The painted stars on the ceiling of the town hall reading room had always glowed at nine o'clock. Nobody in town talked about it. People just lowered their voices. The old books on the shelves rustled their pages like sleepers turning over.
镇政厅阅览室天花板上画的星星，向来在九点钟发光。镇上没有人谈论这件事。人们只是把声音压低。书架上的旧书翻动着书页，沙沙作响，像睡着的人在翻身。
Then, one evening, the stars stayed dark.
然后，有一天傍晚，星星没有亮。
Bo, the night caretaker, stood in the middle of the room with his keys in his hand. He looked up. The ceiling was only plaster and paint. Nothing moved on the shelves. The silence felt wrong, like a clock that had stopped ticking.
值夜的管理员波站在房间中央，手里拿着钥匙。他抬头看。天花板只是灰泥和颜料。书架上什么也没有动。这寂静让人觉得不对劲，像一只停了摆的钟。
"It has never done this before," he said to himself.
“它以前从来没这样过，”他自言自语道。
"It has done it once," said a voice from the doorway.
“它有过一次，”门口有个声音说。
Jasmin, the town librarian, came in with a stack of forms under her arm. She was the only person Bo knew who carried paperwork at nine at night. She stared at the ceiling and counted with one finger.
镇上的图书管理员贾丝明走了进来，腋下夹着一叠表格。波认识的人里，只有她会在晚上九点还带着文书。她盯着天花板，伸出一根手指数着。
"Forty-one," she said. "There should be forty-two. Look at the corner above the window."
“四十一颗，”她说，“应该有四十二颗。看窗户上面的那个角落。”
Bo looked. A pale round patch showed where a star used to be. The paint had flaked away, and the plaster underneath was bare and grey.
波看过去。有一块苍白的圆斑，显出一颗星星原来的位置。颜料剥落了，下面的灰泥光秃秃的，是灰色的。
"The last star holds the others together," Jasmin said. "The old librarian told me that on my first day. I thought she was joking."
“最后那颗星星把其他的星星联结在一起，”贾丝明说，“老馆员在我上班的第一天就这么跟我说了。我还以为她在开玩笑。”
"Was she?"
“她是在开玩笑吗？”
"She was a very serious woman. I never heard her tell a joke."
“她是个很严肃的人。我从没听她讲过笑话。”
Bo felt something small under his shoe. He bent down and picked up a yellow plastic star, the kind children stick on their bedroom ceilings. A curl of tape still hung from the back.
波觉得鞋底下有个小东西。他弯下腰，捡起一颗黄色的塑料星星，就是孩子们贴在卧室天花板上的那种。背面还挂着一小卷胶带。
"Somebody's child dropped it," he said. "Maybe it will do."
“是谁家的孩子掉的，”他说，“也许能凑合用。”
"A sticker," Jasmin said. "For a ceiling that is two hundred years old."
“一张贴纸，”贾丝明说，“贴在一块有两百年历史的天花板上。”
"It's a star, isn't it? A star is a star."
“它是颗星星，不是吗？星星就是星星。”
Jasmin sighed, but she went to fetch the tall ladder from the cupboard.
贾丝明叹了口气，但还是去柜子里取来了那架高梯子。
"First we have to charge it," Bo said. "These stickers drink light. My nephew has about thirty of them."
“首先得给它充光，”波说，“这种贴纸会吸光。我外甥有三十来张。”
They carried the sticker to the biggest reading lamp. They held it under the bulb for ten whole minutes. Jasmin timed it on her watch. She did not look hopeful. Bo kept turning the star over, as if it were a coin he wanted to polish.
他们把贴纸拿到最大的那盏阅读灯下，在灯泡底下整整举了十分钟。贾丝明用手表计时。她看上去并不抱希望。波不停地翻看那颗星星，好像它是一枚想要擦亮的硬币。
When the ten minutes ended, they switched off the lamp. The sticker glowed a soft green in the dark. Bo grinned.
十分钟到了，他们关掉了灯。贴纸在黑暗里发出柔和的绿光。波咧嘴笑了。
"There," he said. "I told you."
“看吧，”他说，“我说过的。”
He climbed the ladder, pressed the sticker onto the bare patch and held it there with his thumb. For a moment the whole corner of the ceiling shone green. Then the light faded, quickly, like a breath on a window. After half a minute the sticker was only a pale yellow shape again. The other forty-one stars stayed dark.
他爬上梯子，把贴纸按在光秃秃的那块斑上，用拇指压着。有那么一刻，天花板的整个角落都亮着绿色。然后光很快就褪了，像窗玻璃上的一口气。半分钟后，贴纸又只是个淡黄色的形状。其他四十一颗星星还是暗的。
"Well," Jasmin said. "That went exactly as I expected."
“嗯，”贾丝明说，“完全在我意料之中。”
"You expected it to fail?"
“你料到它会失败？”
"I expected it to be a sticker."
“我料到它就是张贴纸。”
Bo came down the ladder slowly. He felt a little foolish, but he did not want to give up.
波慢慢走下梯子。他觉得自己有点傻，可他不想放弃。
"Maybe it needs more light," he said. "Maybe ten minutes was too short."
“也许它需要更多的光，”他说，“也许十分钟太短了。”
"If we give it an hour, it will glow for an hour. That will not fix the ceiling." Jasmin put her forms on a table and sat down. "Think, Bo. In two hundred years, nobody has charged these stars with a lamp. So what does this room want?"
“就算给它一个小时，它也只能亮一个小时。那补不好天花板。”贾丝明把表格放在桌上，坐了下来。“想想，波。两百年来，没人用灯给这些星星充过光。那这个房间到底想要什么？”
Bo thought about all the evenings he had spent here. He remembered the regular readers in the corners and the schoolchildren with their homework. He remembered the man who read the newspaper out loud to nobody.
波想起了他在这里度过的所有夜晚。他想起了角落里的常客，还有写作业的小学生。他想起了那个对着空气大声念报纸的男人。
"People used to come here at night," he said slowly. "Not only to borrow books. They read here. Out loud, sometimes, just a page or two."
“以前人们晚上会来这里，”他慢慢地说，“不光是借书。他们在这里读书。有时候念出声来，只念一两页。”
"The reading evenings," Jasmin said, and she sat up straight. "We stopped them last spring, because the council needed the hall for storage."
“阅读之夜，”贾丝明说，她坐直了身子。“去年春天我们停办了，因为镇议会要用大厅放东西。”
"And the stars have been getting weaker ever since."
“而星星从那以后就越来越暗了。”
"I told myself it was the old paint." Jasmin looked at the dark ceiling for a long moment. "What if the stars do not need light at all? What if they need someone to read to them?"
“我一直对自己说是旧颜料的缘故。”贾丝明久久地看着黑暗的天花板。“万一星星根本不需要光呢？万一它们需要的是有人念给它们听呢？”
"It sounds silly."
“听着有点傻。”
"We just tried to charge a plastic star under a lamp. I think we are past silly."
“我们刚才还试着在灯底下给一颗塑料星星充光。我觉得我们早就过了傻的阶段了。”
She went to the nearest shelf and pulled out a thick book of travel stories. She found a chair for Bo and put a second chair beside it. Then she turned off every lamp in the room, except the small one on her table.
她走到最近的书架前，抽出一本厚厚的游记。她给波找了把椅子，又在旁边放了第二把。然后她关掉了房间里所有的灯，只留下她桌上那盏小的。
"You go first," she said.
“你先来，”她说。
"I am a terrible reader."
“我读得很糟糕。”
"Then the stars will be easy to impress."
“那星星就容易感动了。”
Bo opened the book. His voice sounded strange in the empty room, thin and a little too loud. He read about a ship that crossed a wide sea. The cook counted the sailors every morning, because one of them kept disappearing. Halfway down the page he reached the word Mediterranean. He stopped, tried it twice and said it wrong both times.
波翻开书。他的声音在空荡荡的房间里听起来很陌生，又细又有点太响。他读到一艘穿越宽阔大海的船。厨师每天早上都要清点水手，因为有一个水手总是不见。读到那页中间，他碰到一个词：Mediterranean（地中海）。他停下来，试了两次，两次都读错了。
Above him, something flickered.
他头顶上，有什么东西闪了一下。
Bo stopped reading. Jasmin pointed, without a word. High in the corner by the door, one painted star had started to glow. It was faint and silver, like a window far away.
波不读了。贾丝明一言不发地指了指。靠门的高处角落里，有一颗画上去的星星开始发光。它微弱而银白，像遥远的一扇窗。
"Keep going," she whispered.
“继续，”她小声说。
He kept going. When the page ended, Jasmin took the book and read the next one in her clear, careful voice. A second star lit up, and then a third. They did not come all at once. They woke the way people wake in a house, one after another, with long pauses between.
他继续读下去。一页读完，贾丝明接过书，用她清晰、认真的声音读了下一页。第二颗星星亮了，接着是第三颗。它们不是一下子全亮的。它们像一座房子里的人一样醒来，一个接一个，中间隔着很长的停顿。
By the fifth page, Bo had stopped worrying about his voice. By the tenth, he had stopped watching the ceiling and was simply enjoying the story. The cook was hiding the missing sailor in the kitchen. The man was too frightened to go on deck. Bo laughed out loud at that. The whole ceiling brightened, as if the room had laughed with him.
读到第五页时，波已经不再担心自己的声音。读到第十页，他不再盯着天花板，只是在享受这个故事。厨师把失踪的水手藏在了厨房里。那个人吓得不敢上甲板。波听到这儿放声大笑。整个天花板都亮了起来，好像房间也和他一起笑了。
Around them the books began to rustle. A page turned on the top shelf. Another one answered it from the far wall. The sound was soft and busy, like a crowd settling into seats before a show.
他们周围，书开始沙沙作响。最上层书架上的一页翻动了。远处墙边的另一本回应了它。那声音轻柔而忙碌，像观众在演出前坐进座位。
"Look," Jasmin said, and her voice shook a little. "Look at the window."
“看，”贾丝明说，她的声音有点发抖。“看窗户那边。”
The yellow sticker was glowing again. It was not the thin green light from the lamp. It was a warm, steady silver, exactly the same as the painted stars around it. It seemed to belong there. Forty-one stars and one plastic one hung together in the dark. No one could have told which was which.
黄色的贴纸又亮了。这回不是灯下那种淡淡的绿光。那是温暖而稳定的银光，和它周围画出来的星星一模一样。它似乎本就属于那儿。四十一颗星星和一颗塑料的，一同悬在黑暗里。没人说得出哪颗是哪颗。
"The forty-second," Bo said.
“第四十二颗，”波说。
"The room accepted it." Jasmin shook her head slowly. "Two hundred years of careful painting, and the missing piece was something from a toy shop."
“房间接受了它。”贾丝明慢慢摇了摇头。“两百年精心的绘制，缺的那一块竟是玩具店里的东西。”
"We should read here every evening."
“我们应该每天晚上都在这里读书。”
"We will. I will tell the council the reading evenings are back. If they want the hall for storage, they can store their boxes somewhere that does not have stars."
“会的。我要告诉议会，阅读之夜回来了。如果他们要用大厅放东西，就让他们把箱子放到没有星星的地方去。”
She picked up her forms and found a pen. She wrote a line at the bottom of the top page. Bo leaned over her shoulder to read it.
她拿起表格，找出一支笔。她在第一页的底部写了一行字。波从她肩后探过身去读。
Missing star replaced. Cost: fifty pence. Salary: none.
遗失的星星已更换。费用：五十便士。薪水：无。
"Salary?" he asked.
“薪水？”他问。
"If a new employee works nights, the council will want to know what we pay him." Jasmin smiled. "I think they will be very happy with the answer."
“新员工要上夜班的话，议会会想知道我们付他多少钱。”贾丝明笑了。“我想他们会对答案非常满意。”
Bo looked up at the small yellow star, shining quietly among the old ones.
波抬头看着那颗小小的黄色星星，在那些古老的星星中间静静地闪耀。
"It is the only worker in town who never asks for a day off," he said.
“它是镇上唯一从不请假的员工，”他说。
