《LUCA-夏日友晴天》 动画 第四章 中文版↗
Luca’s mom sat him down at the dining room table. Luca held on to his tail, nervous, as he saw the various human items he had collected spread out on the table.
“Uhhh. . .” was all Luca could think to say.
His dad was there, too, but it was his mom Luca was worried about. She was sitting on the other side of the room, and he couldn’t tell what was going on in her head. Was she going to scream at him? Punish him? Scream at him and punish him?
“Daniela, do we really need to go through with this?” Lorenzo said, breaking the silence.
“With. . . what?” Luca asked.
“Son, you’re in big trouble,” Lorenzo said. “You need to promise us that you’ll never sneak off to the surface again.”
“I’m really sorry,” Luca said, and he meant it. “But you know. . . it’s not that dangerous up there! Maybe I could show you—”
“I told you,” Daniela said to her husband angrily, “our son has a death wish!”
“But, Mom! We’re always careful—”
Instantly, Luca realized his mistake, and covered his mouth.
“We?” Daniela and Lorenzo said in unison.
“Me and my friend. . . Alberto,” Luca began. “But it’s okay! He’s one of us.”
“Ah, yes. There’s usually a bad influence,” said a voice.
Luca turned to see a sea monster emerge from the shadows. The monster looked just like his dad, except his skin was transparent, his eyes were milky, and he was generally kind of scary to look at.
“Good thing you sent for me when you did,” the sea monster said.
“Luca, this is my brother. Your Uncle Ugo,” Dad said.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Daniela said.
“Of course,” Uncle Ugo replied. “Hello, Luca. Nice to—”
But before he could finish his sentence, Uncle Ugo froze and made weird gasping sounds, like he was having an attack.
“Oh, he’s okay,” Dad said. “Just punch his heart. Just a little tap.”
Luca was horrified, but he obeyed anyway. He flicked Uncle Ugo. A second later, Ugo gasped as his heart started up again.
“Thanks for that,” Uncle Ugo coughed. “Too much oxygen up here. Not like the deep. As you’ll learn.”
“What?” Luca asked. He didn’t like where this was going.
“Sure, there’s no sunlight, but there’s nothing to see anyway. . . or do. It’s just you and your thoughts. And all the whale carcass you can eat. Little bits of it just float into your mouth—you can’t stop it, you can’t see it.” Uncle Ugo rambled on. “C’mon, no time to waste!”
“Mom? What does he mean?”
“You’re going to stay with Uncle Ugo for the rest of the season,” Daniela answered.
“No!” Luca said, panicked. “I can’t!”
“Two seasons, then. Want to go for three?”
“Why are you doing this?” Luca asked.
“The world is a very dangerous place, Luca!” Daniela replied. “And if I have to send you to the bottom of the ocean to keep you safe, so be it.”
“You don’t know what it’s like up there!” Luca said, his voice rising.
“I know you! And I know what’s best for you,” Mom said. “It’s done.”
Luca glared at his mom.
“Hey, look me in the eye,” she said. “You know I love you, right?”
But Luca wouldn’t give his mom the satisfaction of a response. Instead, he whirled around and headed to his bedroom.
Daniela wanted to say something that would make everything better, but she had no idea what that would be.
Luca fumed in his room. He looked at his bedroom window, then at his bedroom door.
In that moment, he knew what he had to do.
Luca left through the window, unaware that his supposedly sleeping Grandma was watching him leave.
“This is so unfair!” Luca said, raging. He had headed right for Alberto’s place and was now pacing the floor as Alberto listened. “They’re sending me to the deep! To live with my weird see-through uncle! What do I do?”
“I dunno,” Alberto said. “Stay?”
“Up here?” Luca asked. “They’ll come looking for me.”
“Okay,” Alberto replied, knowing his friend was right. “That may be true. But. . . will they come looking for you over there?”
Alberto looked toward the town of Portorosso.
“No way,” Luca said. “That’s crazy!”
But Alberto was undeterred. “I mean, that place must be full of Vespas. There’s gotta be one for us.”
Luca thought for a moment, staring at Portorosso. “A real Vespa. . .” he said, his voice trailing off. “Could we even survive over there?”
“You and me? We can do anything!” Alberto insisted. “We’d swim right over to Vespatown, track down Signor Vespa—”
“Wait, do you really think there’s a Signor Vespa?” Luca asked.
“Makes sense, right?”
“Yes. Continue.”
“And we say, ‘Signor Vespa! Build us one of these! ‘” Then Alberto pulled out the diagram he had made of their custom Vespa.
To Luca’s eyes, the Vespa looked amazing. It had all sorts of cool features. But the best feature had to be the extra-long seat, where both he and Alberto could sit.
“Whoa. This is the greatest drawing I’ve ever seen,” Luca said.
“Yeah, I know!” Alberto replied. “Luca, think about it. Every day, we’ll ride someplace new. And every night, we’ll sleep under the fish. No one to tell us what to do. Just you and me out there. Free.”
Free.
Luca liked the sound of that.
A while later, Luca and Alberto ran for the water. As Alberto reached the edge, he jumped off, screaming, “Take me, Gravity!” Then he did a backflip off the cliff and splashed into the sea.
Luca was right behind, and he hesitated, just for a moment. He looked at the town of Portorosso, and he could hear all the reasons he shouldn’t go echoing in his head. Then, at last, Luca said, “Silenzio, Bruno.”
And with a loud “Wooohoooo!” he jumped, joining Alberto in the water.
They had changed back into their sea monster forms when they hit the water. Now they started to swim toward the town.
Luca just wanted to be in Portorosso already. Unfortunately, he was moving so quickly that he failed to notice the big rock he was about to swim into!
Lucky for him, Alberto pulled him out of the water. In the air, for the briefest moment, they transformed into land monsters. Then they hit the water again and changed back into sea monsters. They continued swimming.
Thrilled at how alive he felt, Luca kept jumping out of the water, enjoying the quick transformation into land monster before returning to his original form. He and Alberto leapt in and out of the water all the way to Portorosso.
