"Jay Lake - The Angle of My Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

flight.
 * * *

"Ronnie."

Granddaddy was at the door of my room. He was a thin man, "spare" I'd heard him called.

I didn't really know what "spare" meant like that, except Granddaddy didn't have much to spare for me
or the world. He surveyed land for people and heard a lot of lies and complaints and lawyers talking.
Granddaddy had got to where he didn't trust nobody but himself and Jesus. Least that's what he always
told me on the way to church Wednesdays and Sundays.

I jumped up from my desk and stood straight, like he'd taught me. "Yes, sir?"

Granddaddy looked me up and down, then shook his head a little tiny bit. "Were you in my truck,
Ronnie?"

I stared at my black Keds. He never asked me things he didn't already know the answer to, and I'd
learned better than to lie to Granddaddy. "Yes, sir," I muttered.

There was a slithering as Granddaddy slipped his belt off. "Ronnie," he said, his voice sad, "you know
the rules. It doesn't matter what you wanted with those stakes. You didn't ask."

My breath caught in my chest, making my whole body shake. "You'd have said no."

"It's my truck, Ronnie." He smacked the belt against his palm. "You can't just do what you want in this
world, boy."

I leaned over my desk.

* * *

I ate dinner at the kitchen counter, where I could stand up. That night after Granddaddy was asleep, I
sat down at my desk again, real careful of my sore butt. I was going to fly tomorrow, and I had to be
ready.

There was a newspaper clipping in my drawer, from the Austin American-Statesman. I pulled it out,
and copied out the names in my best printing, one at a time onto the back of a picture of Momma and
Daddy. Commander Dick Scobee. Michael Smith. Ellison Onizuka. Ronald McNair. Judith Resnik.
Gregory Jarvis. Christa McAuliffe.

It was the teacher that broke my heart, that always made me want to cry while I prayed in church. I
could see my Mrs. Doornie climbing into that rocket, flying into the sky and never coming home. I guess
Mrs. McAuliffe had kids and a husband and maybe her Momma and Daddy who missed her, but I
always imagined those kids in her class, waiting at their desks while she never came back until they were
covered with chalk dust and pencil shavings and the birds made nests in their hair.

Then I set the list aside with a little space shuttle eraser I'd won in a third grade math contest and went
back to bed.