In need of a little translation insight

I saw there was a post from a short while ago about the translation of the story "Cucumbers." Well, I took it upon myself to look into stories written by the same author and begin translating them myself. I just finished writing a rough translation of Живая Шляпа into English, and there is one question I have.

When a character speaks and the sentence finishes with "so-and-so said", does the tense stay the same through translation? For example:

- Я у-у-хо-хо-жу! - говорит Вовка.

Would it be translated into:

"I am leaving," says Vovka. -OR-
"I am leaving," said Vovka.

"says"