"Kindl, Patrick - The Woman In The Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kindl Patrick)

5 I developed an interest in his tools when I was only a tiny girl. They were all I had of him, and I learned everything I could about their use and care.
I know that most childhood experts do not recommend the unsupervised use of power tools by very young children, but I was remarkably mature for my age,
and though small, very strong. I discovered that my hands were quick and clever, and that I enjoyed building and making things.

I also learned to sew. The lady who had lived in our house before us had been an accomplished seamstress and, before her retirement, had owned a small fabric
store. When she died she left the attics filled with bolts of material, spools of many-colored threads, boxes of buttons and lace, and all sorts of craft
supplies.

By the time I was seven years old our house was beginning to look like the grand old mansion it had once been, and my family was the best dressed in town.
I have always been blessed, or cursed, with a seemingly endless fund of nervous energy. It is a real hardship to me to sit idle; I must be doing something.
So I snipped and sewed and sawed and hammered to my heart's content.

I was proud to be such a help to my mother. She had a good job with an insurance company but, with a big old house and three young daughters, the money
wouldn't have gone nearly as far without my efforts.

We were a happy family, or so I thought. I at least was entirely content to go on living exactly as we

6 were, forever. But my mother had different ideas, it seemed.

"Anna, where are you?" my mother called to me one day. "Come out, darling. I need to talk to you."

Uneasily I crawled out from behind the sofa in the front parlor, where I had been peacefully engaged in attaching some fine old Victorian beadwork to the
collar of one of Andrea's denim jackets. A nice effect, I thought. I didn't like it when Mother called me "darling." It usually meant bad news.

I presented myself, standing up straight so that she would be sure to see me. When she spotted me she patted the sofa cushion beside her. "Sit here beside
me. So, darling," she said, avoiding my eye, "you're seven years old now, aren't you? Such a big girl!"

I regarded her with alarm. I was not a big girl at all, and we both knew it. I was an extremely small girl.

"Such a big girl," she repeated firmly. "You know, dear, school starts in a month. We'll have to start thinking about some new clothes for you as well as
for Andrea and Kirsty."

I simply stared at her.

Andrea lunged into the room. She was ten years old and going into the fifth grade that year.

"What! You're going to send her to school? You

can't."

"Stop bouncing at me like that, Andrea," Mother said. "Just sit down and be quiet for a moment."

7 "Anna, I want a pink dress with ruffles for the first day of school." Five-year-old Kirsty came in, trailing her doll Bethany behind her. "With those
glittery things all over the top. Like Cinderella's ballgown."

"You are so stupid, Kirsty," Andrea said. "Nobody wears ballgowns to school."

"Andrea, please," said Mother.