"Alice Hoffman - Turtle Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Alice)

where the heat doesn't make you break out in red bumps, and every
restaurant doesn't serve grits and Alligator Salad, and some people
have fathers.

Keith balances his bike against his hip, then lights a cigarette, which
he keeps cupped in his palm, the way he's seen the high school boys
smoke, even though the embers burn his skin.

Nothing ever happened in Verity. That was a fact.

He could die of boredom, right now, his heart could give out and he'd
shrivel up in the heat and turn purple before anyone thought to look
for him. He'd probably fossilize before his mother reported him
missing. When his heart doesn't stop, Keith props his bike up against
a trash can, then flings himself on a wooden bench so he can blow smoke
rings in the air. The smoke rings just hang there, dangerous white
clouds going nowhere. School won't be out for another fifteen minutes,
but at the far end of the park some teenagers, playing hooky, toss a
Frisbee around.

As far as Keith is concerned, anyone down here who is capable of
enjoying himself is an idiot.

The high school boys are so busy diving for the Frisbee and pounding
each other on the back they don't notice the patrol car in the parking
lot, idling beneath an inkwood tree. Keith sits up, interested in
spite of himself when he sees on the side of the car. They don't allow
dogs at the condominium where he lives. If the super discovers that
you have even a guinea pig you're out forever. There's a list of rules
three pages long you have to agree to before you move in.

That way there's no argument when they insist you take a shower before
you swim in the pool, and you can't even swim alone without an adult
until you're thirteen. If Keith could have a dog, it would be just
like the one in the patrol car, a big German shepherd that sits
perfectly still, eyeing the boys playing Frisbee. He would love to see
what the super had to say about a dog like that; just let anyone try to
give him orders if he had a monster like that on a leash.

When the cop gets out of his car, Keith hunkers down on the bench. He
was suspended yesterday, and technically he's not required to be in
school. Still, he hasn't informed his mother of the suspension, so he
figures he's guilty of something. The cop has a mean scar across his
forehead and black hair that reaches over the collar of his jacket. He
looks like he could pick you up and toss you, a long way. Plus he has
that dog, just the turn of a car handle away. They didn't have cops
like this back in Great Neck, where Keith grew up. You never saw a
pickup with a gun rack attached, or dead turtles in the street. As
Keith watches, the cop approaches the high school boys; before he can
reach them the boys take off through a grove of cabbage palms, leaving