We once had a poster competition in our fifth grade art class.
我们曾经在五年级的艺术课上举办过一次海报比赛。
“You could win prizes,’’ our teacher told US as she wrote the poster information on the blackboard. She passed out sheets of construction paper while continuing, “The first prize is ten dollars. You just have to make sure that the words on the blackboard appear somewhere on your poster.”
“你们可以获奖，”我们的老师在黑板上写海报说明时对我们说。她一边分发图纸，一边继续说，“一等奖是十美元，你只要确保黑板上的字出现在你的海报上。”
We studied the board critically. Some of US looked with one eye and held up certain colors against the blackboard, rocking the sheets to the fight or left while we conjured up our designs. Others twisted their hair around their fingers or chewed their erasers while deep in thought. We had plans for that ten-dollar grand prize, each and every one of US. I'm going to spend mine on candies, one hopeful would announce, while another practiced looking serious, wise and rich.
我们仔细地研究黑板。当我们思索着我们的设计的时候，我们中的一些人眯着一只眼，拿起不同的颜色在黑板上涂抹。一些人离开了，一些人在互相扔着纸团，另一些人用手指卷着发梢，或者嘴里嚼着橡皮，陷入沉思。我们中的每一个人都计划好了10美元大奖。一位有希望的人宣布，用钱购买糖果，而另一位则练习如何看起来严肃、睿智、富有。
Everyone in the class made a poster. Some of us used parts of those fancy paper napkins, while others used nothing but colored construction paper. Some of US used big designs, and some of us preferred to gather our art tidily down in one comer of our poster and let the space draw the viewer's attention to it. Some of US would wander past the good students’ desks and then return to our own projects with a growing sense of hopelessness. It was yet another grown-up trick of the soil they seemed especially fond of making all of US believe we had a fair chance，and then always - always -rewarding the same old winners.
班上每个人都做了一张海报。我们中的一些人使用了那些花哨的餐巾纸的一部分，而另一些人只使用彩色图纸。一些人使用了大型设计，另一些人更喜欢将我们的艺术整齐地放在海报的一角，让空间吸引观众的注意力。一些人会在优秀学生的课桌旁徘徊，然后带着越来越强烈的绝望感回到自己的项目中。这是另一种成年人的把戏，他们似乎特别喜欢让我们所有人相信我们有公平的机会，然后总是——总是——奖励同样的老赢家。
I believe I drew a sailboat, but I can’t say that with any certainty. I made it. I admired it. I determined it to be the very best of all of the posters I had seen, and then I turned it in.
我相信我画了一艘帆船，但我不能肯定。我画完了，很喜欢。我确定这是我看过的所有海报中最好的一张，然后我把它交了上去。
Minutes passed.
几分钟过去了。
No one came along to give me the grand prize, and then someone distracted me, and I probably never would have thought about that poster again.
没有人来给我大奖，然后有人分散了我的注意力，我可能再也不会想到那张海报了。
I was still sitting at my desk, thinking, What poster? When the teacher gave me an envelope with a ten-dollar bill in it and everyone in the class applauded for me.
当老师给我一个里面一张十美元钞票的信封时，全班同学都为我鼓掌。我仍坐在桌子旁，心想：什么海报？
