"Hamilton, Virginia - Cousins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Virginia)

Cammy walked across the darkened room and turned on the light above the sink. She tiptoed to the bed, hopped up on the side rail and leaned close. Gram
Tut's eyes were closed. Already the smell of the place, of old people, was up her nose. Cammy smacked a big kiss on her grandmother's cheek.

"There! I planted it, Gram. Now don't wash it.

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Let it grow." Something about her Gram brought out the best in Cammy.

Tut couldn't wash her own face. "Poor old thing," Cammy's mama said.

You're not poor anything, Cammy thought, looking down at her Gram. She touched the lines of crisscross wrinkles on Gram's cheek. "You're my Gram and you
need me to snuggle your face once in a while," she said.

Cammy didn't snuggle against Gram now. She would do that before she left. It always made Gram cry. But Gram Tut liked her to do that all the same.

"Gram?" Cammy leaned closer. Gram Tut's eyes were still closed. "You're not dead yet, are you?"

There was a long moment in which Cammy held her breath. But then, Tut gave a grin; said weakly, "Fooled ya!" and shot her eyes wide open.

It was a rough game that Tut managed to play with Cammy. Pretend dead-as-a-doornail was what Cammy called it. Gram Tut thought that was a riot. She was
usually half awake when Cammy came. She would hear her granddaughter tiptoeing in and she would at once play dead.

"Don't tell Maylene," Tut had said. Maylene was Gram Tut's daughter and Cammy's mama. "She doesn't have a fingernail bit of humor in her."

They never played the game when anybody else was around.

Now, Cammy grinned. "Gram," she said, "you didn't fool me. I knew you was here, and always will be, too."

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"Expect so, the rate I've been here," murmured Tut.

"Ninety-four years!" squealed Cammy.

"Oh, surely, not that long!" Tut said, softly.

Cammy let it go. "Gram Tut?"

What, honey? Tut's throat moved but she hadn't the strength right then to speak.

"Did you hear what I said? Otha Vance is building hisself a hog house . . ."

Him. Himself, honey. Not hisself, Tut thought. Doesn't Maylene or that school teach you a thing?

"He needs some help, Mister Vance says," Cammy explained. "Me and you could help him, if you want."

Cammy knew better than that. Mr. Vance lived at the Care, also. She knew he wouldn't build a hog house, nor could Gram Tut help him at anything. But it
was part of the game, like saying to Gram, "What did you do today?" And Gram Tut saying back, "I'm worn out. I cleaned the whole house," when everybody