"Patricia A. McKillip - The House on Parchment Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

Wellingborough? I mean, why should he go there, if he doesn't choose to?"
Carol looked at him. "He didn't go there?"
"No. So I thought I'd look round for him a bit, because I'd rather go nowhere with Bruce than
somewhere with everyone else. You know."
Carol opened the gate. "I don't know why you would," she said crossly. "I wouldn't like to go as far as
the other side of the street with him." She closed the gate and went across the lawn toward the front
door, standing open to the still summer day. She heard her name called before she reached it. She saw
Alexander's face between the leaves above the high wall.
"I'm really quite nice inside," he said, smiling helpfully. "I say, if you see Bruce, tell himтАФтАЬ
The sharp slam of the door cut his sentence short.
She saw Bruce finally in the late afternoon as she sat on the window-seat in her bedroom chewing the

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end of a pen, with an unwritten postcard on her lap. He came slowly through the gate, wheeling his
bicycle. He walked stiffly, his head bowed, and bits of his clothing fluttered oddly. She straightened
slowly, seeing even from that distance the long weals on his forearms.
Aunt Catherine came out of the laundry room as he wheeled the bike to the porch. He let it down easily,
kneeling beside it. He looked up at them as they came out the back door, and his face was a map of
angry scratches.
Aunt Catherine knelt on the walk beside him. "Bruce, what happened?" She turned his face gently from
his bicycle so she could see it. He sighed through stiff lips.
"Two flats. And the body is so scratched."
"I noticed. Bruce, what happened to you? You look like you tangled with an irate zoo."
He was silent a moment. His eyes flicked to Carol's face, then away. He sighed again, his hands moving
over a torn tire. "Oh тАж I wasn't thinkingтАж . They saw a picture at Wellingborough this afternoon. I met
them when they were coming homeтАж . They took a shortcut through the fields where Emily Raison
does her berry picking." He paused again. The wheel spun futilely under his hands. "Well. They were all
excited about the picture. It had a man in itтАФSteve McQueen. And he had a motorcycle, and he could
jump anything with itтАФhills, hedges, wallsтАФanything, as long as he had the momentum. All heтАФall he
had to do was jerk the front wheel up and sail overтАФ"
Aunt Catherine touched her eyes with her fingers. "I see. Oh, Bruce. Don't tell meтАФ"
"Well, you asked me to. And it seemed a good idea at the time. We did have a hill for momentum, but I
can't remember why we chose a blackberry hedge to jump over."
Something broke inside of Carol. She sat down on the sidewalk and gurgled helplessly into her knees.
"Steve McQueen on a bicycle," she gasped. "I can just see it. Even if you had cleared the blackberries,
you would have bent the bicycle frame landingтАФ"
She felt the sudden coolness of Bruce's shadow as he stood up. She lifted her head. "How do you know?
I suppose you've done that, too. No. Perhaps you had sense enough not to do that at leastтАФ"
"Bruce!"
"I didn't laugh at you when you broke Mrs. Brewster's teacups swinging the flail, or nearly burned the
house down to warm your feet. They were good ideas, even though they didn't turn out, and it's not fair
of you to laugh at mine."
Carol rose. Her eyes glinted. "I didn't know you wanted me to be nice to you." "I don't! I'm talking about
fairnessтАФ" "So am I, and you couldn't be fair about anything тАФespecially nicenessтАФeven if you wanted
to be, which you don't!"
Aunt Catherine looked up at them helplessly. "Shall I make you a scorecard?" she suggested. Bruce's
fists clenched. He stepped across the bicycle and went into the house. The slam of the door rattled the
porch windows. Carol folded herself into an angular shape on the