马上到
The delivery rider who’s always on her way
Name: ________________ Date: ________
小田是外卖骑手，个子不高，说话特别快，走路像跑，跑起来像飞。她每天一点半来店里充电。她进门的时候，头盔都不摘下来，电话总是在响，她也总是只回答三个字：“马上到！”
有一次我问她要不要袋子，她张口就说：“马上到！”我们俩都愣了一下，然后笑得停不下来。
她一边充电，一边站着吃面包，三口一个。她说，夜里的订单最奇怪：凌晨两点，有人点一个西瓜，有人点一把雨伞，还有人只点了一包盐，备注写着：急！
“你这么辛苦，家里人知道吗？”
“我儿子以为我在写字楼上班。”她眨眨眼，“我也没骗他，我一天要进二十栋写字楼呢。”上个月家长会上，老师问她在哪儿工作，她说：“在路上。”
那天，我把纸条都拿给她看，包括那张七十分的。她当了五年外卖骑手，看过上万个门牌和地址，门上的字、纸上的字、订单上的字，什么样的都见过。
她拿着纸条看了半天：“这不是小学生写的，是教书的人写的。你看，一笔一画，跟写黑板一样。而且还打分，这不就是老师改作业吗？”
“会不会是护士？”
小田说：“护士？我天天给医院送外卖，那里的字，我一个也看不懂。”
她把笔塞给我：“那个人给你写了一个月，你也给他写一张啊。”
我写了好几张，又都撕了。“您好”太客气，“喂”太没礼貌。最后，我只写了三个字：“你是谁？”三点去后门之前，我把它压在零钱盒下面。
卸货卸到一半，我实在忍不住，跑回前面看了一眼。我的纸条不见了，零钱盒下面压着一张新的：
“十二年了，你是第七个问的。快回去卸货，司机的腰不好。”
十二年？我才来了一个月。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 像 | xiàng | like; as |
| 回答 | huídá | to answer; to reply; answer; reply |
| 一边 | yìbiān | at the same time; while (as in 一边吃一边说) (as in pairs) |
| 奇怪 | qíguài | strange; odd; weird |
| 西瓜 | xīguā | watermelon |
| 以为 | yǐwéi | to think (mistakenly); to assume |
| 张 | zhāng | surname Zhang |
| 外卖 | wàimài | takeout; food delivery |
| 纸 | zhǐ | paper |
| 半天 | bàntiān | a long time; quite a while |
| 黑板 | hēibǎn | blackboard |
| 作业 | zuòyè | work; operation |
English (for the teacher)
Xiaotian is a delivery rider: not very tall, she talks very fast, walks like she’s running, and runs like she’s flying. She comes in at half past one every night to charge her phone. She doesn’t even take her helmet off when she comes in; her phone is always ringing, and she always answers with the same three words: “On my way!”
Once I asked her if she wanted a bag, and without even thinking she said: “On my way!” We both froze for a second, then couldn’t stop laughing.
While her phone charges she stands and eats bread, three bites to a roll. She says the night orders are the strangest: at two in the morning, someone orders a watermelon, someone orders an umbrella, and someone ordered just one bag of salt, with the note: urgent!
“You work so hard. Does your family know?”
“My son thinks I work in an office building.” She winked. “And I’m not lying to him: I go into twenty office buildings a day.” At the parents’ meeting last month, the teacher asked where she worked, and she said: “On the road.”
That night I showed her all the notes, including the seventy. She’s delivered food for five years and read tens of thousands of door numbers and addresses; writing on doors, on paper, on orders, she’s seen every kind.
She studied the notes for a long time: “This isn’t a schoolchild’s writing. It’s the writing of someone who teaches. Look, every stroke careful, just like writing on a blackboard. And they give marks, too. Isn’t that a teacher marking homework?”
“Could it be a nurse?”
Xiaotian said: “A nurse? I deliver to that hospital every day, and I can’t read a single word they write.”
She pushed a pen into my hand: “They’ve been writing to you for a month. Write one back!”
I wrote several and tore them all up. “Hello” was too polite; “Oi” was too rude. In the end I wrote just three words: “Who are you?” Before I went out the back at three, I tucked it under the coin tray.
Halfway through unloading I couldn’t bear it any longer and ran to the front to look. My note had gone, and under the coin tray was a new one:
“Twelve years, and you’re the seventh to ask. Get back to unloading. The driver has a bad back.”
Twelve years? I’d only been there a month.