"Zenna Henderson - Holding Wonder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

from its stricken drawnness. "Sometimes it gets through too sharply-"

"Don't worry about it," I said, pushing his front hair up out of his eyes.
"You could drive yourself crazy-"

"Mom says my imagination is a little too vivid-' His mouth corners lifted.

"So 'tis," I smiled at him, "if it must seize upon my imaginary astronaut.
There's no point to your harrowing up your soul with what might happen.
Problems we have always with us. No need to borrow any."

"I'm not exactly borrowing," he whispered, his shoulder hunching up towards
his wincing head. "He never did want to, anyway, and now that they're
orbiting, he's still scared. What if-" He straightened resolutely. "I'll help
Gene." He slid away before I could stop him.

"Vincent," I called. "Who's orbiting-" And just then Justin dumped over the
whole stack of jigsaw puzzles, upside down. That ended any further questions I
might have had.

That evening I pushed the newspaper aside and thoughtfully lifted my coffee
cup. I stared past its rim and out into the gathering darkness. This was the
local newspaper which was still struggling to become a big metropolitan daily
after half a century of being a four-page county weekly. Sometimes its reach
exceeded its grasp, and it had to bolster short columns with little
folksy-type squibs. I re-read the one that had caught my eye. Morris was
usually good for an item or two. I watched for them since he had had a
conversation with a friend of mine I'd lost track of.

Local ham operator, Morris Staviski, says the Russians have a new manned
sputnik in orbit. He says he has monitored radio signals from the capsule. He
can't tell what they're saying, but he says they're talking Russian. He knows
what Russian sounds like because his grandmother was Russian.

"Hmm," I thought. "I wonder. Maybe Vincent knows Morris. Maybe that's where he
got this orbiting bit." So the next day I asked him.

"Staviski?" He frowned a little. "No, ma'am, I don't know anyone named
Staviski. At least I don't remember the name. Should I?"
"Not necessarily," I said, "I just wondered. He's a ham radio operator-"

"Oh!" His face flushed happily. "I'm working on the code now so I can take the
test next time it's given in Winter Wells! Maybe I'll get to talk to him
sometimes!"

"Me, too!" said Gene. "I'm learning the code, too!"

"He's a little handicapped, though," Vincent smiled. "He can't tell a dit from
a dah yet!"