"Cooney, Caroline B - Janie Johnson 03 - Voice on the Radio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooney Caroline B)

"Oh, Reeve, forget school, let's skip," she said. "The way we did that New Jersey day."
"No, I'm coming in with you. I'm going to attend classes with you."
"You're kidding."
"I think they'll let me. But actually, I'm not going to ask. I've learned one entire thing at college. Don't ask. Just do it." He grinned again. Janie would take bets. No teacher at her high school was going to turn down a guy with that grin.
Reeve proceeded to disrupt Janie's English class by gluing his eyes on her and never moving, never blinking. She felt his eyes right through her hair. She twitched and shifted, wrapped her hair in a ponytail and let it go, rested her chin in her
hands, and then tilted sideways to see if he was still staring.
He was.
Every girl was envious, and every boy wondered how Reeve had acquired the composure to demonstrate so vividly how he felt about a girl.
In the halls Reeve wound his fingers through her hair, and they walked in step, half leaning on each other.
Tyler, camera bouncing on his chest, saw them coming. He pantomimed a photograph, but Reeve shook his head.
I was going to say yes! thought Janie. When people stare at me because I'm a milk carton freak, I could kill them. But stares because we make a cute couple-I love it. "I have gym now, Reeve," she said regretfully. "It's really unlikely that they're going to let you in the girls' locker room."
"It's okay. I have stuff to do," he said breezily. "People to blackmail, places to rob."
She didn't see him again till lunch, when he scooped her up and said they were going to Mickey D's. The school had just started letting kids go off campus for lunch. You had to have parental permission, and Janie, of course, had no such thing.
She and Reeve sauntered out of the building, following his rule of Don't ask, just do it, and nobody in authority noticed, and everybody in the student body did.
She'd be delighted to have a yearbook page for the romance of Reeve Shields and Janie Johnson.
He opened the Jeep door for her. They loved doing things for each other. When she was seated, he tucked,her skirt in so that it wouldn't get caught in
the door, and it felt like being tucked in at night. He started the engine and revved it a few times. "That's my heart," he told her, and they laughed.
"What did you do during my last two classes, Reeve?"
"Found the yearbook adviser. Told her she can~t allow a milk carton page. She promised. It's not gonna happen."
Last year Janie would have wept all over him. This year she burst into laughter. "Oh, Reeve, you make everything so simple! I can't stand it that you're a million miles away."
"It's not even two hundred miles."
"Light-years, then."
They skipped lunch.
They found the far rear of McDonald's parking lot instead, and Reeve said, "You are wearing very heavy-duty clothes,' Janie."
"We trail walkers have to fend off attacking mosquitoes and grizzly bears."
"Just don't fend me off," said Reeve.
CHAPTER
SIX.
"I want to drive up to Boston, Mom," said Jodie.
Mom, Brian and Jodie were at Home Depot, tracking down window blinds and kitchen-cabinet knobs. Brendan's team had practice, of course; Brian had hardly seen his twin for days.
"There are six colleges I want to look at in Boston," said Brian's sister. "Friday we have a teachers' workshop, so there's no school; I can drive up to Boston Thursday after school, have Friday and Saturday to tour campuses and do interviews, and then drive back Sunday."
"By yourself?" said Mom doubtfully. Not as if she were going to lash out and shriek NO, NO, NEVER! but as if Jodie were brave to take on traffic and navigation all the way to Boston. "Maybe if you had company it would be okay."
Jodie nodded. "I'd like company, but Caitlin and Nicole are going south, they're looking in Virginia for colleges." A year ago, Brian thought, Jodie would not have dared mention going to a city at all, never mind alone.
Their mother said, "But your father and I want to go along when you visit campuses, Jo. And that weekend we'll be so busy. Brendan has two
games." Their parents had never missed a game, performance or concert in which one of their children had participated.
"Mom, I'm running out of time!" said Jodie. "I have to decide where I'm applying in only a few months."
Brian was not eager to see Brendan triumph twice in one weekend, and Boston sounded great, plus he was mildly fond of his sister, so he said, "I'll go with you, Jodie. I can read the maps and hand you change for the tolls."
"That's wonderful!" Jodie hugged him right there in the store. Brian shrank out from under her grasp and took refuge on the far side of the cart.
"But Brian," said his mother, "Brendan has a big game on Friday afternoon, and another one on Saturday. He's your twin," she added, as if Brian, of all people, might have forgotten this.
"Mom, I've seen Brendan play. I'll see him the rest of my life. But I haven't been to Boston with Jodie." Boston is history, he thought. Ben Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere. Maybe I'll go to college in Boston, too, and study history.
He had never had a long view of his life. His life was in short takes: a practice, a game, a shower, a brother. Now he could see it, his own personal calendar years spread like computer printouts.
One day last week, when Bren had practice and Brian didn't, Brian had gone to the town library and wandered through the adult American history section. He had never entered the adult division of the library before. He'd felt like a trespasser. The
collection was immense. He didn't know where to begin. How did you figure out which of those thousands of books you wanted to read?
He settled for reading the spines, just exploring titles. The books were arranged like geography, starting with European explorers crossing the Atlantic, moving into settlers of New England, and advancing toward the Ohio River, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi.
He came home after two hours in which nobody had known where he was. And when he got home, nobody asked. It was a first in Brian's thirteen years.
He wanted to thank his parents. He wanted to shout Yes! It's about time! but he said nothing, because maybe they hadn't realized the freedom they had allowed, and maybe they wouldn't allow it again.
He resolved that next time, he would actually sit in one of the cozy armchairs in the adult section and read the first paragraphs of some of those books, and even take one home.
"We could stop off at the Johnsons'," said Jodie eagerly, "and see Janie."
Any idea that they had a new, easy, upbeat life vanished.
Their mother~s face sagged and she looked blindly at her shopping list, swallowing hard as she checked off an item they hadn't yet bought.