"Lippman, Laura - Every Secret Thing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lippman Laura)

you.""

"Thank you, Ronnie." Maddy was the kind of girl who could make "That's
a pretty dress" or "I like your hair that way" sound more evil than
anything heard in an R-rated movie. In school, she had a habit of
saying, "Yes, sister," so it sounded like a curse word. Alice, who
sometimes got in trouble for saying the right thing, had studied Maddy
and tried to figure out how to get away with being so rude. It had to
do with getting your mouth and your eyes not matching, so one the mouth
looked pretty and right, and the other the eyes had this hard glitter,
but nothing extra. No wink, no raised eyebrow. Ronnie, on the other
hand, did it backward. Her eyes were always wide and confused-looking,
while her mouth was twisted and sneering.

Ronnie knew Maddy was making fun of her.

"It's a stupid nigger doll," Ronnie said, grabbing it from Maddy and
throwing it into the baby pool. "My mom picked it out."

"Ronnie." Maddy's mom had to search for Ronnie's name, or so it seemed
to Alice. "Please go get your gift out of the pool."

"I'm not going into the baby pool," Ronnie said. "There's so much pee
in there it will take your toenails off."

Twelve little girls looked at their toenails beneath the table, for
almost all of them had walked through the water at least once that day.
Alice's toenails were robin's egg blue, which matched her blue jellies.
Wendy had pink polish. Ronnie didn't wear polish, not since the time
she had tried to paint her fingernails and come to school with red
streaks all the way to her knuckles.

"Ronnie, please." Maddy's mother put a hand on Ronnie's wrist.
Instinctively, Ronnie yanked her arm away and up, hard. Alice knew it
was an accident, nothing more an accident that Ronnie's hand was
clenched in a fist when she pulled away, an accident that the fist hit
Maddy's mom on the underside of her chin.

But Maddy's mother cried out, louder than any kindergarten baby, as if
the blow really stung, and the girls screamed as if they had just seen
a car come crashing over the fence of the wading pool area.

"You hit my mom," Maddy said. "Ohmigod, she hit my mom."

"I'm sorry," Ronnie said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I
didn't mean to."

"You hit my mom. You hit a grown-up." The other girls' voices bubbled
up, shrill and shocked, but a little excited, too.