"Duncan,.Lois.-.Summer.Of.Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Lois)

My father got to his feet and went into the hall where the wall phone hung. I reached over and patted Mother's hand.
"Shall we all go?" I asked.
"No, dear. I think not." Mother shook her head as though trying to focus her thoughts. "It will be an exhausting trip, especially if we have to drive from Springfield, and there will be so much to be done so quickly. It will work best if you'll stay here and run the house for Peter and Bobby. You'll have Mrs. Gallagher to turn to if there are any problems." Her voice shook. "I can't believe it! MargyЧdead! We had a tree house once."
I squeezed her hand. At least she wasn't crying any longer.
Bobby said, "Are you going to bring that girl home with you?"
"Your cousin Julia? Yes, of course, if she's willing to come. I can't imagine where else she would go. There are no other relatives."
"Should I remember her?" Peter asked. "I've got a feeling I saw her once."
"You did. It was the year you started the first grade. Ryan was off somewhere getting interviews for some articles he was writing, and Marge came to us for a couple of weeks with Julia. She was a darling little thing, and as I remember, you teased her terribly. She had a toy rabbit, and you took it away from her and gave it to Rachel, and she chewed a hole in its ear."
The memories kept coming, flashing across the screen of my mother's mind, filling her voice with grief. We stayed there close to her, the boys and I, listening, for that was the only comfort we knew how to give.
At last Dad came back into the room.
"We can get a noon flight," he said. "I don't know how long we'll need to stay so I just made reservations one way. Well arrange the return flight later."
"I'd better go pack," Mother said. "Bob, will you get my overnight bag down from the attic? Peter, you'd better leave for work; you're already late." She paused, refocusing her mind with effort. "Oh, dear, nobody's had breakfast!"
"Don't worry about that," I told her. "We're none of us hungry. If anyone wants anything, there's dry cereal."
Mother and Dad went upstairs and Peter left the house and Bobby went up to the attic. I went out to the kitchen and put away the eggs and bread and took the bacon, cold and dry on its greasy towel, and put it in the plastic food bowl for my dog Trickle. I poured coffee into two mugs and took them up to my parents who were in their room taking things out of the bureau. Then I went back downstairs and wandered from room to room, feeling useless because there was really nothing to be done.
Finally I went outside.
Mike was coming up the walk. He was wearing his swimming trunks and a T-shirt and had a towel tossed over his shoulder. He grinned, and I felt shocked for a moment until I remembered that he didn't know.
"Hey, Red," he said. "You're not ready."
"I can't go," I told him. "We've had a tragedy. My aunt and uncle were killed in a car wreck."
"OhЧtough." The smile left his face and his blue eyes lost their sparkle. "I'm sorry, Rae."
"Aunt Marge was my mother's only sister," I said. "My folks are leaving this afternoon. It happened in Missouri."
"Tough," Mike said again. "Your mom must be all broken up."
"She is," I said. "She and Dad are going to go there to take care of things orЧwell, whatever you do at a time like this. They're going to bring my cousin back with them. Her name's Julia."
"Julia," Mike repeated. "I don't think I've ever heard you talk about her. Is she going to live with you?"
"I don't know," I said. "For a while, I guess. She's seventeen; that's too young to be off on her own." Until he asked this I had not thought about Julia's living with us in a permanent fashion, only visiting for a while until other plans could be made for her. But what other plans might there be for a teenage girl with no other living relatives?
"It'll be like getting a sister, won't it?" Mike said. "It's crazy, isn't it, thinking you'll never have anything but two brothers and then finally, at your age, getting a sister."
"Crazy," I echoed with a faint stirring of uneasiness. What would it be like to share my home and my family with a ready-made sister whom I didn't even know?


Two

Julia. How many times I was to repeat that name to myself in the days that followed before my parents' return from their sad errand to the Ozark Mountains. Julia. It would come into my head at the oddest timesЧwhen I was ironing a blouseЧscrubbing potatoes to put in the ovenЧsitting with a book in the lawn chair in the backyard. Who is Julia, really? What does she look like? What kind of person is she, this girl who is going to be my almost-sister?
Peter thought he could remember her a little. I could not remember her at all. Since her mother and mine had been sisters, I wondered if she would have some sort of resemblance to Mother. Mother was little and freckled with an animated face and curly, carrot-colored hair that would never go the way she wanted it. Peter and I had inherited that hair. Bobby, on the other hand, though he was slightly built, had the smooth blond hair and handsomely featured face of our father.
Julia. It was a pretty name. I tried to remember the things I had heard about Julia over the years. I knew, of course, that she went to a boarding school in New England because there were no good public schools in the area of her mountain home. I had a feeling that she was supposed to have a talent of some kind. What was it she didЧsing? Paint? Write poetry? To tell the truth, I had never been interested enough to make note of it or of anything else much in the way of dull, family chitchat in Aunt Marge's annual Christmas letters.
But now I did want to know. I wanted to prepare myself.
"Why do you have to be prepared?" Mike asked logically. "She'll be what she is, period. You'll find out soon enough."
We were sitting in the backyard, eating ham sandwiches and playing with Trickle. Somehow eating out in back with the sunlight falling in patches between the branches of the elm tree made it seem more definite that vacation was here. Trickle was rolling around on his back, asking to have his stomach tickled, but actually waiting to see if a piece of ham might fall out of one of the sandwiches.
"I'll have to share my room with her," I said. "I've always had my own room, you know. It will seem funny, having a stranger living there with me."
"She won't be a stranger long," Mike said. "I should think you'd like it, having another girl around. It'll make one more voice to add to the racket when the gaggle gets together."
By "the gaggle" he meant me and my best friend Carolyn Baker. He liked to tell us that when we started chattering we made as much noise as a gaggle of geese.
"I hate that word," I told him irritably. "There's nothing goosey about us. Carolyn and I are friends because we picked each other. We have things in common. It's different just to have somebody thrust upon you. What if she giggles all the time and spits through her teeth when she talks and likes to go to bed at nine o'clock?"
"I hardly think she'll have much to giggle about," Mike reminded me, and I felt my face grow hot as I realized the stupidity of my statement.
"Of course not," I said. "That was a dumb thing to say. I'm being horrid."
Mike didn't contradict me. He broke off a piece of his sandwich and gave it to Trickle who slurped it down as though he hadn't been fed for a week.
"I've got to get going," he said. "I promised Professor Jarvis I'd cut his grass for him this afternoon. You want to go to a show or something tonight? There's a Dustin Hoffman film at the Lobo."
"I guess so," I said. "But I hate to leave Bobby rattling around by himself. Pete's usually got a rehearsal or something in the evening and with the folks goneЧ"
"Bring him along," Mike said. "I'll pick you both up at seven-thirty."
He went home, not bothering to go around to the front but putting both hands on the top of the fence and vaulting over. A moment later I heard the creak of his garage door as he opened it to get out the lawn mower. Professor Jarvis's house was next door to the Gallaghers' on the other side, so cutting that lawn was a simple process.
Suddenly the yard was empty and the world was very still. I picked up the pop cans and carried them across the yard and into the kitchen. The house was so quiet I could hear the clock ticking on the kitchen wall.
It occurred to me how seldom it was that I was alone in the house even for a few hours, much less a whole afternoon. Mother was almost always there cooking or sewing or printing pictures in the little darkroom Dad had rigged up for her out of the storeroom in the garage.
I set the cans down on the counter and went to the telephone and dialed Carolyn's number. The phone was answered on the second ring.