"L'Engle, Madeleine - Time Quartet 01 - A Wrinkle in Time 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Engle Madeleine)

"I suppose I could if I wanted to. If they needed me. But it's sort of tiring, so I just concentrate on you and Mother."
"You mean you read our minds?"
Charles Wallace looked troubled. "I don't think it's that. It's being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inadvertently. That's a good word, isn't it? I got Mother to look it up in the dictionary for me this morning. I really must learn to read except I'm afraid it will make it awfully hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I think it will be better if people go on thinking I'm not very bright. They won't hate me quite so much."


Ahead of them Fortinbras started barking loudly, the warning bay that usually told them that a car was coming up the road or that someone was at the door.
"Somebody's here," Charles Wallace said sharply. "Somebody's hanging around the house. Come on." He started to run, his short legs straining. At the edge of the woods Fortinbras stood in front of a boy, barking furiously.
As they came panting up the boy said, "For crying out loud, call off your dog."
"Who is he?" Charles Wallace asked Meg.
"Calvin O'Keefe. He's in Regional, but he's older than I am. He's a big bug."
"It's all right, fella. I'm not going to hurt you," the boy said to Fortinbras.
"Sit, Fort," Charles Wallace commanded, and Fortinbras dropped to his haunches in front of the boy, a low growl still pulsing in his dark throat.
"Okay." Charles Wallace put his hands on his hips. "Now tell us what you're doing here."
"I might ask the same of you," the boy said with some indignation. "Aren't you two of the Murry kids? This isn't your property, is it?" He started to move, but Fortinbras' growl grew louder and he stopped.
"Tell me about him, Meg," Charles Wallace demanded.
"What would I know about him?" Meg asked. "He's a couple of grades above me, and he's on the basketball team."
"Just because I'm tall." Calvin sounded a little embarrassed. Tall he certainly was, and skinny. His bony wrists stuck out of the sleeves of his blue sweater; his worn corduroy trousers were three inches too short. He had orange hair that needed cutting and the appropriate freckles to go with it. His eyes were an oddly bright blue.
"Tell us what you're doing here," Charles Wallace said.
"What is this? The third degree? Aren't you the one who's supposed to be the moron?"
Meg flushed with rage, but Charles Wallace answered placidly, "That's right. If you want me to call my dog off you'd better give."
"Most peculiar moron I've ever met," Calvin said. "I just came to get away from my family."
Charles Wallace nodded. "What kind of family?"
"They all have runny noses. I'm third from the top of eleven kids. I'm a sport"
At that Charles Wallace grinned widely, "So'm I."
"I don't mean like in baseball," Calvin said.
"Neither do I."
"I mean like in biology," Calvin said suspiciously.
"A change in gene," Charles Wallace quoted, "resulting in the appearance in the offspring of a character which is not present in the parents but which is potentially transmissible to its offspring."
УWhat gives around here?" Calvin asked. "I was told you couldn't talk."
"Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them? How old are you, Cal?"
"Fourteen."
"What grade?"
"Junior. Eleventh. I'm bright Listen, did anybody ask you to come here this afternoon?"
Charles Wallace, holding Fort by the collar, looked at Calvin suspiciously. "What do you mean, asked?"
Calvin shrugged. "You still don't trust me, do you?"
"I don't distrust you," Charles Wallace said.
"Do you want to tell me why you're here, then?"
"Fort and Meg and I decided to go for a walk. We often do in the afternoon."
Calvin dug his hands down in his pockets. "You're holding out on me.Ф
"So're you," Charles Wallace said.
"Okay, old sport," Calvin said, "I'll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?"
"Constraint. Obligation. Because one is compelled. Not a very good definition, but it's the Concise Oxford."
"Okay, okay," Calvin sighed. "I must remember I'm preconditioned in my concept of your mentality."
Meg sat down on die coarse grass at the edge of the woods. Fort gently twisted his collar out of Charles Wallace's hands and came over to Meg, lying down beside her and putting his head in her lap.
Calvin tried now politely to direct his words toward Meg as well as Charles Wallace, "When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can't explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn't happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That's all I know, kid. I'm not holding anything back. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to meet you. You tell me."
Charles Wallace looked at Calvin probingly for a moment; then an almost glazed look came into his eyes, and he seemed to be thinking at him. Calvin stood very still, and waited.
At last Charles Wallace said. "Okay. I believe you. But I can't tell you. I think I'd like to trust you. Maybe you'd better come home with us and have dinner."
"Well, sure, butЧwhat would your mother say to that?" Calvin asked.
"She'd be delighted. Mother's all right. She's not one of us. But she's all right."
"What about Meg?"