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

short on the front steps. She was very nearly running up the stone path to
Granny Motley's house, waving her arms, with her hair falling down and
blowing every which way, and she looked to be delighted with herself.
Whatever it was the women knew, Johnny Beau thought, they'd forgotten to
tell Hannah Bridges.
"You there!" she called to him. "You, Johnny Motley!"
"Yes, ma'am, Miz Bridges," he said, and waited.
"You see this?" She shook her hand in front of him, and whatever it was
that dangled from it.
"Ma'am?"
"You see this?" she demanded again. "You see that child down there by the
road?"
Johnny Beau looked past her, and saw his second cousin Amanda down there,
making mud pies where the last rain had left her a handy puddle. "You mean
Amanda?" he asked.
"I do indeed!"
"What's she done?" he asked politely. "If she broke something of yours,
Miz Bridges, Amanda's daddy will fix it or get you a new one."
"She didn't break anything, John, but it's a wonder she doesn't have
tetanus this minute! This is what comes of stringing junk all over the
county, John! Little children, who don't know any better and can't protect
themselves, end up playing with dangerous pieces of that junk, like this
piece! Don't you people know tetanus can kill a child?"
Johnny yearned to tell her everything he knew about lockjaw, in intricate
detail, but he deferred to Granny Motley; don't sass the woman, and don't
hold her ignorance against her. "Yes, ma'am," he said instead, and took a
good look at the thing she was waving.
And his heart nearly stopped.
Please God, he thought, don't let her mash it or twist it or break
anything off it! Gently, carefully, so as not to make her suspicious or
alarm her in any way, he held out his hand.
"Here, Miz Bridges," he said in his best church voice. "You let me have
that, and I'll put it away somewhere where none of the kids can get hurt
on it; I promise." And he added, "Careful you don't cut yourself, ma'am.
That's a wicked-looking thing!"
It was that. Stretched out flat, it would have been thirteen inches long.
It had seven turns in it, and each of them had seven turns of its own. And
there was a good deal more to it, all of it promising. He could have wept,
he was so scared the city woman would damage it somehow.
Only after he had it safely in his own hand did his heart settle down
again. Behind him in the house, he could hear the Granny calling,
demanding to know what in the world was going on on her front porch, for
heaven's sakes, and he called back to reassure her.
"I'll be there in just a minute, Granny!" he yelled. "And I've got
something to show you!" And then he stood there patiently yes-ma'aming a
good five minutes more while Hannah Bridges told him what a disgrace it
was the way Ozarkers left sharp, rusty metal around where innocent
children could get hurt on it - and he tolerated her in silence and did
not interrupt to tell her that Ozark children were taught not to play
anywhere that there was sharp, rusty metal, and had sense enough to do as