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

"You and all the rest of the women! It's not just you, Granny."
She smiled at him and patted his clenched right fist, and he turned on
his
heel and left. Johnny Beau lived for the day she would be wrong for
once.

He'd meant to go to the woods and walk off his mad, and then go into
town
and maybe get some chocolate candy for Granny, who was partial to the
kind
with the orange jelly centers. But the sight of Hannah Bridges stopped
him
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.