"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 2 - Hawaiian UFO Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

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DURING the drive back to the surfers' house, I took a few more chances with the driving than I had
before. Knowing that I had a licence in my pocket gave me confidence. Bill seemed to enjoy it.
I parked the car in the garage and closed the door. Raindrops on the leaves and petals were tiny eyes
that watched me and Bill walk across the garden to the house. Bill knocked into my legs when I stopped
for a moment to inhale the just-washed smells and note that the clouds were breaking up into big, ragged
piles of fresh laundry, the sun touching each with gold piping.
I went into the house and stood by the door listening. It was too quiet. The TV was talking, and
nobody else. Nobody hissed as they inhaled smoke from one of those funny cigarettes. Nobody clattered
a fork against a plate. Durf, it was quiet, and that's all. Everybody could have been sleeping, for all I
knew. Bill and I walked into the living room and found Whipper Will and Bingo there, surrounded by
luggage and their bros. Everybody was watching the TV. I watched it, too.
A short, grainy piece of film was shown over and over while a guy with a nice voice talked about it.
The film might have been of a black fish moving through murky water. It might have been of a bird in a
sky about like today's. The announcer said that it was an Unidentified Flying Object that had been
spotted over the big island of Hawaii. He said it a lot and in different ways, but that was all he said. Pretty
soon the special report went to a commercial, and the tableau dissolved as if we were statues that had
just invented movement.
'Howdy, Will,' I said. He was a very cool dude in his Hawaiian shirt covered with parrots, big gaudy
flowers, and palm leaves, his white pants and his huarache sandals. Bingo stood next to him in very short
white shorts and just enough tube top to cover her legal fees. With one hand she brushed away her long,
dark bangs, then gave me a hello hug.
'Zoot! You gnarly old hotdogger!' Whipper Will said. 'The bros told me you were here.'
We just stood there smiling at each other for a moment. Captain Hook dropped his nickel: 'Maybe
the old hotdogger has a fresh idea about this UFO stuff.'
'Me?' I said, awfully surprised.
'Sure. The dude from Bay City.' He laughed unpleasantly.
'We don't have UFOs in Bay City. Everything that flies around there is pretty much identified.'
'Don't snake us, dude,' Captain Hook said, not liking my answer much.
'Hey, dudes,' Whipper Will said, 'get cranked on these!'
'Presents,' Bingo said, and began to pull small packages from a suitcase that had been around the
world a couple of times without a friend. 'Here's one for you. Captain.' She threw him a package the size
and shape of a brick. Captain Hook was distracted, and the tense moment burst into nothing at all.
Everybody got a package, and soon we were ankle-deep in brightly coloured shreds of paper. The
surfers turned the stuff over in their hands, liking it because it was new and given to them by Whipper
Will and Bingo. I don't know what any of the stuff was, but all of it must have had something to do with
Hawaii or why bother going all the way there to get it? There were small statues of crouching creatures
with big eyes and tongues that hung to their bellies, necklaces of tiny pink seashells and others of plastic
flowers, and bottles of coloured sand, poured in so as to make a simple beach scene.
There were a lot of restless eyes among the surfers then, and some polite appreciating of other
people's gifts. Trades were made.
All of that faded into the background when I tore the paper off a white cardboard box and looked
inside. I stared at the contents, not believing what I was seeing. I could have been wrong, and nothing
would have pleased me more. The cool, neutral scent rising from the box didn't tell me anything. What I
saw was a necklace that seemed to be made from slaberingeo spines. They couldn't be real slaberingeo
spines, of course, or they would have floated out of the box. Still, the resemblance was astonishing.
While hoisting my slack jaw off the floor, I stepped through the crowd to where Whipper Will stood
with Bingo, raking in the thank yous. He said. 'Hope you're stoked about the necklace, bro. In the store,
it seemed to have your name on it.'
I nodded, 'Gnarly for sure. What is it, exactly?' I said carefully, not wanting to damage my sense of