Talia kept noticing the number twenty-seven everywhere. It showed up on the clock when she happened to glance at it. It appeared on receipts, and even on the license plate of the bus she took to school. At first she laughed it off. But after two weeks, it felt less like coincidence and more like a real pattern.
塔莉娅发现二十七这个数字无处不在。她随便看一眼时钟，会是它。收据上有它，连她上学坐的公交车的车牌上也有它。起初她一笑置之。可是两个星期过去，这看起来已经不像巧合，更像是一种真正的规律。
She told her friend Kenji about it during lunch. "Maybe your brain is just noticing it more because you've started paying attention," he said. "That happens a lot. It's called frequency bias."
午饭时，她把这件事告诉了朋友健二。“也许是因为你开始留意了，所以你的大脑才更容易注意到它，”他说，“这种事很常见，叫频率偏差。”
"Maybe," Talia said, "but it's happened way too many times to just be that."
“也许吧，”塔莉娅说，“可是出现的次数实在太多了，不可能只是这个原因。”
That weekend, the school was holding a raffle to raise money for the art club. Each student could pick one ticket number between one and fifty. Talia stood at the table, staring at the list of numbers still available. Twenty-seven was there, along with thirty-one, which had always been her lucky number as a kid.
那个周末，学校为美术社筹款，举办了一场抽奖。每个学生可以在一到五十之间选一个号码的票。塔莉娅站在桌子前，盯着还没被选走的号码。二十七还在，三十一也在，那是她小时候一直当作幸运数字的号码。
She had to choose between two numbers. One had followed her all month, and the other one she'd always trusted. Kenji, standing beside her, shrugged. "Either way, it's basically the same odds. Just pick whichever feels right."
她得在两个数字之间做选择。一个整个月都跟着她，另一个她一直都很信任。站在旁边的健二耸了耸肩。“反正中奖的机会差不多。选你觉得对的那个就行。”
Talia thought about it for a moment longer, then wrote twenty-seven on her ticket. Somehow it felt like the number had earned its place. The reason behind it was probably nothing more than coincidence.
塔莉娅又想了一会儿，然后在她的票上写下了二十七。不知为什么，她觉得这个数字已经赢得了自己的位置。背后的原因多半只是巧合。
A week later, the raffle results were posted on the school notice board. Talia hadn't won the main prize. But she noticed something that made her smile: the winning ticket, drawn at random, was number thirty-one. She never did figure out why twenty-seven kept showing up all month. But she decided some mysteries were more fun left unsolved.
一个星期后，抽奖结果贴在了学校的公告栏上。塔莉娅没有中大奖。但她注意到了一件让她微笑的事：随机抽出的中奖号码是三十一。她始终没弄明白，为什么二十七整个月都在不断出现。不过她觉得，有些谜团不解开反而更有意思。
