"Madeline L' Engle - Time Quartet 02 - A Wind in the Door" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Engle Madeleine)

W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A



W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A - L'Engle, Madeline.

1 Charles Wallace's Dragons.
"There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden." Meg Murry took her head out of the refrigerator
where she had been foraging for an after-school snack, and looked at her six-year-old brother. "What?"
"There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden. Or there were. They've moved to the north pasture
now." Meg, not replyingтАФit did not do to answer Charles Wallace too quickly when he said something
oddтАФreturned to the refrigerator. "I suppose I'll have lettuce and tomato as usual. I was looking for
something new and different and exciting." "Meg, did you hear me?" "Yes, I heard you. I think I'll have
liverwurst and cream cheese." She took her sandwich materials and a bottle of milk and set them out on
the kitchen table. Charles Wallace waited patiently. She looked at him, scowling with an anxiety she did
not like to admit to herself, at the fresh rips in the knees of his blue jeans, the streaks of dirt grained deep
in his shirt, a darkening bruise on the cheekbone under his left eye. "Okay, did the big boys jump you in
the schoolyard this time, or when you got off the bus?" "Meg, you aren't listening to me." "I happen to
care that you've been in school for two months now and not a single week has gone by that you haven't
been roughed up. If you've been talking about dragons in the garden or wherever they are, I suppose that
explains it." "I haven't. Don't underestimate me. I didn't see them till I got home." Whenever Meg was
deeply worried she got angry. Now she scowled at her sandwich. "I wish Mother'd get the spreadable
kind of cream cheese. This stuff keeps going right through the bread. Where is she?" "In the lab, doing an
experiment. She said to tell you she wouldn't be long." "Where's Father?" "He got a call from L.A., and
he's gone to Washington for a couple of days." Like the dragons in the garden, their father's visits to the
White House were something best not talked about at school. Unlike the dragons, these visits were real.
Charles Wallace picked up Meg's doubting. "But I saw them, Meg, the dragons. Eat your sandwich
and come see." "Where're Sandy and Dennys?" "Soccer practice. I haven't told anybody but you."
Suddenly sounding forlorn, younger than his six years, he said, "I wish the high-school bus got home
earlier. I've been waiting and waiting for you." Meg returned to the refrigerator to get lettuce. This was a
cover for some rapid thinking, although she couldn't count on Charles Wallace not picking up her
thoughts, as he had picked up her doubts about the dragons. What he had actually seen she could not
begin to guess. That he had seen something, something unusual, she was positive.
Charles Wallace silently watched her finish making the sandwich, carefully aligning the slices of bread
and cutting it in precise sections. "I wonder if Mr. Jenkins has ever seen a dragon?" Mr. Jenkins was the
principal of the village school, and Meg had had her own troubles with him. She had small hope that Mr.
Jenkins would care what happened to Charles Wallace, or that he would be willing to interfere in what he
called 'the normal procedures of democracy.' "Mr. Jenkins believes in the law of the jungle." She spoke
through a mouthful. "Aren't there dragons in the jungle?" Charles Wallace finished his glass of milk. "No
wonder you always flunk social studies. Eat your sandwich and stop stalling. Let's go and see if they're
still there." They crossed the lawn, followed by Fortinbras, the large, black, almost-Labrador dog,
happily sniffing and snuffling at the rusty autumnal remains of the rhubarb patch. Meg tripped over a
wire hoop from the croquet set, and made an annoyed grunt, mostly at herself, because she had put the
wickets and mallets away after the last game, and forgotten this one. A low wall of barberry separated the
croquet lawn from Sandy's and Dennys's vegetable garden. Fortinbras leaped over the barberry, and Meg
called automatically, "Not in the garden, Fort," and the big dog backed out, between rows of cabbage and


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