For two weeks, Corinne's tomatoes kept disappearing overnight, always the ripest ones. They always vanished from the same corner of her plot at the community garden. She started arriving early just to check, half expecting to catch a rabbit or a determined bird. She never found so much as a chewed leaf.
两个星期来，科琳的西红柿一直在夜里不见，而且总是最熟的那几个。它们总是从她社区菜园那块地的同一个角落消失。她开始特地早早赶来查看，半指望能抓到一只兔子或者一只执着的鸟。可她连一片被啃过的叶子都没发现。
She mentioned it to a few other plot-holders, and the conversation quickly turned toward Beatriz. Beatriz's plot bordered hers, and a few people said she had been seen crouching near that exact corner more than once that month. It was never stated outright, but the suggestion sat there anyway: maybe Beatriz had simply been helping herself.
她跟另外几位菜地的主人提起这件事，话题很快转向了贝亚特丽丝。贝亚特丽丝的地和她的相邻，有几个人说，这个月他们不止一次看到她蹲在那个角落附近。没有人明说，可这个暗示还是摆在那里：也许贝亚特丽丝只是随手拿了。
Corinne didn't want to believe it. If Beatriz really wanted to steal vegetables, she thought, she wouldn't do it so openly. That corner sat right at the border between their two plots, in plain view of anyone walking past. She and Beatriz had shared tools and seedlings for over a year, and it felt wrong to suspect her over a handful of tomatoes. Still, the pattern was hard to ignore. One evening, uncomfortable but determined to settle it, she decided to ask her directly rather than let the rumour grow any further.
科琳不愿相信。她想，如果贝亚特丽丝真想偷菜，就不会做得这么明目张胆。那个角落正好在两块地的交界处，所有路过的人都看得一清二楚。她和贝亚特丽丝共用工具和菜苗已经一年多了，为了几个西红柿就怀疑她，感觉不对。可是，这个规律又很难忽视。一天傍晚，她心里不安，却下定决心要把这件事弄清楚，决定直接去问她，而不是让谣言越传越远。
Beatriz looked genuinely confused, then embarrassed, when Corinne described exactly where the missing tomatoes had been. "That corner," she said slowly, "I thought that was mine." She explained that the garden committee had remeasured the plots in the spring, replacing the old wooden stakes with new metal ones. She had assumed the boundary had shifted slightly in her favour. The new stake sat noticeably closer to Corinne's tomato vines than the old one had.
当科琳准确描述了丢西红柿的位置，贝亚特丽丝先是真的一脸困惑，接着变得尴尬起来。“那个角落，”她慢慢地说，“我还以为是我的。”她解释说，菜园委员会在春天重新测量了菜地，把旧的木桩换成了新的金属桩。她以为边界稍微往她这边挪了一点。新桩明显比旧桩更靠近科琳的西红柿藤。
The two of them walked over together and found the mistake immediately. Someone remeasuring the plots had misread a number on the garden map. That mistake had placed Beatriz's stake nearly a metre into what should have been Corinne's space. Beatriz hadn't been stealing anything at all; she had simply been harvesting vegetables she genuinely believed were hers.
两个人一起走过去，立刻发现了错误。负责重新测量菜地的人把菜园地图上的一个数字看错了。这个错误让贝亚特丽丝的桩插进了本该属于科琳的地盘将近一米。贝亚特丽丝根本没有偷任何东西；她只是在收获她真心以为是自己的蔬菜。
They fixed the stake together that evening. Both of them laughed about how close two reasonable people had come to a real falling-out over a misplaced piece of metal. Corinne admitted she had almost reported it to the committee as theft. Beatriz admitted she had noticed the tomatoes looked oddly familiar. She had wondered, more than once, why her neighbour's plants seemed to be doing so well that year.
那天傍晚，她们一起把桩挪了回去。两个人都笑了，笑两个通情达理的人，竟然差点为了一根放错位置的金属桩真的闹翻。科琳承认，她差点就向委员会报告说有人偷菜。贝亚特丽丝承认，她早就发现那些西红柿看着莫名眼熟。她不止一次纳闷，为什么邻居的菜那一年长得那么好。
