"Cooper, Susan - Dark is Rising 01 - Over Sea, Under Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

'Hey,' said Simon as Barney reached for the door. 'I'm the captain, I go first. There might be cannibals.'

'Cannibals!' said Barney with scorn, but he let Simon open the door.

It was an odd little room, very small and bare, with one round leaded window looking out inland across the grey slate roofs and fields. There was a bed, with a red-and-white gingham coverlet, and a wooden chair, a wardrobe, and a wash-stand with an outsize willow-pattern bowl and ewer. And that was all.

'Well, that's not very interesting,' said Jane, disappointed. She looked about, feeling something was missing. 'Look, there isn't even a carpet, just a bare floor.'

Barney pattered across to the window. 'What's this?' He picked something up from the window-sill, long and dark with the glint of brass. 'It's a sort of tube.'

Simon took it from him and turned it about curiously. 'It's a telescope in a case.' He unscrewed the case so that it came apart in two halves. 'No it's not, what a swizz, it's just the case with nothing inside.'

'Now I know what this room reminds me of,' Jane said suddenly. 'It's like a cabin in a ship. That window looks just like a porthole. I think it must be the captain's bedroom.'

'We ought to take the telescope with us in case we lose our way,' said Simon. Holding it made him feel pleasantly important.

'Don't be silly, it's just an empty case,' Jane said. 'Anyway, it's not ours, put it back.'

Simon scowled at her.

'I mean,' Jane said hastily, 'we're in the jungle, not at sea, so there are landmarks.'

'Oh all right.' Simon put the case down reluctantly.

They emerged from the little dark corridor, its door, as they closed it behind them, vanishing once more into the shadows so that they could hardly see where it had been.

'Not much else here. . That one's Great-Uncle Merry's bedroom, there's the bathroom this side of it and Mother's studio room the other.'

'What an odd way this house is built,' Simon said, as they turned into another narrow corridor towards the stairs leading a up to the next floor. 'All little bits joined together by funny little passages. As if each bit were meant to be kept secret from the next.'

Barney looked round him in the did light, tapping at the half-panelled walls. 'It's all very solid. There ought to be secret panels and things, secret entrances into native treasure-caves.' 'Well, we haven't finished yet.' Simon led the way up the stairs to the familiar top landing, where their bedrooms were. 'Isn't it getting dark ? I suppose it's the low clouds.'

Barney squatted on the top stair. 'We ought to have torches, burning brands to light the path and keep the wild animals off. Only we couldn't because there are hostile natives all round, and they'd see.'

Simon took over. Somehow imagination worked easily in the friendly silence of the Grey House. 'Actually they're already after us, creeping along our tracks up the hill. We'll be able to hear their feet rustling soon.'

'We ought to hide.'

'Make camp somewhere that they can't get at,'

'In one of the bedrooms, they're all caves.'

'I can hear them breathing,' Barney said, gazing down the dark stairs into the shadow. He was half beginning to believe it. The obvious caves wouldn't do,' Simon said, remembering he was in command. 'They'd look there first of all.' He crossed the landing and began thoughtfully opening and shutting doors.

'Mother's and Father's room - no good, very ordinary cave. Jane's - just the same. Bathroom, our room, no escape route anywhere. We shall all be turned into sacrifices and eaten.'

'Boiled,' said Barney, sepulchrally. 'In a great big pot.'

Perhaps there's another door, I mean cave, that we haven't noticed. Like the one downstairs.' Jane peered round the darkest end of the landing, beside her brothers' door. But the passage came to a dead end, the wall running unbroken round all three sides. 'There ought to be one. After all the house goes straight up, doesn't it, and there's a door directly underneath there' - she pointed at the blank wall - 'and a room behind it. So there ought to be a room the same size behind this wall.'