"MacAvoy,.R.A.-.Black.Dragon.2.-.Twisting.The.Rope.e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)while the index finger of his right was stiffly pointing at the ceiling. His
hair, bleached in layers from straw to medium brown, slid forward off his shoulder and hung by his face. His beard jutted forward. His eyes were vaguely reproachful. Elen Evans had a face of great delicacy and short hair cut with wisps around the ears and down the neck. She lofted a two-foot-long iron piano-tuning wrench with a wooden handle, which she had been using on her triple harp. Her expression was ironical. Martha Macnamara, exactly thirty years older than Elen, was caught with a paper cup in her hand. She looked flustered and slightly apelike, with her round eyes and open mouth. She thought the words "oh, dear" and she wondered if there was going to be a brawl. She was also a bit glad (glad in spite of herself) that Pсdraig had pounded the table in that way: hard, loud, and just at the moment he had wanted to. Seated in the corner by the Formica table was a slight middle-aged man with black skin and Chinese eyes. The light of the wicker-shaded lamp put a shine on his black hair. His name was Long, and he held a three-year-old girl on his lap. This child's blue eyes were open very wide as she stared at Pсdraig ╙ S·illeabhсin. Pсdraig himself was the sixth person frozen by the violence of his action. He was a young man who looked still younger, and a shade of purple spread from his ears to his face and down both sides of his neck. His fist, rough-chapped and very clean, slowly relaxed on the tabletop and then clenched again. The little girl broke the silence. "Why did Poe-rik hit the table? Did he want to hitЧ" The remarkably long fingers of the dark man's hand curled over her twice, forcefully. The seventh person in the roomЧthe one who was not shocked by Pсdraig's outburstЧwas holding him up, with the neckband of the boy's sweater turned inside out, and was examining the tag with a show of interest. He raised his eyes now as Pсdraig craned about and glared at him. "No need to lose control, boy," said George St. Ives. "I was just curious why a traditional musician, or at least what passes for traditional these days, and what passes for aЕ Well, anyway, haven't we got enough plastic in the world around us already without wearing the stuff in front of people?" Pсdraig opened his mouth, but there was a brief pause before he replied: a pause of uncertainty. "I thoughtЕ I thought that I would do better to try to look nice in front of people. Instead of looking like I was after digging a hole somewhere." George St. Ives had gray eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and his forehead wrinkled as he held the overstretched fabric up to his face. "'One hundred percent acrylic. Machine wash cold. Cool dryer. No bleach.' Red plastic with five-pointed stars in some sort of metallic thread. Wouldn't be very suited for digging a hole, would it? Nor for any other manly activity." His voice was gravelly but expressionless. His heavy face was a bit yellow. "I can wash it." Pсdraig wrested his sweater out of the older man's grip and started to stand up. "If it were bсinэn, how could I, in all these hotels?" His chair fell over. The pulling had left a sag in the back of his sweater. He looked foolish and knew it. St. Ives watched Pсdraig's distraction dispassionately and he smiled. "Did some |
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