"Duncan,.Lois.-.A.Gift.Of.Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Lois)

"No. It's just for decoration."
Kirby reached over and lifted the figure so that she could see the price marked on the bottom.
"That's an awful lot for something that can't be used for anything," she said.
She put the swan down again and looked at it a moment longer.
"Okay," she said.
"You've decided to buy it?"
"Yes," Kirby said. "I guess I have." She was not sure why. She had never in her life made a single purchase that had not been useful and well thought out beforehand. There was something so fierce and yet so graceful about the swan that she could not go away and leave it, lost behind the dreadful vase.
"I'll take it," she said again, "and please wrap it as a gift."
At that moment she knew that the swan was made to belong to Madame Vilar.
Kirby was dancing, Christmas week, in the Nutcracker ballet, which was being presented by the students of the Vilar Studio. She had hoped for the part of the Sugarplum Fairy, until she had realized that during the solo a danseur lifted the Fairy, and the only boy at the studio who was good enough to be the danseur was Jamie White. Jamie was a thin, tow-headed boy of about fourteen who had been taking dancing since the age of five. He had nice muscular legs and the scrawniest arms that Kirby had ever seen.
"You realize, of course, that you are too heavy to be lifted by Jamie," Madame Vilar had said in a cool, impersonal voice, and had paused, regarding her sharply, as she waited for her reaction.
Kirby nodded grimly.
"At the next recital," she said, "I won't be." She had lost five pounds in the past six weeks and was determined to lose at least ten more by the time of the Cecchetti examinations in the spring.
The part of the Fairy went to Arlene White, Jamie's cousin. She was little and thin, like Nancy, and her steps were perfect, although her dancing always seemed to have a mechanical sameness about it.
The day after the parts were announced, Arlene happened to run into Kirby in the dressing room.
"Oh, Kirby," she gushed. "I see that you're going to be the Snow Queen! Isn't that lovely! You can dance all alone without having to worry about somebody's holding you!"
"It is nice," Kirby said sweetly, "and you and Jamie will be just perfect together. I do hope there isn't a breeze that night to blow the two of you off the stage."
The other girls in the dressing room burst out laughing, and Arlene's eyes got narrow and squinty with anger.
"You don't need to be snotty about it," she said coldly. "I was just trying to be gracious. A newcomer like you can't expect to get the best part. I don't know how you got in here in the first place. Madame never takes anyone over the age of nine."
"You were being gracious?" Kirby said. "Oh, I misunderstood then. In that case, I Jake it back. I hope there will be a breeze that night."
She smiled her wide, sweet smile right at Arlene and picked up her toeshoes and walked out past the laughing girls and went to the practice room for her private lesson with Madame Vilar.
Actually, being in recital was fun no matter what role you were dancing. The rehearsals and the costume fittings were as exciting for a Snow Queen as for a Fairy, and after the initial disappointment was over Kirby began to be sorry she had been so nasty. She watched Arlene dancing and knew that it was not good dancing; she also knew, and this was the sad part, that there was very little Arlene could do to make it better. The steps were right, and the timing, and all the movements, and yet Arlene White dancing was simply thatЧArlene White, not the Sugarplum Fairy. The magic thing that happened to Kirby when she danced, that turned her into whatever it was that the music was saying, did not happen to Arlene.
Poor kid, Kirby thought when she realized this. Poor old scrawny Arlie. No wonder she doesn't like me. If I were her I wouldn't like me either.
She decided to be nice to Arlene from then on whether she cared for her or not, and to applaud her dance as hard as she could even standing in the wings.
From the first of December on the little beach house was overflowing with Christmas. Every day Elizabeth found something new to do to make it gayer. She decorated with greens and Florida holly and had Mr. Duncan climb a ladder and string lights outside in the flame vine.
She seemed like a child herself as she rushed about hanging ribbons and wreathes and moving furniture to make room for the Christmas tree.
"An old-fashioned Christmas!" she kept saying. "In our own home! Not just some old hotel room! We'll have a tree-trimming party and go caroling and make holiday cookies and, oh, just everything! Now you children will have a chance to know the same kind of holiday I had when I was growing up!"
Nancy was sitting on the sofa examining the greeting cards which the Garretts would send. They showed a scene of a southern Christmas with a decorated tree framing a picture window that looked out at snowy Florida beaches and waving palms.
Nancy opened the top card and read the inscription.
"You don't have Dad's name here," she said.
Her mother looked up from the centerpiece she was making.
"No, dear," she said. "Dad will be sending his own cards."
"Will our names be on his card too?"
"I don't imagine so," Elizabeth said. "I think the children's names always go on the card of the parent who has custody."
There was a moment of stunned silence. It was the first time any of them had heard that word spoken.
Kirby looked at Nancy and saw that her face had gone pale.
"You mean it's final?" Nancy asked in a flat voice. "You're really divorced?"
Elizabeth nodded. "You know that, dear. I told you when I filed the settlement agreement."
"But I thought it took ages! You always read about people who are waiting for their divorces! I thought it would be years!" Nancy exclaimed in horror.
"Not in Florida," Elizabeth told them. "It differs from state to state. I thought you realized." Her gentle face filled with pain. "Please, dear, don't look so shocked. I thought you were beginning to accept the idea. I thought you were becoming adjusted."
"I'm adjusted," Brendon said. "I like living here. Dad couldn't be dragging us around with him anyway if he's taking war pictures."
"I'll never adjust," Nancy said vehemently. "Never as long as I live!"
Later that night she asked Kirby tearfully, "Are you adjusted? I mean, really?"
"I think so," Kirby said. She paused, thinking about it so that she could be sure that she was answering honestly. "I felt funny when Mother said that word 'custody.' It was so official, sort of, and so final. But when I see the way she has settled down here, how contented she seems and how many good friends she has, I feel better about it. She fits here, Nance. She never really did trailing along after Dad."
"I don't think you love Dad the way I do," Nancy said. "You couldn't and still feel that way."
"I do love him," Kirby said. "It's just that he and Mother have made their decision, and it's their lives. It would be nice if it were different, if Dad were a quiet, settled-down sort of man like Mr. DuncanЧ"
"Like Mr. Duncan!" Nancy's shriek of outrage shook the room. "That's the stupidest statement I've ever heard in my life! How can you even say their names in the same breathЧdumb old Thomas Duncan and Richard Brendon Garrett! I don't care if the divorce is final, that doesn't mean anything. People get divorced and marry each other again. It happens all the time! Look at the movie stars, they're always doing it! Once Mother sees how lonesome and miserable it is not to be married, she'll go back to Dad again! I just know it!"
"I don't know about that," Kirby said. "She seems awfully warm and contented. Like a bird that's been looking for a nest and finally found it. She's got a home, and her job, and friends, and us . . ." Her voice wandered off. Her mind had gone slipping away without her and was dancing the Snow Queen, She was leaping and whirling across a stage in a deluge of snowflakes, and her parents and Nancy and everyone else in the world were left far behind.
The weeks before Christmas were filled with rehearsals, and on December twenty-third there were two performances of the Nutcracker, one in the afternoon and one in the evening.
Nancy and Brendon attended the matinee. They came backstage afterward, their faces flushed with anger.