星期三

親愛的長腿叔叔：

我改名字了。

在學校名單上我仍叫喬若莎，不過在其他場合我就叫茱蒂了。要為自己取一個小名實在很悲哀，不是嗎？不過茱蒂也不是我憑空捏造的。在弗萊迪·柏金斯能流利地講話前，他都是那樣叫我的。

我希望李皮太太以后在給小寶寶取名字時能多用用她的聰明才智。她從電話簿上選擇我們的姓氏——您只要翻開第一頁就會看到亞伯特。而名字則隨便在哪兒看到就拿來用了，喬若莎是她從一塊墓碑上看到的。我一直都很討厭這名字，不過我挺喜歡茱蒂的。它聽上去有點傻氣，就像是那種有著一雙藍眼睛，甜甜的，被家人寵壞，一輩子都不用煩惱的女孩子的名字——跟我完全不同的女孩子。這樣不是很好嗎？不管我犯了什么錯，都沒人說是我的家人把我慣壞的。不過假裝一下也挺好玩的。以后寫信請寫給茱蒂。

（晚餐鈴響了，再見。）

Wednesday

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I've changed my name.

I'm still"Jerusha"in the catalogue, but I'm'Judy'everywhere else. It's really too bad, isn't it, to have to give yourself the only pet name you ever had?I didn't quite make up the Judy though.That's what Freddy Perkins used to call me before he could talk plainly.

I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little more ingenuity about choosing babies'names.She gets the last names out of the telephone book-you'll find Abbott on the first page-and she picks the Christian names up anywhere;she got Jerusha from a tombstone.I've always hated it;but I rather like Judy.It's such a silly name.It belongs to the kind of girl I'm not-a sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and spoiled by all the family, who romps her way through life without any cares.Wouldn't it be nice to be like that?Whatever faults I may have, no one can ever accuse me of having been spoiled by my family!But it's great fun to pretend I've been.In the future please always address me as Judy.

(Dinner bell. Goodbye.)