Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings insides a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That's how being eeven years old is.
成長就如同一層一層的洋蔥，樹干里一圈一圈的年輪，或是像一個套一個的木頭套娃一樣。正因為這樣，你也是一歲裹著一歲長大的。那就是十一歲的樣子。

You don’t feel eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes months before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don‘t feel smart eleven, not until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is.
你不覺得自己十一歲了。不會立馬覺得。也許要花幾天、幾個星期，有時甚至十幾個月的時間，當別人問起你歲數的時候，你才會說十一歲。而直到你快到十二歲了，才發覺自己已經十一歲很久了。就是這樣。

Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hndred and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater on my desk. I would’ve known how to tell her it wasn’t mine instead of just sitting three with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my mouth.
只有今天，我希望自己不要像我創可貼盒子里叮當作響的可憐的幾便士一樣只有區區十一歲。今天我希望自己有102歲而不是11歲。要是我有102歲，當普萊斯太太把那件紅毛衣放在我課桌上的時候，我就知道該怎么說了。我就知道該怎么告訴她那件衣服不是我的，而不是干坐在那兒一句話也說不出來。