"Kelly,_James_Patrick_-_10_16_to_1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

"Are you a boy or a girl?" I said.
It started. "There is something wrong?"
I cocked my head to one side. "I think maybe it's your eyes. They're too big or something. Are you wearing makeup?"
"I am naturally male." It -- he bristled as he stepped out of the camouflage suit. "Eyes do not have gender."
"If you say so." I could see he was going to need help getting around, only he didn't seem to know it. I was hoping he'd reveal himself, brief me on the mission. I even had an idea how we could contact President Kennedy or whoever he needed to meet with. Mr. Newell, the Scoutmaster, used to be a colonel in the Army -- he would know some general who could call the Pentagon. "What's your name?" I said.
He draped the suit over his arm. "Cross."
I waited for the rest of it as he folded the suit in half. "Just Cross?" I said.
"My given name is Chitmansing." He warbled it like he was calling birds.
"That's okay," I said. "Let's just make it Mr. Cross."
"As you wish, Mr. Beaumont." He folded the suit again, again and again.
"Hey!"
He continued to fold it.
"How do you do that? Can I see?"
He handed it over. The camo suit was more impossible than it had been when it was invisible. He had reduced it to a six inch square card, as thin and flexible as the queen of spades. I folded it in half myself. The two sides seemed to meld together; it would've fit into my wallet perfectly. I wondered if Cross knew how close I was to running off with his amazing gizmo. He'd never catch me. I could see flashes of my brilliant career as the invisible superhero. Tales to Confound presents: the origin of Camo Kid! I turned the card over and over, trying to figure out how to unfold it again. There was no seam, no latch. How could I use it if I couldn't open it? "Neat," I said. Reluctantly, I gave the card back to him.
Besides, real superheroes didn't steal their powers.
I watched Cross slip the card into his vest pocket. I wasn't scared of him. What scared me was that at any minute he might walk out of my life. I had to find a way to tell him I was on his side, whatever that was.
"So you live around here, Mr. Cross?"
"I am from the island of Mauritius."
"Where's that?"
"It is in the Indian Ocean, Mr. Beaumont, near Madagascar."
I knew where Madagascar was from playing Risk, so I told him that but then I couldn't think of what else to say. Finally, I had to blurt out something -- anything -- to fill the silence. "It's nice here. Real quiet, you know. Private."
"Yes, I had not expected to meet anyone." He, too, seemed at a loss. "I have business in New York City on the twenty-sixth of October."
"New York, that's a ways away."
"Is it? How far would you say?"
"Fifty miles. Sixty, maybe. You have a car?"
"No, I do not drive, Mr. Beaumont. I am to take the train."
The nearest train station was New Canaan, Connecticut. I could've hiked it in maybe half a day. It would be dark in a couple of hours. "If your business isn't until the twenty-sixth, you'll need a place to stay."
"The plan is to take rooms at a hotel in Manhattan."
"That costs money."
He opened a wallet and showed me a wad of crisp new bills. For a minute I thought they must be counterfeit; I hadn't realized that Ben Franklin's picture was on money. Cross was giving me the goofiest grin. I just knew they'd eat him alive in New York and spit out the bones.
"Are you sure you want to stay in a hotel?" I said.
He frowned. "Why would I not?"
"Look, you need a friend, Mr. Cross. Things are different here than ... than on your island. Sometimes people do, you know, bad stuff. Especially in the city."
He nodded and put his wallet away. "I am aware of the dangers, Mr. Beaumont. I have trained not to draw attention to myself. I have the proper equipment." He tapped the pocket where the camo was.
I didn't point out to him that all his training and equipment hadn't kept him from being caught out by a twelve-year-old. "Sure, okay. It's just ... Look, I have a place for you to stay, if you want. No one will know."
"Your parents, Mr. Beaumont ..."
"My dad's in Massachusetts until next Friday. He travels; he's in the window business. And my mom won't know."
"How can she not know that you have invited a stranger into your house?"
"Not the house," I said. "My dad built us a bomb shelter. You'll be safe there, Mr. Cross. It's the safest place I know."
* * * *
I remember how Cross seemed to lose interest in me, his mission and the entire twentieth century the moment he entered the shelter. He sat around all of Sunday, dodging my attempts to draw him out. He seemed distracted, like he was listening to a conversation I couldn't hear. When he wouldn't talk, we played games. At first it was cards: Gin and Crazy Eights, mostly. In the afternoon, I went back to the house and brought over checkers and Monopoly. Despite the fact that he did not seem to be paying much attention, he beat me like a drum. Not one game was even close. But that wasn't what bothered me. I believed that this man had come from the future, and here I was building hotels on Baltic Avenue!
Monday was a school day. I thought Cross would object to my plan of locking him in and taking both my key and Mom's key with me, but he never said a word. I told him that it was the only way I could be sure that Mom didn't catch him by surprise. Actually, I doubted she'd come all the way out to the shelter. She'd stayed away after Dad gave her that first tour; she had about as much use for nuclear war as she had for science fiction. Still, I had no idea what she did during the day while I was gone. I couldn't take chances. Besides, it was a good way to make sure that Cross didn't skin out on me.
Dad had built the shelter instead of taking a vacation in 1960, the year Kennedy beat Nixon. It was buried about a hundred and fifty feet from the house. Nothing special -- just a little cellar without anything built on top of it. The entrance was a steel bulkhead that led down five steps to another steel door. The inside was cramped; there were a couple of cots, a sink and a toilet. Almost half of the space was filled with supplies and equipment. There were no windows and it always smelled a little musty, but I loved going down there to pretend the bombs were falling.
When I opened the shelter door after school on that Monday, Cross lay just as I had left him the night before, sprawled across the big cot, staring at nothing. I remember being a little worried; I thought he might be sick. I stood beside him and still he didn't acknowledge my presence.
"Are you all right, Mr. Cross?" I said. "I bought Risk." I set it next to him on the bed and nudged him with the corner of the box to wake him up. "Did you eat?"
He sat up, took the cover off the game and started reading the rules. "President Kennedy will address the nation," he said, "this evening at seven o'clock."
For a moment, I thought he had made a slip. "How do you know that?"
"The announcement came last night." I realized that his pronunciation had improved a lot; announcement had only three syllables. "I have been studying the radio."
I walked over to the radio on the shelf next to the sink. Dad said we were supposed to leave it unplugged -- something about the bombs making a power surge. It was a brand new solid-state, multi-band Heathkit that I'd helped him build. When I pressed the on button, women immediately started singing about shopping: Where the values go up, up, up! And the prices go down, down, down! I turned it off again.
"Do me a favor, okay?" I said. "Next time when you're done would you please unplug this? I could get in trouble if you don't." I stooped to yank the plug.