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

"You children stay out here." I herded Gene ahead of me. "We have things to
settle inside:"

Vincent was waiting quietly in his seat. He had mopped himself fairly clean,
though he still dabbled with a tissue at a cut over his left eye. Two long
scratches oozed redly down his cheek. I spent the next few minutes rendering
first aid. Vincent was certainly the more damaged of the two, and I could feel
the thrumming leap of his still-racing heart against me as I turned his docile
body around, tucking in his shirt during the final tidying up.

"Now." I sat, sternly teacher, at my desk and surveyed the two before me.
"Gene, you first."

"Well," he ruffed his hair up and paused to finger, half proudly, the knot
under his hair. "He said let my ground squirrel go and I said no. What the
heck! It was mine. And he said let it go and I said no and he took the cage
and busted it and-" Indignation in his eyes faded into defensiveness. "-and I
busted him one and-and- Well, then he hit me with that rock! Gosh, I was
knocked out, wasn't I?"

"You were," I said, grimly. "Vincent?"

"He's right." His voice was husky, his eyes on the tape on the back of one
hand. Then he looked up with a tentative lift of his mouth corners. "Except
that I hit the rock with him:"

"Hit the rock with him?" I asked. "You mean like judo or something? You pushed
him against the rock hard enough to knock him out?"

If you like," he shrugged.

"It's not what I like," I said. "It's-what happened?"

"I hit the rock with him," Vincent repeated.

"And why?" I asked, ignoring his foolish insistence.
"We were having a fight. He told you."

"You busted my cage!" Gene gushed indignantly.

"Gene," I reminded. "You had your turn. Vincent?"

"I had to let it go," he said, his eyes hopefully on mine.

"He wouldn't, and it-it wanted to get out-the ground squirrel." His eyes lost
their hopefulness before mine.

"It wasn't yours," I reminded.

"It wasn't his either!" His eyes blazed. "It belonged to itself! He had no