"Jones, Diana Wynne - Chrestomanci 3 - 1982 - Witch Week" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

day's work. He really was writing about his secret feelings, but he was doing it
in his own private code so that no one could know.
He started every entry with I got up. It meant, I hate this school. When he
wrote I do not like porridge, that was actually true, but porridge was his code
word for Simon Silverson. Simon was porridge at breakfast, potatoes at lunch,
and bread at tea. All the other people he hated had code words too. Dan Smith
was cornflakes, cabbage, and butter. Theresa Mullett was milk.
But when Charles wrote I felt hot, he was not talking about school at all. He
meant he was remembering the witch being burned. It was a thing that would keep
coming into his head whenever he was not thinking of anything else, much as he
tried to forget it. He had been so young that he had been in a stroller. His big
sister Bernadine had been pushing him while his mother carried the shopping, and
they had been crossing a road where there was a view down into the Market
Square. There were crowds of people down there, and a sort of flickering.
Bernadine had stopped the stroller in the middle of the street in order to
stare. She and Charles had just time to glimpse the bonfire starting to burn,
and they had seen that the witch was a large fat man. Then their mother came
rushing back and scolded Bernadine on across the road. "You mustn't look at
witches!" she said. "Only awful people do that!" So Charles had only seen the
witch for an instant. He never spoke about it, but he never forgot it. It always
astonished him that Bernadine seemed to forget about it completely. What Charles
was really saying in his journal was that the witch came into his head during
breakfast, until Simon Silverson made him forget again by eating all that toast.
When he wrote woodwork second lesson, he meant that he had gone on to think
about the second witchЧwhich was a thing he did not think about so often.
Woodwork was anything Charles liked. They Only had woodwork once a week, and
Charles had chosen that for his code on the very reasonable grounds that he was
not likely to enjoy anything at Larwood House any oftener than that. Charles had
liked the second witch. She had been quite young and rather pretty, in spite of
her torn skirt and untidy hair. She had come scrambling across the wall at the
end of the garden and stumbled down the rockery to the lawn, carrying her smart
shoes in one hand. Charles had been nine years old then, and he was minding his
little brother on the lawn. Luckily for the witch, his parents were out.
Charles knew she was a witch. She was out of breath and obviously frightened. He
could hear the yells and police whistles in the house behind. Besides, who else
but a witch would run away from the police in the middle of the afternoon in a
tight skirt? But he made quite sure. He said, "Why are you running away in our
garden?"
The witch rather desperately hopped on one foot. She had a large blister on the
other foot, and both her stockings were laddered. "I'm a witch," she panted.
"Please help me, little boy!"
"Why can't you magic yourself safe?" Charles asked.
"Because I can't when I'm this frightened!" gasped the witch. "I tried, but it
just went wrong! Please, little boyЧsneak me out through your house and don't
say a word, and I'll give you luck for the rest of your life. I promise. "
Charles looked at her in that intent way of his which most people found "blank
and nasty. He saw she was speaking the truth. He saw, too, that she understood
the look as very few people seemed to. "Come in through the kitchen," he said.
And he led the witch, hobbling on her blister in her laddered stockings, through
the kitchen and down the hall to the front door.