"Elgin, Suzette Haden - What The EPA Don't Know Won't Hurt Them" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

"Granny," Delmer offered, "you realize that's damned near the last piece
we need?" It made him feel strange, saying that. When something has been
more than a hundred years in the building, the idea that it's just about
finished doesn't lie easy in the mind.
"Yes," she said. "I can see that it is."
"And you'll tell Mr. Wommack?"
Granny nodded. "I'll speak to Lee Wommack," she said. "Be happy to.
However - there's something that's got to be done first."
Johnny Beau and Delmer sighed; they were used to that, too. There was
always something else to be done, any day you had to bring the Granny into
a matter. They'd been expecting it. They said only, "Yes, ma'am, Granny,"
and looked attentive.
"It's the right shape," she told them. "Just exactly the right shape. But
it's mightily ugly, you know. It's full of ugly and running over with it."

"Well...." Delmer jammed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.
"There was a couple of people inside when the train hit it."
"Uh-huh. And a little child?"
"Might could be."
"You didn't ask?"
"No ma'am."
"Next time, ask."
"Yes, ma'am," said Delmer.
"People inside!" Granny Motley frowned, and laid two fingers over her lips
while she thought that over. "Very likely they had time to see that train
coming at them," she said slowly, with a faraway look in her eyes that
made Delmer uncomfortable. "Trying to get that truck off the tracks where
they'd stalled it, scared too foolish to leave the truck and run. Very
likely they had time, just before the train hit them, to think about what
it was going to be like riding on its nose down the tracks, nothing
between them and it but the clothes they had on."
"Very likely," Johnny Beau agreed, glad he couldn't see whatever she was
seeing.
"Awful!" said the Granny. And then she dropped it, and turned her
attention to them. "So!" she said briskly. "You two boys, you take that
truck on down to the creek, and you put it out in the running water there
by the big sycamore."
"For how long, Granny?" Delmer asked.
"Thirty days, for starters," she said. "And then I'll go look at it to see
how matters stand.... Could be that'll do it. Thirty days at least, to
purify it and clear out the violence." She folded her arms over her chest
and stared hard at Johnny Beau and Delmer. "I could be a good deal more
precise," she said crossly, "if you two had bothered to find out the
circumstances."
They agreed, and they apologized. She was right: they should have thought
of it. The way things were moving along now, people needed to be able to
start making plans. And then Johnny Beau said, "Granny, Miz Bridges over
there is gonna have a cat fit when she sees us put this in the creek."
"It's our creek," said the Granny gently.
"All the same."