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

you tear her wall apartтАФfire and smoke like a dragon. I
want to be there when she does. Bruce, if you don't let me help, I'll pine away at your doorstep and haunt
it."
Bruce chuckled. But there was a worried line above his eyes. He dropped his fingers over the pool's edge
and let the goldfish nibble at them. "I think we should," he said finally. "At any rate, I'm going to." He
moved, and the goldfish started away, filling the pool with ring upon ring of widening ripples. "I don't
think Mrs. Brewster will mind if we're right. But if we're wrong, and Dad finds out, and we have to tell
him about ghosts he can't see and tunnels that aren't thereтАж ."He shook his head, lifting his wet hand to
rub his eyes. "I don't even want to think about it."
Alexander, watching him quietly, shifted on the grass. He picked a tiny blue dower absently and stared
at it. "BruceтАФ"
There was an odd note in his voice. Bruce looked up. "What?"
Alexander was silent. He tossed the flower away and smiled his slow, imperturbable smile. There was a
trace of color in his face. "Nothing. Are these private ghosts, or can anybody see them?"
"Dad can't. And Father Malory can't. Carol and I can, and I think whoever painted the picture of the girl
saw her, and possibly a maid in the house when Mrs. Brewster was young. At any rate, she ran up from
the cellar one day and looked at the picture and had hysterics."
"Why? The girl looks harmless."
"I know, but it's a bit startling when she walks through the wall."
"You didn't have hysterics, did you, Carol?" Alexander asked.
"No. I just ran."
"I promise I won't scream." His eyes crinkled in a smile. "Ghosts. If you're going to Scotland next week,
we'd better get started."
"Mm. Tomorrow."
"There will be noise from our chisels. What will we do with it?"
"I don't know. It's right under Dad's studyтАж ." He smiled slowly, his eyes glittering a little in the light
from the study window. "He won't hear it. He won't hear a single tink from our chisels. Because all he'll

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be hearing tomorrow and the next day and the day after, is the Middleton Civil Sewage men drilling a
hole in Parchment Street."
VII.
THEY COULD HEAR THE WHINE OF THE DRILLING FAINT and steady from the cellar the next
morning. Overhead they could hear Uncle Harold's footsteps as he moved across the study. The stones
were chilly; the sun was warming the back of the house, and the front lawn lay in shadow. Alexander
stared at the solid wall.
"Where?"
"Under the window," Bruce said. He looked at Carol and she nodded.
"Straight under."
Alexander put his hammer and chisel on the table. He ran his fingers along a crack in the mortar, but it
was only a few inches long. He whistled softly.
"It's no wonder Mrs. Brewster never found it. I say, when she asks you how you knew it was there, what
are you going to tell her?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought up a good lie yet." He steadied his chisel in the crack Alexander had
investigated and gave it a solid thump with the hammer. A chip of mortar flew out. "She'd never believe
the truth. Are you just going to stand there?"
"It looks solid. Perhaps I should go borrow some explosives."
"We'd have Uncle Harold dropping in on us," Carol said. She began working on the other end of Bruce's