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

Alexander went to the wall. He probed at the mortar with a file. "It's cracked, I think, but it's still holding
the stone. Maybe they'll start drilling again." He cleared a space on Mrs. Brewster's table and sat on it,
watching Bruce flatten the box. "All that time we were terrorizing the peaceful country town of
Middleton on our bicycles, you were sneaking off on the sly seeing ghosts and drawing flowers. It's
amazing, what you don't know about people. тАж I wonder what Sandy Sparks does when he's not being
generally ugly. Or Roger Simmons, when he's not crying. Do you suppose Sandy ever buys flowers for
his mother?"
Bruce grinned. "Not bloody likely." He turned the box and started on another comer.
"Or Carol," Alexander said. "What do you suppose she does when nobody's looking?"
Bruce glanced at her. "She goes to bed with antique bed-warmers. And she hangs about a lot in trees.
And she worries."
"How do you know?" Carol asked.
"You bite your fingernails. I notice. You have nice hands. They have good bones. You should try
worrying without biting your nails."
She looked down at them doubtfully. "It's hard."
Bruce cut down the last corner. "What do you do when nobody's looking, Alexander? Write poetry?"
There was a small silence. "Me? The only sane member of the Middleton street gang?" He shifted on the
table, and fragile glassware clinked together. There was a rich note of laughter in his voice. Bruce

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looked up at him. Alexander's face was scarlet.
Bruce slipped back on his heels. Alexander shifted again under his amazed stare, and a stack of saucers
rattled warningly.
"You don't really. Do you, really?" "ItтАФit comes to that, when you likeтАФthe way words sound. Please,
if you're going to laugh, get it over with so I can decide whether to throw a plate or just leave in dignity."
Bruce drew a deep breath. "I'm not going to laugh," he said dazedly.
"I don't think it's funny," Carol said. "I wish I could do that instead of hanging in trees."
"You mean," Bruce said, "when nobody's looking, you sit down with a pen and put words together and
make a poem? What do you write about?"
"The same things you draw, I expect." The flush was dying away from his face, but his voice was still
unsteady. He picked up a china cat and examined it minutely. "That's whyтАФI expected you to know I
wouldn't ever have teased you about drawing. I don't know why I expected you to know. Sometimes you
expect people to read your mind. I thought perhaps your dad might have said something, but when I
think about it, I know he wouldn't."
"WaitтАФWhat has Dad got to do with it?"
"He reads my poems."
"Dad?"
"Yes."
"He's neverтАФhe never saidтАФ"
"Of course not. I asked him not to tell anyone. I was afraid you'd laugh." The corners of his mouth went
up. "That's why it's so funny тАж your dad's a good critic."
"I didn't even know he liked poetry. It's notтАФ"
"Factual." He shrugged. "Perhaps he doesn't. But he reads mine, when I've got something I think is good.
тАж I did an essay for one of his classes in a hurry. I wrote it on the back of one of my poems. He said the
essay was terrible, but he liked the poem. So
I've been sneaking poems to him ever since. It's good to have someone else's opinion."
Bruce pushed the sides of the box flat. Above him, the study floor creaked; he glanced up as though he
could see Uncle Harold through the floorboards. Then he looked at Alexander again, sitting big and