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

It was my bed she was lying on. I wondered if I should tell her and then I thought, no, it doesn't matter. I could take the other bed for one night. Preferring one bed over the other was simply a matter of habit.
"You must be tired," I said. "I'll leave you alone for a while so you can get a nap."
"No, don't. Stay and talk to me." It was more a command than a request. "If I'm going to live here I need to know about everybody. Tell me about your brothers. Which one is the oldest?"
"Peter," I said. "He's eighteen, and hell be going to the University in the fall. He's the musical one in the family. He plays clarinet and alto sax with a combo and in the daytime he works in a music store. Bobby's eleven and likes to play baseball." I paused. "Didn't Aunt Marge ever talk about us? Didn't you see the picture Mother sent at Christmas?"
"I must have," Julia said, "but I don't remember it. What about you? Do you go away to school like I do?"
"No," I said. "I go to Highland High, right here In Albuquerque. This summer I'm not doing anything much, at least, not yet. I applied for jobs a lot of places, but so far nobody's called me. I babysit for people and I help Mother in the darkroom, and I cook dinners and things when she's got a job to get out. She does illustrations for magazines, you know."
"And your father? Where does he work?"
"He's an engineer and works for the government. That's how we get to belong to the Coronado Club out on the base and use their pool and go to the dances. They have a lot of things going on out there for teenagers. I'll take you to some of them whenЧwell, when you're ready. I know it'll be a while before you'll feel like doing things."
I tried to picture Julia at the pool, laughing and splashing and joking around with Carolyn and me. It was a hard thing to imagine. It was equally hard to picture her at a dance. Those huge eyes gazing up at me from the pillow, the thin face half lost in the flood of raven hair, seemed to belong to someone from another world.
The words on Aunt Marge's card came back to meЧ"Our angel Julie is home for the holidays and the house is filled with singing." "Julie" was such a carefree nickname, it did not seem possible that it could ever have been used for Julia.
"Julia," I said haltingly, knowing that I must say something, but what? How could I reach through the wall of grief that separated us and give comfort? Julia's attempt at making small talk was touching, but I knew the effort it must be taking.
"Julia," I said again helplessly, and was interrupted by the sound of scratching at the door. Relief swept over me. Here was the diversion we needed!
"There's somebody here to see you," I said. "Another member of the family." I went to the door and opened it. "Come in, Trickle. I want you to meet a new friend."
"Who is it?" Julia asked, pulling herself to a sitting position. Her voice went strangely flat. "Oh. It's a dog."
"Don't call him that," I said. "You'll hurt his feelings. He thinks he's people. He won't even eat dogfood because he thinks he ought to eat the same things we do. Mother and Dad gave him to me on my twelfth birthday."
Julia's body seemed to stiffen. "I'm not very good with dogs. They don't like me,"
"Trickle will," I told her. "He loves everybody, even the garbage men. Other dogs all bark at the garbage truck, but Trickle just wags his tail."
"Keep him away from me," Julia said. "I mean it, Rachel."
"You can't be afraid of Trickle!" I exclaimed incredulously. "Why, he wouldn't hurt anybody! He's the sweetest natured dog in the world. There's this man who breeds wirehairs up in Santa FeЧhis kennel is where my folks got TrickleЧand he said that he'd never sold a puppy who was asЧ"
"Get him out'er here!" Julia said. Her voice slashed through the room as sharp as a whip.
"All right," I said, startled. "Of course, if you're really frightened. But you'll feel differently when you get to know him. You'll love him, I promise."
Then I heard another sound, low and gravelly. It was something I had never once heard in the entire three and eleven-twelfths years that Trickle had been with us. In amazement I turned and stared at my dog. His head was lowered and his ears were back and his lips were drawn away from his teeth. He was growling.
When I think back I realize that this was the moment I received my first hint that something was terribly wrong.


Four

At the time I realized nothing. How could I?
"Trickle, you bad thing!" I said. "What's gotten into you?" And to JuliaЧ"I'm ashamed of him. I've never known him to act like this before."
I took the poor dog by the scruff of the neck and dragged him out into the hall, growling all the way, and then picked him up and carried him down the stairs and put him outside.
"You just stay out," I told him, "until you're in a better mood."
I re-entered the house through the back door and found Peter at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of ice cream and reading Down Beat. For a skinny guy, Pete never seemed to stop eating.
As I came in he lifted his head and tossed his hair back out of his eyes and said, "I see the folks got home. Mom was just pulling out of the driveway as I came in."
"Probably headed for the grocery store," I said. "The refrigerator's down to nothing."
"So I discovered." He gestured toward the sink where he had tossed the empty ice cream carton. "Did they bring Julia back with them?"
"Yes. She's up in my room, lying down. I mean, in our room," I corrected myself. "Hers and mine."
"What's she like? Is she pretty?"
"No," I said. "In fact, the opposite. "Very plain."
"Nice?"
"I guess so. I didn't talk with her very long. She doesn't like dogs."
"Maybe she hasn't been around any."
"That might be it," I acknowledged. "Living at boarding school so much of the time, she wouldn't have had much chance to have pets, would she? Are you rehearsing tonight?"
"Nope," Pete said. "We don't have any engagements coming up till the dance at the club. Why?"
"I've got a date tonight," I said, "but I felt funny about going out and leaving Julia on her first night here. If you're going to be home, you can entertain her."
"Now, wait a minute," Pete said. He laid down his spoon with such force that it clattered against the side of the bowl. "Do you mean you're planning to stick me with making conversation with some homely female cousin all evening while you're sliding out from under? Where are you going anyway?"
"To a show, and we're taking Bobby."
"Well, take her too, then."
"I offered," I said self-righteously, "and she doesn't want to go." I knew what was behind his reaction. Pete pretended he didn't like girls, but in actuality he was painfully shy with them.
"You might as well get to know her," I told him. "After all, she's going to be living here."
Before he could object any further I went on through the swinging door into the den and turned on the television. Pretty soon Bobby came in, smelling like old tennis shoes and chewing gum, which was the way Bobby usually smelled on summer afternoons, and lay down on the floor, and we watched the Lucy show together until Mother got home from the store and it was time to help her fix dinner.