"Brian Herbert - Prisoners of Arionn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

around on a regular basis. She was in the habit of scolding him about this, asking him where he had put the bathrooms
and commanding him for all time to leave her kitchen where she wanted it. Michelle thought that the present
arrangement corresponded roughly with Granmere's wishes, although only a month earlier the kitchen had been on a
different side of the living room.
To Michelle it seemed that Granmere's house had all the stiffness of a museum where objects couldn't be touched, and
in this respect she empathized with her mother's discomfiture in the place. It wasn't their only point of agreement when
it came to Granmere.
"Michelle, where are you, Michelle?" Granpere called out, his frail voice straining. Presently she saw the old man
smiling at her gently from the arched doorway. He was tall and slightly stooped, with long and thick gray hair that
over-hung his forehead rakishly in the fashion of a much younger man. His eyes danced with a pixie liveliness that set
him apart from the stodgy, businesslike demeanor of Granmere. His clothes were airy and cheerful, of the golfers' pro
shop
variety: short-sleeved yellow shirt open at the collar, with an eagle pocket insignia; white, perfectly creased slacks;
white loafers with pointed leather flaps draped across the tops. He waited for Michelle's response, seemed to notice
her immer-sion in thought.
Behind Granpere in the music room stood his massive grand piano, an awe-inspiring burnished white instrument of
another century that he maintained impeccably but played only rarely. Granmere invariably criticized his keyboard
skills, purporting to find tiny flaws that no one else heard. Michelle was certain that he polished and waxed the piano
in part to please Granmere's demands for spotlessness, for she was the unquestioned ruler of the household and he
the working prince. Michelle wished he would stand up to her just once, and it occurred to her that he probably did, in
private. But to do so in front of the family: what a memorable occasion that would be! Beyond his apparent
subservience, the girl knew her grandfather polished his piano because he loved it.
Granmere the perfectionist: the supreme nit-picker, with more demands than those of ten normal people. Rachel didn't
stand a chance.
But Granpere did. He was an innately happy man, and even with all her sourness Granmere could not take that away
from him. He fairly lit up the living room now for Michelle as he shuffled toward her arthritically, drawing her out of her
ruminations. She bounded into his arms.
"I love you, Granpere," Michelle murmured, nuzzling against his slender midsection.
"We,have an hour before dinner," he said. "What do you say we go for a little drive?"
Michelle looked up, nodded briskly.
"Don't be late getting back!" Granmere squawked, as the girl and her grandfather tried making it to the side door
unnoticed.
In the background someone picked at the pianoтАФRenney, Michelle decided, recognizing a tune the boy had
composed. He and his mother had artistic talents, and both were sensi-tive, but in different ways. Renney seemed less
fragile than his mother.
"Not to worry!" Granpere shouted back, in the saucy tone of one whose greatest pleasures lay beyond these walls.
With
that they threw on their coats and slammed the door shut behind them in a great flourish, scurried across the porch
and bounded down the motionless electric stairway like school-mates, hand in hand. A black button at each end of the
stairway would have activated its escalator mechanism, but that was not for Granpfere. Nor for that matter was it
some-thing Michelle had ever seen her grandmother use.
"It'll be nice in our old age," Granpere liked to say.
As Granpere led the way past his vegetable garden along one side of the house and through the iron grand gate to the
street, he complained good-naturedly about Granmere's bossi-ness. Michelle heard brittleness in his octogenarian
voice that troubled her, and as she moved up alongside him she thought his skin looked paler than usual. Still, when
he glanced down at her his eyes sparkled reassuringly. They were happy, youth-ful eyes. But it seemed to Michelle
that his voice echoed more how he really felt, and oftentimes she suspected him of buoying himself for her benefit.
"Thick fog rolling in," he said, pausing on the sidewalk to look up. "Can't even see the sun anymore. Button your
coat."
While doing as she was told, Michelle followed his gaze to swirls of dark gray mist that rolled around treetops and