"Ben Jeapes - Pages Out Of Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeapes Ben)

with my mother."
"What?"
He smiled and shrugged sheepishly.
"She's lonely, Will. Dad's treated her like shit and she deserves a bit
more than she's getting from her only child."
"Then why did she send you here?" I demanded.
"Because, my dear, one does," he said in his best Noel Coward. In his own
voice, he went on, "It would never occur to her not to. Her family have
been going to public school since 1066 and the stiff upper lip's been
genetically inbred. I'm going to change all that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Look, give me your diary."
I handed it over and he riffled through April.
"When do you get back from Scotland? The sixteenth? Fine. Not a lot of
holiday left after that, but ... say, come on the seventeenth, and see for
yourself."

Both Meltons were waiting for me at the station and Mrs Melton swooped on
me.
"William! How nice to see you again." She kissed me. She kissed me! I
could see Tom grinning over her shoulder. She was smiling and animated and
as she drove us back to the house, a vast palace in the gin-and-Jaguar
heartland of deepest Surrey, she chatted about all the lovely things she
and Tom had been doing over the holidays. When she left us in my room it
was a relief. Tom was still grinning. He sat in a chair and let me unpack.
"You've drugged her food, haven't you?"
"I've been nice to her, that's all."
"'We've done so many lovely things, Thomas and I--'"
"Fancy coming up to London this evening?" he said, changing the subject.
"Sure." I had discovered in January that the local nightlife -- at least
for two boys of fourteen who weren't really sure what a good time was
anyway -- left a lot to be desired.
"There's a girl I've been seeing, and she's got a sister--"
"Yeah, yeah." I stopped unpacking and looked at him. He was serious.
"Don't tell me, it's your baby cousins, right?"
"Will! No, Maria's sixteen, and Alice is fourteen, same as you."
I must have gone pale. The thought of girls -- real girls -- was
terrifying. Tom hooted with laughter.
"You're scared!" He ran over to the window and shouted out of it, "He's
scared--"
"Tom!"
"Ah, relax." He turned back to me. "You'll hang on to your virginity for a
few more years."
"Tom!"
"Will, they're a really nice couple of girls. We'll go up after tea,
right?"

My toes still curl at the memory of my fears. It was a totally innocent
evening. Maria and Alice were the daughters of a friend of Tom's father;
they were good looking, intelligent and thoroughly pleasant to be with. We