"Judith Merril - Shadow on the Hearth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

got them at a sale, and they were all dirty. I'd never have got the kids to use them if
they weren 't so cheap."
"I don't know which is worse," Jon grumbled contentedly. "First it was Tom
trying to blow the house up with a basement lab, and now you've got us running
rings around a batch of baby sitters. Who started that club anyhow? And why in the
name of all that 's holy do baby sitters need white jackets?"
"I did," Barbie said defiantly. "And I already collected the money for the jackets,
so I don't see what good it does to argue about that. I've just got to have them, that's
all."
"Well, I ought to do the laundry anyhow. I think I can manage if you drive them to
school. . . ." Gladys looked inquiringly at her husband. "You could take the car right
into town. Barbie'll have to come straight home from school anyhow, so she could
bring tinny home on the bus."
"Okay." Jon nodded and went back to his paper. The headlines jumped at him,
bearing threats of war and disaster; in the shaded" room the warnings were
ludicrous. He half heard Ginny babbling something about a loose tooth, and Barbara
assuring her that she would have to wait at least another year. The news the paper
spoke of existed in another world, not in his home. Gladys never even read the front
page; maybe she had the right idea. He gulped his coffee and called to the girls to
hurry up if they were going with him.
"Mommy . . . Mommy, I can't find Pallo." Ginny stood in the center of the living
room, fighting back tears, and waiting, appar
ently, for the favorite horse to detach itself from the surroundings and walk up to
her.
Gladys rescued the battered blue plush pony from behind the armchair. "If you'd
ever remember where you put things--any of you! "
She pressed the toy into her daughter 's arms, wiped away a lonely tear track,
kissed the dry cheek, and propelled the child gently toward the door.
Jon's hat and brief case waited, as always, on the hall table, but she forestalled the
inevitable question and held them ready for him as he strode through the dining
room, shrugging into his jacket and straightening his tie.
"Busybody!" He grinned at her, planting a quick kiss to stop her retort. By the
time she caught her breath and opened her mouth he was out the front door, racing
Ginny to the gate. Barbara, sedate with a new ladylike pace she had read about in a
magazine the week before, trailed after them. Gladys watched from the open
window, torn by her older daughter's desperate reaching for ma-turity, and warmed
again with tenderness as Jon slowed to let Ginny reach the car first.
"I won, DaddyтАФI'm the leader, I won, I won!" Then the car door slammed to
shut out their voices.
She ought to get the laundry started, first thing, if she was going to make that
luncheon. The bedrooms could wait, but, surveying the damage wreaked by the
family tornado on its way out, she decided she'd have to tidy up downstairs first.
 In the living room she made do with a swift straightening up: a pile of things to be
taken upstairs later and put awayтАФGinny's toys . . . Jon's necktie, pulled off last
night . . . Barbie's "Sit-Kit," designed to take a baby sitter through any emergency,
small or large, just finished last night and brought down for display, and of course
never put away again. The dust rag and broom took care of the more conspicuous
spots; she could vacuum later, or if she missed it altogether today it wouldn't matter
so much. The room looked clean, whether it really was or not. The dining room
waslittered with the breakfast dishes, last night's newspapers, some of Barbie's