【小故事】我的文具盒小故事：丢了文具盒的那个下午

绿色文具盒回家记

第二节课下课，我伸手去书包侧袋拿文具盒，准备下节美术课用。侧袋是空的。我把书包倒过来抖，课本、水杯、跳绳都掉出来了，绿色文具盒就是不见。我把它昨天明明放在侧袋里的，拉链还拉上了一半。我的声音发抖，同桌安慰我别急，我忍不住红了眼圈，那个文具盒是爷爷给我买的，盒盖上贴着一只绿青蛙。

班长刘阳过来问怎么了，听我说完，他转身在讲台上拍了拍手。全班十几个人应声站起来，像约好了一样。刘阳分了工：他和王小雨去操场和单杠那边找，那是我们课间玩的地方；胖墩和两个男生去楼梯和二楼走廊，一层一层低头看；李朵去音乐教室和美术教室，问那里的老师有没有捡到文具盒。我跟着刘阳找操场，眼睛贴着地面扫，草地里有个绿色的东西，跑过去一看，是个绿瓶盖。

找的人陆陆续续回来，都摇头。李朵最后回来，也说没有。我们站在走廊上，谁也没说肯定找不到了。王小雨说他先回教室，把可能夹着文具盒的地方再翻一遍，课本里、桌肚里、扫帚后面。我跟着回教室，桌肚是空的，扫帚后面也没有。

班会课铃响，班主任走进来，手里拿着一个绿色的东西。是文具盒。班主任说，是二楼图书角的老师擦架子时发现的，盒盖开着，里面的铅笔都散在旁边，老师怕弄丢，就收好放在讲台上，让值日生送到我们班来。我捧着文具盒，打开检查：铅笔、橡皮、水彩笔都在，盒盖内侧那张课程表被谁用透明胶带重新粘好了，断掉的一截铅笔还另外用小纸条包了个尖。不知道是哪位同学做的，我只知道找过它的人里，一定有人顺手把它收拾整齐了。

放学时我把文具盒拉链拉到顶，绿青蛙在夕阳里发亮。我在书包侧袋外面缝了一根松紧带，是奶奶教的。第二天我把文具盒交给同桌检查拉链，跟他说，以后每天放学前互相检查一遍，谁的东西都不能再丢。

The Green Pencil Case Comes Home

At the break after second period, I reached into my schoolbag's side pocket for my pencil case, getting ready for art class. The pocket was empty. I turned the bag upside down and shook it; textbooks, my water bottle, and the jump rope all fell out, but the green pencil case was nowhere. I had definitely put it there yesterday, with the zipper half closed. My voice started to shake. My deskmate told me not to worry, and my eyes went red anyway. Grandpa had bought that case for me, with a green frog sticker on the lid.

Class monitor Liu Yang came over and asked what was wrong. After I explained, he turned and clapped his hands twice on the podium. A dozen classmates stood up at once, as if by agreement. Liu Yang assigned teams: he and Wang Xiaoyu would check the playground and the monkey bars, where we played at break; Pudun and two boys would take the stairs and the second-floor corridor, looking down step by step; Li Duo would go to the music and art rooms and ask the teachers there if anyone had found a pencil case. I followed Liu Yang across the playground, eyes sweeping the ground. Something green sat in the grass; we ran over and it was a green bottle cap.

The searchers came back one after another, all shaking their heads. Li Duo returned last and said no too. We stood in the corridor, and nobody said it was surely gone. Wang Xiaoyu said he would go back to the classroom first and check every place the case could be hiding: inside textbooks, in the desk cubby, behind the brooms. I went back with him. The cubby was empty, and so was the space behind the brooms.

The class meeting bell rang, and our teacher walked in holding something green. The pencil case. She said the teacher at the second-floor reading corner had found it while dusting the shelves, with the lid open and the pencils scattered beside it; afraid something would go missing, she had gathered everything up and left it on the podium for the duty students to bring to our class. I held the case and opened it to check: pens, eraser, and watercolor markers were all there. The class schedule inside the lid had been re-taped by someone with clear tape, and a broken pencil had been wrapped with a paper sleeve over its tip. I did not know which classmate had done it. I only knew that among all the people who had searched, someone had paused to tidy it up.

At dismissal I zipped the case all the way shut, the green frog shining in the sunset. I sewed an elastic band over my side pocket, a trick Grandma taught me. The next day I handed the case to my deskmate to check the zipper and told him that from now on we would check each other's bags before school ended every day, so nobody's things would get lost again.

我们十几个人去找一个文具盒

下课铃刚响，我们组的小雅就哭了。她的绿色文具盒不见了，盒盖上贴着一只绿青蛙，是她爷爷买的。班长刘阳在讲台上拍两下手，问谁愿意帮忙找，呼啦一下，十几个人站起来了，我也站起来了。刘阳分工，我和胖墩负责二楼走廊和楼梯，从栏杆往下看，从地面往上看，一层一层过。

找东西是细活。楼梯每一级台阶的角落都要看一眼，走廊窗台上、饮水机旁边、图书角的架子底下，都得弯腰。我在二楼楼梯拐角捡到一支铅笔，笔杆上有小雅名字的首字母贴纸，我把铅笔放进自己口袋，心想文具盒可能散了一路。胖墩在图书角发现盒盖上的绿青蛙贴纸翘着边，喊我们过去，是图书角的老师收的，铅笔散在旁边，老师一样一样捡起来放好，说已经让值日生往你们班送去了。

我们几个往回跑，正好碰上来找我们的刘阳他们。大家一窝蜂跑回教室，小雅从班主任手里接过文具盒，一样一样往外摆，摆到那截断铅笔的时候停住了，因为断铅笔被人用纸条包了尖。刘阳挠挠头，说那纸条是他包的，他在楼梯上捡到铅笔，怕笔尖扎破文具盒，就顺手包了。小雅看着我们，说了声谢谢，声音小小的，我们十几个人一下子全笑了。

其实那天我自己也差点闯祸，找的时候我把图书角的一摞书碰倒了，是胖墩帮我一本一本码回去的，码完他跟我说，帮人找东西也得手脚轻，别帮倒忙。这句话我记到现在。

后来我们班有了个新规矩，是班主任提议的：谁的文具掉了，全班帮找；捡到的东西先放讲台失物处，写上捡到的地方。上个学期讲台的失物处收过四把尺子、两只手套和一个跳绳，一样一样都回到了主人手里。帮人找东西这件事，我们越做越熟练，像一件理所当然的事。那天在楼梯上捡到铅笔的时候，我心里忽然明白了一件事：帮别人找东西的时候，自己是快乐的，那种快乐比找到自己的玩具还要大。

The Day a Dozen of Us Hunted for One Pencil Case

The break bell had barely rung when Xiaoya from our group started crying. Her green pencil case was gone, the one with the green frog sticker on the lid that her grandpa had bought. Class monitor Liu Yang clapped twice on the podium and asked who wanted to help search, and in a whoosh a dozen of us stood up. I stood up too. Liu Yang split up the teams; Pudun and I took the second-floor corridor and the stairs, looking down over the railing and up along the ground, floor by floor.

Searching is careful work. Every corner of every stair step got a glance, and the windowsills, the water dispenser, the space under the reading corner shelves all required bending down. At the second-floor stair turn I found a pencil with an initial sticker of Xiaoya's name on its shaft. I put it in my pocket, thinking the case might have spilled along the way. At the reading corner, Pudun spotted the green frog sticker with a peeling edge, and called us over. The reading corner teacher had collected it; the pencils lay scattered nearby, and she had picked them up one by one, saying she had already asked the duty students to deliver it to our class.

We ran back and bumped right into Liu Yang's team coming to fetch us. The whole crowd poured into the classroom, and Xiaoya took the case from our teacher, laying things out one by one. She stopped at the broken pencil, because someone had wrapped its tip in a paper sleeve. Liu Yang scratched his head and said he had wrapped it: he had found the pencil on the stairs and was afraid the sharp tip would poke a hole in the case, so he wrapped it up. Xiaoya looked at us and said thank you, very quietly, and all a dozen of us burst out laughing.

Truth is, I nearly caused trouble myself that day. While searching I knocked over a stack of books at the reading corner, and Pudun helped me restack them one by one, then told me that when you help someone search, your hands still have to be gentle, or your help becomes a mess. I remember that sentence to this day.

Later our class got a new rule, suggested by our teacher: when anyone loses a supply, the whole class helps search; found items go first to the lost-and-found spot on the podium, with the place they were found written down. Last semester the lost-and-found held four rulers, two gloves, and a jump rope, and every one of them traveled back to its owner. Getting good at helping others search feels more and more like something simply done. When I picked up that pencil on the stairs, I suddenly understood something: helping someone look for their things makes you happy, and that happiness is bigger than finding your own toy.