"Raymond Jones - The King of Eolim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Raymond)

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The King of Eolim by
Raymond F. Jones
Chapter I
It was his parents' Friday night soiree. He never understood
what that meant except it brought a lot of people to the
apartment. Tonight the place was filled with them, all three
levels. People always frightened him.

He could hear rivers of conversation bursting everywhere,
loud, whisperingтАФalways insistent, penetrating, demanding.
There was the sound of music as some of the guests played their
own compositions. Tape players exposed other sounds, all of
them meaningless to him and equally exhausting. He wished he
could shut it all out and make it go away. He knew his father
didn't like it much either, but put up with it because his mother
demanded it.

He remembered he still had to tell his father about being
made King today at school. King of Eolim. He looked towards the
dresser, on which his crown lay. The little lights flashed on and
off at the peaks of the gold plastic crown. He crossed the room
and put the crown on his head again and looked at himself in the
mirror.

He wanted his father to see it. What better time than now? All
the guests would see it, too, and they would know he was King of
Eolim.

His mother wouldn't like it. He had been sternly warned never
to come out during one of these gatherings. But she never liked
anything he did.

Freeman Bradwell was 16 years old. He hated to be described
for what he was, "tall for his age." He was over six feet in height.
He was lanky, but not skinny, and he had already developed the
tall person's stoop, a kind of leaning forward that made him
seem perpetually anxious. The glasses that sat on the high bridge
of his nose added to the effect.

He hesitated a moment and thought about putting on his
clothes, but then decided on just a robe over his pajamas. That
would be all right. Everybody probably knew anyway that he