"Anthony, Piers - Mode 01 - Virtual Mode" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

She grabbed the remote control and diminished the volume just enough to accede without quite ceasing to annoy him. He went on to his bedroom.

One down. One to go.

An hour later her father, clean, shaved, and neatly dressed, went out again. Colene stared at the TV, pretending not to notice. She didn't care about his date with his mistress, as long as he was discreet. Well, maybe deep down she did care, but that was worse than pointless: it only cut her up further. There was nothing she could do about it anyway. So it was safer not to care.

Fifteen minutes after that, her mother's car arrived. Colene remained before the TV. Actually her mind was on the man in the shed; she wasn't paying any attention to the program. But she had to play her role, more so today than usual.

Her mother went straight to the kitchen, and Colene heard the first drink being poured. Good; there would be no trouble from that quarter this evening.

She got up, leaving the TV on, and went to the kitchen. "I'll just take a snack out to the shed, okay?" she said, picking up some candy bars and raisins. She put tap water into a plastic bottle. Her mother, intent on hiding what could not be hidden, offered no objection.

Colene carried her things out. It was strictly live and let live, in her family; none of them wanted the hassle that a challenge to any of them would have brought. If someone insisted on visiting, all three of them shaped up to put on a good act for the required time. What was to be gained by letting the truth be known? A philanderer, an alcoholic, a suicidal child. Family love? What a laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. Maybe there had once been love. Now it was merely strained tolerance. Typical American family, for sure!

She knocked on the shed door, just to warn Darius. Then she opened it.

He had used the pot. She could tell by the smell. She should have brought a cover for it. Without a word she walked across, set down the candy bars, picked up the pot, and carried it outside and around to the back of the shed. There was an old rusty spade there with a broken handle. She used that to dig a hole, and she dumped the pot and covered up the stuff. She had had some experience with this sort of thing, and knew that it wasn't worth even wrinkling her nose. It wasn't as bad as cleaning up her mother's vomit, after all.

She found a battered piece of plywood, banged it against the ground to get the dirt and mold on", and set it on the Х pot. She brought the set back into the shed. She put them down in a corner.

Then at last she faced Darius. "I can't stay long," she said.

He nodded as if he understood. He smiled.

She smiled back. Then she picked up the candy and raisins. "More food for you."

He insisted this time on sharing it with her, so she ate one bar while he ate the rest. He was much more alert than he had been, which was a relief. He was also halfway handsome under his dirt. There was nothing wrong with him that food and a washcloth wouldn't cure.

Well, that she could handle. She found a tatter of colored cloth she had pretended was the flag of her imaginary kingdom in the Land of Horses and poured some of her cup of water on it. "Clean," she told him, and proceeded to rub it across his face. He did not protest; in fact, he seemed used to having such a thing done for him. Finally she fetched her comb and combed his hair back. Oh, yes, he was handsome, when allowance was made for his stubble beard. But that kind of beard was considered macho, because of all the undercover criminal-playing cops on TV.

They drilled on vocabulary. Darius was a quick study-a very quick study-and so was she. Soon they had the words for the parts of the body and items of clothing, and were working on other parts of speech. For the first time Colene appreciated basic grammar, now that she was teaching it. It was convenient to say "noun" or "verb" in some cases when clarifying the use of a word. When Darius indicated the door and said "verb" she knew he was zeroing in on things like "open" and "close" and "walk through."

One bit was fun in its own fashion. She had a little box of wooden matches in the shed, which she used for lighting her canned heat so she could do a tiny bit of cooking. An electric hotplate would have been better, but she didn't have one. This was good enough.

Darius saw the box, and inquired. "Matches," she explained. Then she demonstrated by striking one. He gaped as it burst into flame. Then he wanted to try it himself. She let him-and he burned his fingers on it. But he was really intrigued by the phenomenon, like a little child. "Keep them," she told him generously. "I can get more."

He put the box away in a pocket, smiling. It was as if he had found a charm.

She tried to learn his words for things, but they were melodious and extremely strange, with nuances she was sure she was missing. She was apt at language, but knew that there was nothing like this on this side of the world. So she concentrated for now on teaching him. When he could talk well enough to tell her where he was from, she would look it up and learn a whole lot more about him. Somewhere in the Orient, maybe, though he did not look Oriental.

She realized in the course of this session that she had lost her fear of Darius. He was unusual and mysterious, but not dangerous. He was also fascinating.

It grew dark in the shed, for though there was a line here, Colene had used it only to listen to tapes in the day, and had never brought out a light. Now a light would be disastrous, because it would show that Darius was there.

"I have to go," she said abruptly. "Mom will wonder if I stay out here too long. But you stay here, and I'll bring you more food in the morning."

"Yes," he said. She hoped that he really did understand. She slipped out the door, not opening it wide, just in case her mother was looking this way, and closed it quickly behind her. Actually there would be nothing visible inside except darkness now, but it made sense to practice safe management. She returned to the house.

Her mother was pretty much out of it by this time. Good. Colene scrounged in the refrigerator for more to eat, and gobbled it down without bothering to sit. Then she went to her room. There was her bed, neatly made, and her desk where she normally did her homework, and her dresser and mirror, and the guitar she hoped someday to learn to play decently. All very conventional. She kept it that way deliberately, so that no one could garner any secrets about her by analyzing her living space. There was even a set of standard dolls on the dresser. Ken and Barbie. What a visitor would not know was that she had renamed the male: he was really Klaus. Thus the pair was Klaus Barbie. There had been a notorious Nazi criminal by that name. She flossed her teeth, brushed her hair, changed into her pajamas, and lay down on her bed. She stared at the ceiling.