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

in the wash that flows dryly mostly, wetly tumultuous seldomly-down the middle
of our canyon. Manzanitas tangle the hillside until the walls become too steep
and sterile to support them. And yet, a twenty-minute drive-ten minutes out of
here and ten minutes into there-parks you right in front of the MONSTER
MERCANTILE, EVERYTHING CHEAPER. I seldom drive that way.

Back to Kroginold, Vincent Lorma-I was used to unusual children at my school.
The lab attracted brilliant and erratic personnel. The majority of the men
there were good, solid citizens and no more eccentric than a like number of
any professionals, but we do get our share of kooks, and their sometimes
twisted children. Besides the size and situation being an ideal set up for
ungraded teaching, the uneven development for some of the children made it
almost mandatory. As, for instance, Vincent, almost nine, reading, so he said,
on second-grade level, averaging out to third grade, which implied above-age
excellence in something. Where to put him? Why, second grade (or maybe first)
and fourth (or maybe fifth) and third-of course! Perhaps a conference with his
mother would throw some light on his "block." Well, difficult. According to
the enrollment blank, both parents worked at MEL.
By any method we tried, Vincent was second grade-or less-in reading.

"I'm sorry." He stacked his hands on the middle page of Through Happy Hours,
through which he had stumbled most woefully. "And reading is so basic, isn't
it?"

"It is," I said, fingering his math paper-above age-level. And the vocabulary
check test "If it's just words, I'll define them," he had said. And he had.
Third year of high school worth. "I suppose your math ability comes from your
parents," I suggested.
"Oh, no!" he said, "I have nothing like their gift for math. It's-it's-I like
it. You can always get out. You're never caught-"

Caught?" I frowned.

"Yes-look!" Eagerly he seized a pencil. "See! One plus equals two. Of course
it does, but it doesn't stop there. if you want to, you can back right out.
'Two equals one plus one. And there you are-out! The doors swing both ways!"

"Well, yes," I said, teased by an almost grasping of what he meant. "But math
traps me. One plus one equals two whether I want it to or not. Sometimes I
want it to be one and a half or two and three-fourths and it won't-ever!"

"No, it won't." His face was troubled. "Does it bother you all the time?"

"Heavens, no child!" I laughed. "It hasn't warped my life!"

"No," he said, his eyes widely on mine. "But that's why -" His voice died as
he looked longingly out the window at the recess-roaring playground, and I
released him to go stand against the wall of the school, wistfully watching
our eight other boys manage to be sixteen or even twenty-four in their wild
gyrations.