"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Solitaire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

"What you do with these," the boy said, and SB saw that he had no eyebrows either.

SB could see down the road where washes of summer sunlight brightened the rutted dirt road and glimpses of Mill Creek through the trees. Past the jumble of brushy woods the cornfields began on the left, strange in a way they had not seemed just a minute ago, as if something about the world had changed.

The kid's eyes looked flat; they were brown and plain-looking, and the fact that he had no eyebrows made him look very weird. SB kind of liked that.

SB knew that he should go back home, back to the safe plain streets (even though a witch lived on one of them) but he also knew that he wouldn't. He thought it would be nice to have somebody to play with for a change; this boy was interested in cards and no other kid he knew was. He could teach him to play solitaire, of course, but then maybe he could play Hearts, and his uncle had taught him to play poker but the trouble was he didn't come often enough and then he usually drank lots of beer and SB's mom ended up throwing him out. His dad was always too busy to play.

"What's your name?" SB asked.

He didn't say anything so then SB asked, "Well, how old are you? Eight?" He looked the same age; that would be neat.

He stared at SB for a minute then said, softly, "Yes."

"Where's your dad?"

The kid stared at him again and SB thought, they're the same. This is the dad. He just made himself little.

That's crazy, SB thought immediately, you really are nuts like everybody says.

"Around," said the boy, and shrugged. "Come on. He won't bother us."

SB thought yeah, then forgot about the dad. He was kind of surprised at how beautiful it was here in the woods. He hadn't ever paid much attention to things like the rustle of wind through the old gnarled trees and through the cornfield and even he could almost swear as he looked into the weird eyes of this kid the rush of wind through his own hair. The forest was so green at the bend of the road where the cornfield changed from being a cornfield to some sort of infinite thing like the infinite number of games in a deck of cards. He couldn't really put his finger on it but it was just that there was row after row of the very same plant with the very same young ears of corn, must be a million of them, filling themselves with the light of the sun, eating dirt . . .

The kid blinked and SB took a shuddering breath.

"We have to go inside," SB said, with fear and excitement in his stomach, because he realized that he'd have to walk across that rocking-chair porch into a place that might not have a back door.

But when they got to the shack SB saw that it did have a back door, and a bedroom door too, which was ajar. The kid went around and pulled the kitchen window almost closed (if you could call a room with only a deep porcelain sink a kitchen) after SB laid the cards out on a table with a green marbled pattern on it and they blew off the table in a gust of wind and both of them laughed. After that SB felt better. He yanked down another window; paint from the crooked sash flaked off on his hands and he had to put all his weight on the stubborn frame. Then he crossed the wavy, bare floor of wide weathered planks that looked like they'd been there forever and closed the last window as best he could.

A ragged couch sagged on one side of the room. He saw an iron bed through the bedroom door, and next to it used-looking comic books were scattered all over the floor. It looked like a great place to live. Kind of like a fort of your own. He felt jealous.

"There," he said. Then he wondered how to teach someone else to do anything--play this game, anything. He shrugged.

"I guess the best thing to do is just do it," he said.

He thought that seven across would be the easiest game to teach. So he dealt a row of seven cards across the top of the table, standing next to it and the kid was standing at his left elbow just staring at the cards. SB couldn't believe how important this made him feel. This was something most people made fun of him for doing all the time.

"First one on the . . . left . . . (he still had a hard time telling right from left) faces up. The rest are down."

The kid nodded, his face so pale that SB thought he never got out. He smelled. Not bad, but sweet, kind of like an apple pie.

"Next row," SB said, "you leave the first one like it is and put the second one face up. Then all the rest are down."

The boy nodded again.

"And the next row," he said, "you skip the two already face up and turn the third one up. The rest are face down."

Another grave nod.