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

"Let me tell you now, young lady," she said, "that I will not stand for impertinence!"
"Kirby's not being impertinent," Nancy said. "She does have only ten minutes." She turned to Mr. Duncan. "Miss Green wants you to find out if my sister gave me the answers to the pop quiz in social studies. She thinks we cheated."
Mr. Duncan spoke for the first time. His voice was matter-of-fact.
"Well," he asked, "did you?"
"Of course not," said Nancy.
"Did we have a social studies test?" Kirby had forgotten all about it. The morning classes were things she dreamed away in order to reach the afternoon. "Oh, yes, we did, didn't we! The one on Europe. Why would I need to help Nancy? She's much better at schoolwork than I am."
"According to what Miss Green tells me," Mr. Duncan said, "Nancy did know the questions ahead of time. She was writing answers to questions that had not yet been asked. Her knowledge of these questions must have come from someone."
"I suppose it could have been me," Kirby admitted. "I have that class right before lunch, and I was thinking about the quiz when I came to the table. I didn't tell her though. If she got anything, it was an accident."
"You see!" Nancy gave Miss Green a glance of angry satisfaction. "See, I told you. I don't cheat, and Kirby doesn't either. I just didn't remember that you hadn't asked the questions yet. There was nothing cheaty about it."
"Now, wait a minute," Mr. Duncan said quickly before Miss Green had a chance to open her mouth for an answer. "You say that Nancy might have got the questions from you, Kirby, but that you didn't tell them to her. Can you explain that statement?"
"Nancy does that," Kirby said. "She always has. It'sЧwell, a sort of hobby. She likes to do things with her mind."
"If you think that any intelligent human being can accept thatЧ" Miss Green began furiously, but Mr. Duncan raised a hand to stop her.
"Wait," he said. "Now, let's wait a minute, Miss Green. I would like to hear a bit more about this ability of Nancy's. There is such a thing as extrasensory perception, you know, although we don't run into it too often."
"Extrasensory perception?" Miss Green's mouth fell open. She stared at the counselor as though she thought he had gone crazy. "Oh, come now, Mr. Duncan, surely you can't be serious!"
"Indeed, I am," Mr. Duncan said firmly. "ESP does exist. I am quite positive of it. I have known these girls' family for years, and I have often wondered if their grandmother didn't possess the gift. Now, Nancy, your sister calls this a hobby with you. Does this mean that you practice this sort of thing often? I mean, that you know things without having been told them?"
"How often is often?" Nancy asked, setting her chin in the way she did when she was going to be difficult. "You mean every hour or once a day or once a week or what?"
"May I go now?" Kirby asked, glancing up at the wall clock. "I really will miss the bus if I don't get started."
"Yes, go on along," Mr. Duncan said. His eyes were still on Nancy and he was beginning to look excited. "I've done a lot of reading about ESP. It's a real interest of mine. We have a psychiatrist right here in Palmelo, a Dr. Russo, who has done some experiments in this field."
"It's the test we're here to talk about!" Miss Green broke in. Her face was a mean little knot of frustration. "If you think I'm going to give a grade to a paper that was obviously the result of cheatingЧ"
"Please, Miss Green," Mr. Duncan said. "We'll discuss that later. Right now, I want Nancy to tell us more about this mind-reading gift of hers."
"This mind-reading gift . . ."
The words stayed in Kirby's mind as she hurried along the sidewalk toward the bus stop.
"This gift"Чwhat a strange thing to call it! It was Kirby who was the gifted one in the family. She was a gifted dancer. But NancyЧwas it possible that Nancy was gifted alsoЧbut in another way?
The bus arrived, and Kirby climbed on and settled herself in a seat. What if Nancy was gifted? she asked herself, continuing the line of thinking. It was true that Nancy could do things that other people couldn't. "The phone is going to ring," Nancy would say, and Brendon, who loved to answer the telephone, would get up, and the phone would ring, and he would answer it. Or "They're all out of clams," she would say as they entered a restaurant, and the waiter would hand them the menu and say, "I'm sorry. The clams are gone."
It was strange, when you thought about it, how she could do these things, but they never did think about it particularly, because it was just Nancy. They took it for granted as part of her, the way they took for granted the fact that she was smart and stubborn and had blond hair. She was theirs, the family's, and they loved her and they put up with her peculiarities just as she put up with theirs. Was it possible that she had something so extraordinary that it could bring that light of excited discovery to Mr. Duncan's eyes?
ESP. Kirby had heard those initials somewhere before.
The bus slowed, and Kirby got to her feet and pulled the cord.
ESPЧthe letters stood for something, but for the life of her she could not remember what it was. She was still wondering about it when she turned up the front walk of the Vilar Dance Studio and opened the door, and thenЧas alwaysЧall thought vanished from her mind before the glorious realization that she was hereЧhere at lastЧand the only part of the day that mattered was about to begin.
The moment the door closed behind her the atmosphere of the dance came sweeping over herЧthe smell of floor wax and sweat and fresh new toeshoes, the swirl of movement, the muted sound of music from the practice rooms.
Standing in the entrance hall, Kirby could see straight through the open door into the largest of the rooms with the barre running horizontally around the walls and the great floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the shiny wood floors. A class of little ones, six- to eight-year-olds, was just finishing a lesson. Miss Nedra, one of the youngest of the teachers, was giving the instruction and Arlene White, a delicate, pale-faced girl of about Kirby's age, was acting as demonstrator. Madame Vilar herself taught only the most advanced classes, although she often sat in the corner of the room and observed.
Now Kirby stood for a moment watching, remembering herself at six years old, dreaming over her first reader, already certain that the only thing in the world she would ever want was to be a dancer. Then, with a glance at her watch, she turned to hurry into the dressing room and change into her leotard.
When she emerged the baby class was over and her own group was already assembling. Madame Vilar was standing in the hallway. She was wearing the traditional black leotard, and beneath it the bones of her thin shoulders stuck out like little wings.
"Kirby," she said, "you will not take Miss Nedra's class today. Instead, I would like to see you in the third practice room."
"Turning on her heel, she started down the hall.
Kirby's stomach went tight with apprehension. She had seen Madame Vilar take girls into the further practice room before. Only last week she had seen two girls from the beginning class trailing after her down the hall. The next day one of the girls had withdrawn from dancing completely and the other had dropped ballet and changed to a tap class.
Kirby felt as though she were going to be ill. She could not give up taking regular lessons nowЧnot after waiting so long to be able to have them!
Madame did not even glance over her shoulder as they entered the room.
"Please close the door behind you," she said.
Kirby followed her through the doorway and pushed the door shut. The room was very silent.
Madame crossed to the phonograph in the corner and flicked on the switch. Kirby watched as the turntable began to revolve and a record fell in place. The needle came down, and in an instant the room was filled with music. It was a melody that Kirby had never heard before.
Madame Vilar seated herself in a straight chair next to the machine and folded her hands in her lap.
"Dance," she said.
"Dance?" Kirby stared at her. "But howЧwhatЧ"
"When your mother brought you here," Madame said crisply, "she said that you could dance. I did not wish to see you dance then. Now I do. SoЧ" She motioned with her hand. "Dance!"
Kirby felt her panic beginning to subside. There was nothing frightening about dancing, even if it was for Madame Vilar.
"All right," she said. But she did not start.
She stood quietly for a long moment listening to the music. It was telling a story of a summer sunrise. The sky was lightening and the wind was waking. Somewhere in the music there was a bird.
Gathering her body, Kirby stood waiting as the morning came alive around her and the bird sat poised, opening its wings. Then she lifted her own arms and moved out into the morning and became it all.
Kirby's gift was that she could become with her body the thing she was hearing. It was not the way it was when she did her exercises, for then she thought about each part of herself, her arms, her legs, her feet, her head, her chest. When she danced she did not think, she merely was. She let her body do its own thinking, and she lifted and flew and was the bird and was the wind and was the dawn.
The sun rose slowly against the gray of the summer sky. The wind rose and caught the clouds and stirred them awake. The bird chirped, first sleepily, then hungrily; then it burst into song. All of it happened together, faster and wilder, as the sun broke free of the edge of the earth and exploded into the sky and the clouds blew apart and the wind turned to gold, and it was no longer dawningЧit was a bright blue day!