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.
成长就如同一层一层的洋葱，树干里一圈一圈的年轮，或是像一个套一个的木头套娃一样。正因为这样，你也是一岁裹着一岁长大的。那就是十一岁的样子。

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.
你不觉得自己十一岁了。不会立马觉得。也许要花几天、几个星期，有时甚至十几个月的时间，当别人问起你岁数的时候，你才会说十一岁。而直到你快到十二岁了，才发觉自己已经十一岁很久了。就是这样。

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创可贴盒子里叮当作响的可怜的几便士一样只有区区十一岁。今天我希望自己有102岁而不是11岁。要是我有102岁，当普莱斯太太把那件红毛衣放在我课桌上的时候，我就知道该怎么说了。我就知道该怎么告诉她那件衣服不是我的，而不是干坐在那儿一句话也说不出来。