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

Winter Wells, I would spend a night on my old narrow bed in the quiet of the
canyon.

I wondered again about not hearing the car when I sped down into the last sand
wash before the highway. I steered carefully back across the packed narrowness
of my morning tracks. Mine were the only ones, coming or going.

I laid the odd discovery aside because I was immediately gulped up by the
highway traffic. After I had been honked at and muttered at by two Coast
drivers and had muttered at (I don't like to honk) and swerved around two
Midwest tourist types roaring along at twenty-five miles an hour in the center
lane admiring the scenery, I suddenly laughed. After all, there was nothing
mysterious about my lonely tire tracks. I was just slightly disoriented. MEL
was less than a mile away from the school, up over the ridge, though it was
good half hour by road. Mrs. Kroginold had hiked over for the conference and
the two of them had hiked back together. My imagination boggled a little at
the memory of Mrs. Kroginold's strap'n'heel sandals and the hillsides, but
then, not everyone insists on flats to walk in.

Well, the white rat achieved six offspring, which cemented the friendship
between Gene and Vincent forever, and school rocked along more or less
serenely.

Then suddenly, as though at a signal, the pace of space exploration was
stepped up in every country that had ever tried launching anything; so the
school started a space unit. We went through our regular systematic lessons at
a dizzying pace, and each child, after he had finished his assignment, plunged
into his own chosen activity-all unrealizing of the fact that he was
immediately putting into practice what he had been studying so reluctantly.

My primary group was busy working out a moonscape in the sand table. It was to
be complete with clay moon-people - "They don't have to have any noses" That
was Ginny, tender to critical comment. "They're different! They don't breathe.
No air!" And moon-dogs and cats and cars and flowers, and even a moon-bird.
"It can't fly in the sky cause there ain't-isn't any air so it flies in the
dirt!" That was Justin. "It likes bottoms of craters cause there's more dirt
there!" I caught Vincent's amused eyes as he listened to the small ones.
"Little kids are funny!" he murmured. "Animals on the moon! My dad, when he
was there, all he saw-" His eyes widened and he became very busy choosing the
right-sized nails from the rusty coffee can.

"Middle-sized kids are funny, too," I said. "Moon, indeed! There aren't any
dads on the moon, either!"

"I guess not."

He picked up the hammer and, as he moved away, I heard him whisper, "Not
now!"

My intermediates were in the midst of a huge argument. I umpired for a while.