【小故事】春天的花小故事：那朵迟开的花

那朵迟开的向日葵

清明前三天，爸爸给了我一小包向日葵种子，和一个底部戳了洞的铁皮罐。我们装满土，用筷子戳了三个浅浅的洞，一粒一粒放进去，再轻轻盖上土。爸爸说：放阳台，每天浇水，一个星期就能发芽。我点头，从那天起，我成了一个有任务的人。

七天过去，土面平平的，像没人睡过的床。十四天过去，还是什么都没有。小区门口看门的爷爷在墙根种了一排向日葵，五月初就高过了我的头顶，顶上顶着圆圆的绿花苞。我放学总要停下来看一会儿。爷爷笑：你那盆在睡觉。我说：怕是种子坏了。爷爷说：种子不会一直睡，它在底下攒力气呢。

我将信将疑，继续浇水。妈妈说：拔了重种吧。我拿着筷子在盆边犹豫了很久，终究没挖。那天晚上，我在纸条上写：向日葵正在攒力气，把纸条贴在盆沿上。从那以后我每天早晚各浇一次水，浇完就蹲在旁边看一会儿。看的时候什么也看不见，可蹲着蹲着，心里那点急就淡了。我还给它写观察日记，连着记了三十多天，每一天都写同一句：土面无动静。写完也不撕，一页一页攒着。

五月十九日早上，我端水出去，忽然一屁股坐在阳台地上。罐子正中间拱起一个小小的绿芽，两片叶子上还顶着一粒土。我扯着嗓子喊：发芽了！发芽了！妈妈手也没擦干就跑过来，爸爸居然还拍了照。我蹲在罐子边数：一个、两个，第三个洞边上也拱起了一个小包。那天上学我跟同桌说了三遍，同桌说：你都说了三遍了。我说：再说三遍也行。从那以后它长得飞快，一天蹿一节，八月里在阳台上开出一只手掌大的花，早上朝着太阳。

楼下爷爷的向日葵谢了，头低垂下来，我的才刚开。我问爷爷：为什么我的开得这么晚？爷爷说：你的种子比我晚埋进土一个月，它在土里多攒了一个月的力气呀。我想了很久。那朵迟开的向日葵让我明白：每个人都有自己的时间，还没开花的，不是被忘掉了，只是在攒力气。

The Sunflower That Bloomed Late

Three days before the Qingming holiday, my father handed me a packet of sunflower seeds and a tin can with holes punched in its bottom. We filled it with soil, poked three shallow holes with a chopstick, dropped the seeds in one by one, and covered them lightly. Father said: put it on the balcony, water it daily, and it will sprout within a week. I nodded, and from that day on I was a person with a duty.

Seven days passed, and the soil surface lay flat as an unoccupied bed. Fourteen days passed, still nothing. Downstairs, the gatekeeper grandpa had planted a row of sunflowers along the wall, and by early May they stood taller than my head, round green buds on their tips. I always stopped to stare on my way home from school. Grandpa laughed: yours must be asleep. I said: maybe the seeds are dead. Grandpa said: seeds do not sleep forever; they are gathering strength underground.

I half believed it and kept watering. Mother said: pull it out and sow again. I held a chopstick over the pot and hesitated a long while, and in the end did not dig. That night I wrote on a slip of paper: the sunflower is gathering strength, and stuck it on the rim of the pot. From then on I watered it morning and evening, and after each watering I crouched beside it for a while. Watching, I could see nothing, yet crouching there the impatience in my heart grew thin. I also kept an observation diary for it, writing the same line for over thirty days in a row: no movement on the soil surface. I never tore the pages out; I saved them one by one.

On the morning of May 19, I carried water out and suddenly sat down on the balcony floor. A small green shoot had pushed up in the middle of the can, its two leaves still carrying a grain of soil. I shouted: it sprouted, it sprouted! Mother ran over with wet hands, and father actually took a photograph. I crouched beside the can and counted: one, two, and a third bump was pushing up by the third hole. At school that day I told my deskmate three times, and he said: you have said it three times already. I said: I could say it three more times. After that it grew fast, a notch taller each day, and in August it opened a palm-sized flower on the balcony, facing the morning sun.

Downstairs the sunflowers of the gatekeeper grandpa had finished blooming and hung their heads, while mine had only just opened. I asked grandpa: why did mine bloom so late? He said: your seeds went into the soil a month later than mine, and they spent an extra month gathering strength. I thought about that for a long time. That late-blooming sunflower taught me: everyone has a time of their own, and one who has not bloomed is not forgotten, only still gathering strength.

同桌的花开了，我的还没有

三月第一周，班主任抱进教室三十个小花盆，说每人种一盆万寿菊，从播种到开花，看谁的花开得最好。教室里一下子炸开了。我领了盆，抓了土，把三粒种子按进土里，还在盆壁上贴了名字：五号，林小满。

头一个星期，同桌陈冬的花盆先冒了芽，两片嫩叶像举着的手。第二星期，他的芽长成了巴掌高的苗，叶子挤挤挨挨。我的五号盆还是光光的土面。有同学路过瞟一眼：林小满，你种的是石头吧？全班笑。我把五号盆往窗台里侧挪了挪，没吭声。

四月，陈冬的苗顶上鼓出一个个绿苞，圆头圆脑。又过了几天，开了第一朵，橘红色，像一小团火。全班围着看。我站在自己那盆光土前面，耳朵发烫，放学时赌气地对它说：不浇了，爱开不开。扭头就走。

第二天早读前，班主任在窗台边蹲着，正好被我撞见。她指着五号盆说：过来，摸一下土。我摸，底下是湿的。她说：底下湿，说明它在土里憋着劲呢。你才等了四十天，陈冬的种子比你早下地两个星期。花不赛跑，各有各的时辰。再等等。

我重新浇起来。五月十日，早读铃刚响，后排忽然有人大喊：五号发芽了！我跑过去，土面裂开一道小缝，一个红褐色的小芽顶了出来，比陈冬的芽小一半，可它结结实实地立在那里。六月，它开花，颜色比陈冬的还深，像烧透的炭。

班会课上，班主任让开花的同学讲经验。我讲了一句：我的种子下得晚，芽出得晚，可它没有偷懒，它在土底下一直没停。教室安静了一会儿，然后鼓掌。那天我在日记里写：别人开花的时候，不用慌。我学会了等，也学会了在等的时候，照样浇水。

The Flower of My Deskmate Bloomed and Mine Had Not

In the first week of March, our homeroom teacher carried in thirty small flower pots and announced that each student would grow one marigold, from sowing to bloom, and we would see whose flower opened best. The classroom erupted. I took a pot, grabbed some soil, pressed three seeds into it, and stuck my name on the pot wall: Number Five, Lin Xiaoman.

In the first week, the pot of my deskmate Chen Dong sprouted first, two tender leaves raised like little hands. In the second week, his sprout had grown into a palm-high seedling with crowded leaves. My Number Five pot still showed a bare soil surface. A classmate strolled past and glanced over: Lin Xiaoman, did you plant stones in there? The whole class laughed. I moved Number Five a little inward on the windowsill and said nothing.

In April, round green buds swelled on top of the seedling of Chen Dong. A few days later the first flower opened, orange-red like a small ball of fire. The class gathered around it. I stood before my own bare pot with burning ears, and at dismissal I said to it in a huff: no more watering, bloom or do not bloom. Then I turned and left.

The next morning before reading class, the homeroom teacher was crouching by the windowsill, right where I ran into her. She pointed at Number Five: come here, touch the soil. I touched it; the bottom was damp. She said: damp below means it is straining away inside. You have waited only forty days; the seeds of Chen Dong went into the soil two weeks earlier than yours. Flowers do not race; each has its own hour. Wait a little longer.

I started watering again. On May 10, just as the morning reading bell rang, someone in the back row shouted: Number Five sprouted! I ran over. The soil surface had cracked open, and a reddish-brown shoot pushed out, half the size of the sprout of Chen Dong, but standing there solidly. In June it bloomed, its color deeper than that of Chen Dong, like fully burned charcoal.

At the class meeting, the teacher asked those whose flowers had bloomed to share experience. I said one thing: my seeds went in late and sprouted late, but they never slacked off; they kept working under the soil. The room went quiet for a moment, then applauded. That day I wrote in my diary: when others bloom, do not panic. I learned to wait, and I learned to keep watering while waiting.