一隻守護港灣的燈塔貓，以及她必須離開高塔的那個夜晚
《光之守護者》是一則免費的 12 頁兒童勇氣漫畫故事。一隻名叫卡斯皮安的流浪小貓守護著一座老燈塔，發現一艘漁船正漂向礁石，於是親自拉下霧號拉桿。這部作品由 ReadKidz 製作，你可以在本頁完整閱讀。
漫畫圖像為英文——每一頁後均附有讀者語言的翻譯。
Every evening, when the sun melted into the sea, a small gray kitten climbed the spiral stairs of the old lighthouse alone.
Her name was Caspian, and she had lived there since she was small enough to fit inside a fisherman's boot.
Nobody had put her there.
She had simply arrived, the way strays sometimes do, and decided to stay.
每天傍晚，當太陽融進海裡，一隻灰色的小貓便獨自爬上老燈塔的螺旋樓梯。
她叫卡斯皮安。從她小到能鑽進漁夫的靴子裡時，就住在那裡了。
沒有人把她放在那兒。
她只是來到了這裡——就像流浪動物有時會做的那樣——然後決定留下來。
Caspian took her job seriously. She patrolled each window ledge, her tail held high like a flag. She watched the beam sweep across the dark water. She hissed at seagulls who landed on the railing without permission. This was her lighthouse. Nobody else's.
Every morning, the fishing boats chugged out of the harbor below — wide wooden hulls painted red and blue and sun-bleached yellow.
卡斯皮安很認真地看待自己的工作。她巡視每一扇窗台，尾巴高高豎起，像一面旗子。她看著燈光掃過漆黑的海面。沒有得到允許就停在欄杆上的海鷗，會被她嘶嘶地趕走。這是她的燈塔，不是別人的。
每天早晨，漁船都從下方的港灣突突地駛出去——寬大的木船船身漆成紅色、藍色和被太陽曬褪的黃色。
They returned each evening with their nets heavy and dripping.
Caspian watched them from the highest window, but she never went down to the dock.
The dock was loud and smelled of strangers, and strangers made her fur stand on end.
One stormy Thursday, a fishing boat called the *Cormorant* came back wrong.
It limped through the waves with a broken mast, leaning to one side like a tired old dog.
每天傍晚，牠們帶著沉甸甸、滴著水的漁網回來。
卡斯皮安從最高的窗戶看著牠們，卻從不下到碼頭去。
碼頭很吵，又有陌生人的氣味；陌生人會讓她全身的毛都豎起來。
一個暴風雨交加的星期四，一艘名叫 *Cormorant* 的漁船回來時不太對勁。
它拖著壞掉的桅杆穿過浪頭，一邊傾斜著，像一隻疲憊的老狗。
Its engine sputtered and coughed.
The lighthouse beam swept past it once, twice — and Caspian saw the man on deck waving both arms at the light.
She stared. The boat was drifting toward the rocks.
Caspian had never raced down those stairs so fast.
它的引擎突突作響，還不停咳嗽似地斷斷續續。
燈塔的光束掃過它一次、兩次——卡斯皮安看見甲板上的男人正朝著燈光揮舞雙臂。
她盯著看。那艘船正漂向礁石。
卡斯皮安從沒那麼快地衝下過那些樓梯。
She burst out the iron door at the bottom and scrambled across the wet stones to the signal box — a rusted red lever she had seen the old lighthouse keeper pull, years ago, before he left.
She hooked both paws around it and pulled with every bit of her small, bony weight.
她衝出底部的鐵門，跑過濕漉漉的石頭，奔向信號箱——那是一根生鏽的紅色拉桿，她曾看見多年前離開的老燈塔守護人拉過它。
她用兩隻前爪勾住拉桿，使出自己瘦小身軀的全部力氣往下拉。
The fog horn bellowed across the water. WHOOOOM. Then again. WHOOOOM. The harbor rescue boat fired its engine and shot out into the rain.
The *Cormorant* was saved.
The next morning, the fisherman from the *Cormorant* climbed the lighthouse path.
His name was Darro, and he was tall and sunburned, with rope-calloused hands.
He sat down on the stone step without a word and placed a piece of smoked fish beside him.
霧號的轟鳴聲響徹水面。嗚——嗚——嗚——。接著又響了一次。嗚——嗚——嗚——。港灣救援船發動引擎，衝進雨中。
*Cormorant* 號得救了。
隔天早上，*Cormorant* 號上的漁夫沿著燈塔小徑走上來。
他叫達羅，個子很高，被太陽曬得黝黑，雙手滿是被繩索磨出的厚繭。
他一句話也沒說，就坐在石階上，並在身旁放了一塊煙燻魚。
Then he waited.
Caspian watched from the doorway for a long time. She looked at the fish. She looked at Darro. She looked at the fish again.
She padded forward and ate the fish in four precise bites.
Darro did not try to pet her. He only said, "Same time tomorrow?" Then he stood up and walked back down to the harbor.
He came back the next day, and the day after that.
接著，他等著。
卡斯皮安在門口看了很久。她看看魚，又看看達羅，再看一次魚。
她輕輕走上前，用精準的四口吃掉了那塊魚。
達羅沒有試著摸她。他只說：「明天同一時間？」然後便站起身，走回港灣。
隔天他又來了，之後的一天也來了。
Sometimes he brought fish.
Sometimes he just sat.
Slowly — the way trust always moves — Caspian edged closer, then closer, until one morning she sat right beside his boot and let his rough hand rest on her back for exactly four seconds before she stepped away.
The other fishermen noticed.
有時候，他會帶魚來。
有時候，他只是坐著。
慢慢地——信任總是這樣前進——卡斯皮安一點一點靠近，再靠近，直到某天早晨，她就在他的靴子旁坐下，讓他粗糙的手放在她背上整整四秒，然後才走開。
其他漁夫注意到了。
They began stopping at the bottom of the path, leaving small offerings on the flat rock there: a silver sardine, a scrap of dried squid, a cork for batting around.
Caspian inspected each gift with great seriousness, as if checking it for proper quality.
他們開始停在小徑底端，把小小的禮物放在那裡平坦的石頭上：一條銀亮的沙丁魚、一小片乾魷魚，或是一個可以撥著玩的軟木塞。
卡斯皮安用非常嚴肅的神情檢查每一份禮物，彷彿是在確認它們是否品質合格。
One afternoon a child from the harbor — Darro's daughter, a girl called Wren, with tangled hair and paint-stained fingers — ran up the path and sat cross-legged in front of Caspian, nose to nose.
"She's not fierce," Wren said, surprised.
"She is, actually," said Darro from behind her. "She just decided we're worth guarding now."
Caspian flicked one ear.
一天下午，港灣來了一個孩子——達羅的女兒，名叫雷恩。她頭髮亂蓬蓬的，手指上沾著顏料。她跑上小徑，在卡斯皮安面前盤腿坐下，和她鼻尖對著鼻尖。
「她一點也不兇啊。」雷恩驚訝地說。
「其實她很兇，」達羅在她身後說。「只是她決定，我們現在值得她守護了。」
卡斯皮安動了一下耳朵。
She turned and climbed back up her spiral stairs to the lantern room, where the beam was already beginning its long, slow circle across the evening water.
Below, the red and blue and yellow boats rocked gently in the harbor.
Their lights blinked on, one by one, like small answers to her own great light.
她轉身爬回螺旋樓梯，來到燈室。那裡的光束已經開始緩慢地繞著傍晚的海面畫出長長的圓。
下方，紅色、藍色和黃色的船隻在港灣裡輕輕搖晃。
牠們的燈一盞接一盞亮起，像是對她那盞偉大燈光的小小回答。
She settled onto the window ledge and curled her tail around her paws. She watched all of them — every boat, every bobbing lamp — with her usual green-eyed seriousness.
Her lighthouse. Her harbor. Her boats.
她在窗台上安頓下來，把尾巴圈在爪子周圍。她用一如往常的綠眼睛嚴肅神情，看著牠們所有人——每一艘船、每一盞隨波搖晃的燈。
她的燈塔。她的港灣。她的船。
卡斯皮安並不是因為不再害怕才變得勇敢——最後一頁的她，依然是那隻討厭吵鬧碼頭的貓。改變的是，她開始把誰當成自己人。如果你的孩子需要很長時間才會親近別人，這個故事能溫柔地告訴他們：保持距離和深深在乎，並不是相反的事。達羅把手放在她背上、讓她接受整整四秒的那一刻，很值得停下來讀一讀：這裡的信任是用秒來衡量的，而且沒有人催促她。
共十二頁。大多數孩子大約十分鐘能讀完；如果停下來看看港灣畫面，可能會再久一些。
這部作品是為 7-9 歲的孩子製作的。句子比初階讀本更長，因此年幼的孩子通常會喜歡由大人朗讀。
故事裡有暴風雨，也有船隻遇險，但沒有人受傷，而且救援成功了。緊張的頁面很短，結尾則很平靜。
