The Drawings in Locker 214

Aviva had been assigned locker 214 for exactly nine days when she found the first drawing: a small, careful sketch of a bird on a scrap of graph paper. It was folded once and wedged behind the coat hook, in a spot nobody would find unless they were, like her, still learning the locker's stubborn latch.

阿维娃分到214号储物柜整整九天的时候，发现了第一幅画：一张方格纸的碎片上，画着一只小小的、一笔一划很认真的鸟。纸对折了一次，塞在挂外套的钩子后面，那个位置，除非像她一样，还在跟这个柜子顽固的锁扣较劲，否则谁也发现不了。

She assumed at first it was left over from whoever had used the locker before her, some forgotten homework doodle nobody had bothered to clear out. Then a second drawing appeared the following Monday, a different bird, clearly newer, the paper crisp rather than yellowed. Someone was still opening her locker, or had a way in that Aviva hadn't discovered, and was leaving these behind on purpose.

起初她以为，这是上一个用这个柜子的人留下来的，某张被遗忘的作业上的涂鸦，没人费心清理。然后，下一个星期一，又出现了第二幅画，是另一只鸟，明显更新，纸张挺括，没有发黄。有人还在打开她的柜子，或者有她没发现的进入办法，并且是故意把这些留在里面。

She mentioned it to her friend Naomi at lunch, half expecting to be laughed at. "Maybe report it," Naomi said. "Someone's getting into your stuff."

午饭时她跟朋友娜奥米提起了这件事，有点预料会被笑话。“也许该报告一下，”娜奥米说，“有人在翻你的东西。”

What stopped Aviva from actually reporting anything was that nothing had gone missing. She started arriving early instead, propping the locker door open just enough to watch the hallway without being obvious about it. Having stood there uselessly for two mornings in a row, she finally caught him on the third: a senior she recognized vaguely from the hallway. He slid a folded paper through the vent at the top of the locker door, then walked off toward the science wing without noticing her at all.

阿维娃最终没有去报告任何事，是因为什么东西都没少。她改成每天早早到校，把柜门虚掩着，刚好够她看着走廊，又不会显得太明显。连着两个早上白白站着之后，第三天她终于抓到了他：一个高三的男生，她在走廊里隐约认得。他把一张折起来的纸，从柜门上方的通风口塞了进去，然后朝理科楼走去，完全没有注意到她。

She caught up with him after school. "You've been leaving these," she said, holding out the birds, four of them now, fanned like evidence. "Why?"

放学后她追上了他。“这些是你放的，”她说，把那些鸟举了出来，现在有四张，像证据一样摊开，“为什么？”

Rarely had she seen anyone move so quickly from denial to resignation. He looked, for a moment, like he wanted to deny it, and then didn't bother. "That used to be my locker. Me and my brother shared it — we're a year apart, we were both small enough to fit our stuff in one. He drew birds. I never could draw anything, so I just kept the habit going after he transferred, even after they reassigned the locker to somebody else."

她很少见过有人这么快地从否认转到认命。他看上去，有那么一刹那，想要否认，然后又懒得否认了。“那原来是我的柜子。我和我弟弟合用，我们只差一岁，那时候都小，东西放一个柜子里就够了。他喜欢画鸟。我什么都不会画，所以他转学以后，我就一直保持着这个习惯，哪怕柜子后来被分给了别人。”

"You could've just kept a sketchbook," Aviva said, not unkindly.

“你完全可以自己准备一本素描本，”阿维娃说，语气并不严厉。

"I know. It's not really about the drawing." Mateo shrugged, looking more embarrassed than the explanation warranted. "It's stupid. I'll stop."

“我知道。其实不是为了画画。”马特奥耸了耸肩，神情比这番解释所需要的更窘迫，“很傻。我不放了。”

Aviva thought about it overnight. The next morning, before class, she folded a small drawing of her own, a clumsy bird nowhere near as good as his. She slid it through the vent of locker 214 for him to find whenever he next came looking.

阿维娃想了一整夜。第二天早上，上课前，她折了一幅自己画的小画，一只笨拙的鸟，远不如他的好。她把它从214号柜的通风口塞了进去，等他下次来找的时候看到。

He never mentioned it directly. But the following Monday, a fifth bird appeared behind her coat hook, better than the last one, as though something in him had decided this new arrangement was worth the extra effort.

他从来没有直接提起过。可是下一个星期一，她的挂钩后面出现了第五只鸟，比上一只画得更好，仿佛他心里有什么东西已经认定，这个新的安排值得多花一份力气。