrums are rattling. The Monster is not roaring in Granny and Elsa’s secret language, but in normal language. The words sound strange in his mouth, as if the intonation of every syllable slips and ends up wrong. As if he hasn’t spoken such words for a very long time.
爱莎的耳膜隆隆作响。怪物咆哮用的不是外婆和爱莎的秘密语言，而是正常的语言。从他的嘴里说出这些字，听上去很奇怪，好像每个音节语调的起伏都不太对，似乎他已经很久没有说过这种语言了。
Elsa looks up. The Monster stares down at her through the shadow of the upturned hood and that beard, which never seems to end. His chest heaves a few times. Elsa hunches up instinctively, terrified that his huge hands are going to grab her and toss her into the traffic like a giant flicking a mouse with a single finger. But he just stands there breathing heavily and looking angry and confused. At last he raises his hand, as if it’s a heavy mallet, and points back at the school.
爱莎抬起头。怪物透过兜帽和胡子制造的似乎没有尽头的阴影，低头盯着她看。他的胸膛起伏了几下。爱莎本能地蜷起身，害怕他巨大的双手会抓着她，扔到车道上，就像一个巨人用一根手指弹飞一只老鼠。但他只是站在那儿，重重地喘着气，看上去既生气又迷茫。最后他举起了手，像举起一把沉重的木槌，指了指学校的方向。
Everything echoes.
每个字都带着回音。
In the distance she sees Audi turning into the parking area. Elsa takes a deep breath and feels air entering her lungs for what seems like the first time in several minutes.
她看见远处，奥迪正驶入停车场。爱莎深吸了一口气，感觉空气进入了肺部，似乎是过去几分钟以来的第一次。
When she turns around again, The Monster has gone.
当她再次转过身时，怪物已经走了。
“NEVER! TOUCH! HER!”
“不——许——再——碰——她——”
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