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

inches above the floor.
"Hi," he said cheerfully. "I've been waiting for you."
From under the table where he was lying at Charles Wallace's feet, hoping for a crumb or two,
Fortinbras raised his slender dark head in greeting to Meg, and his tail thumped against the
floor. Fortinbras had arrived on their doorstep, a half-grown puppy, scrawny and abandoned, one
winter night. He was, Meg's father had decided, part Uewellyn setter and part greyhound, and he
had a slender^ dark beauty that was all his own.
"Why didn't you come up to the attic?" Meg asked her brother, speaking as though he were at
least her own age. "I've been scared stiff."
"Too windy up in that attic of yours," the little boy said. "I knew you'd be down. I put some
milk on the stove for you. It ought to be hot by now."
How did Charles Wallace always know about her? How could he always tell? He never knewтАФor
seemed to careтАФ what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. It was his mother's mind, and Meg's, that he
probed with frightening accuracy.
Was it because people were a little afraid of him that they whispered about the Murry's
youngest child, who was rumored to be not quite bright? "I've heard that clever people often have
subnormal children," Meg had once overheard. "The two boys seem to be nice, regular children, but
that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren't all there.тАЭ
It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when anybody was around, so that many people
thought he'd never learned to talk. And it was true that he hadn't talked at all until he was
almost four. Meg would turn white with fury when people looked at him and clucked, shaking their
heads sadly.
"Don't worry about Charles Wallace, Meg." her father had once told her. Meg remembered it very
clearly because it was shortly before he went away. "There's nothing the matter with his mind. He
just does things in his own way and in his own time.тАЭ
"I don't want him to grow up to be dumb like me," Meg had said.
"Oh, my darling, you're not dumb," her father answered. "You're like Charles Wallace. Your
development has to go at its own pace. It just doesn't happen to be the usual pace."



file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E...artet%2001%20-%20A%20Wrinkle%20in%20Time.txt (2 of 64) [12/29/2004 1:01:10 AM]
 file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Madelein%20...le%20-%20Time%20Quartet%2001%20-%20A%20Wrinkle%20in%20Time.txt

"How do you know?тАЭ Meg had demanded. "How do you know I'm not dumb? Isn't it just because you
love me?"
"I love you, but that's not what tells me. Mother and I've given you a number of tests, you
know."
Yes, that was true. Meg had realized that some of the "games" her parents played with her
were tests of some kind, and that there had been more for her and Charles Wallace than for the
twins. "IQ tests, you mean?"
"Yes, some of them."
"Is my IQ okay?"
"More than okay."
"What is it?"
"That I'm not going to tell you. But it assures me that both you and Charles Wallace will be
able to do pretty much whatever you like when you grow up to yourselves. You just wait till
Charles Wallace starts to talk. You'll see."
How right he had been about that, though he himself had left before Charles Wallace began to
speak, suddenly, with none of the usual baby preliminaries, using entire sentences. How proud he