"The Giver Quartet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowry, Lois)

Jonas laughed. "Somebody made that story up, Ash," he said. "My father said he heard that story when he was a Twelve."



But Asher wasn't reassured. He was eyeing the river where it was visible behind the Auditorium. "I can't even swim very well," he said. "My swimming instructor said that I don't have the right boyishness or something."



"Buoyancy," Jonas corrected him.



"Whatever. I don't have it. I sink."



"Anyway," Jonas pointed out, "have you ever once known of anyone тАФ I mean really known for sure, Asher, not just heard a story about it тАФ who joined another community?"



"No," Asher admitted reluctantly. "But you can. It says so in the rules. If you don't fit in, you can apply for Elsewhere and be released. My mother says that once, about ten years ago, someone applied and was gone the next day." Then he chuckled. "She told me that because I was driving her crazy. She threatened to apply for Else-where."



"She was joking."



"I know. But it was true, what she said, that someone did that once. She said that it was really true. Here today and gone tomorrow. Never seen again. Not even a Ceremony of Release."



Jonas shrugged. It didn't worry him. How could some-one not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made.



Even the Matching of Spouses was given such weighty consideration that sometimes an adult who applied to receive a spouse waited months or even years before a Match was approved and announced. All of the factors тАФ disposition, energy level, intelligence, and interests тАФ had to correspond and to interact perfectly. Jonas's mother, for example, had higher intelligence than his father; but his father had a calmer disposition. They balanced each other. Their Match, which like all Matches had been monitored by the Committee of Elders for three years before they could apply for children, had always been a successful one.



Like the Matching of Spouses and the Naming and Placement of newchildren, the Assignments were scrupulously thought through by the Committee of Elders.



He was certain that his Assignment, whatever it was to be, and Asher's too, would be the right one for them. He only wished that the midday break would conclude, that the audience would reenter the Auditorium, and the suspense would end.



As if in answer to his unspoken wish, the signal came and the crowd began to move toward the doors.