"Diana Wynne Jones - Mixed Magics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

They seemed to notice him then. Somebody screamed. The lady behind the
glass went white and put her thumb on a button near her cash drawer.
"HowтАФhow much money, sir?" she faltered.

"All of it," said the Willing Warlock. "Quickly." Maybe, he thought afterward,
that was a bit greedy. But it seemed so easy.

Everyone, on both sides of the glassed-in counter, was standing frozen,
staring at him, afraid of the pistol. And the lady readily opened her cash
drawer and began counting out wads of five-pound notes, fumbling with
haste and eagerness.

While she was doing it, the door of the bank opened and some-one came
in. The Willing Warlock glanced over his shoulder and saw it was only a
small man in a pin-striped suit, who seemed to be star-ing like everybody
else. The lady was actually passing the Willing Warlock the first bundle of
money when the small man shouted out in a very big voice, "Don't be a
fool! He's only joking. That's a toy pistol!"

At once everyone near turned on the Willing Warlock. Three men tried to
grab him. An old lady swung her handbag and clouted him around the head.
"Take that, you thief!" A bell began to ring loudly. And, worse still, an
unholy howling started somewhere outside, coming closer and closer.
"That's the police coming!" screamed the old lady, and she went for the
Willing Warlock again.

The Willing Warlock turned and ran, with everyone trying to stop him and
getting in his way. The last person who got in his way was the small man
in the pin-striped suit. He took hold of the Willing Warlock's sleeve and
said, "Wait a minuteтАФ"

The Willing Warlock was so desperate by then that he fired the toy pistol
at him. A stream of water came out of it and caught the small man in one
eye, drenching his smart suit. The small man ducked and let go. The Willing
Warlock burst out through the door of the bank.

The howling outside was hideous. It was coming from a white car labeled
police, with a blue flashing light on top, which was rac-ing down the street
toward him. There was rather a nice car parked by the curb, facing toward
the police car. A big, shiny, expensive car. Even in his panic, and as he
wondered how the police had been fetched so quickly, that car caught the
Willing Warlock's eye. As the police car screamed to a stop and policemen
started to jump out of it, the Willing Warlock tore open the door of the nice
car, jumped into the seat behind the steering wheel, and set it going in a
burst of des-perate magic.

Behind him, the policemen jumped back into their car, which then did a
screaming U-turn and came after him. The Willing War-lock saw them
coming in a little mirror somebody had thoughtfully fixed to the windscreen.
He flung the nice car around a corner out of sight. But the police car