"Betty Miles - The Trouble With Thirteen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miles Betty)

Trouble with Thirteen, The - Miles, Betty.

"Go get it, Nora!" I yelled. "Fetch!"
Nora started toward the stick I had thrown, yipping eagerly. Halfway there, she stopped and turned around. Then she ran back to the porch steps where we were sitting, wagging her tail frantically.
"That's the fifth time she didn't fetch it," Rachel said.
"Training a dog takes time," I said. "You have to be patient." Still, I was beginning to wonder if Nora would ever learn. If she didn't, it would spoil our whole plan.
Rachel and I had decided to sell magazine articles. I would write the articles and Rachel would take the pictures. Rachel's father had taught her to use a camera-he's a professional photographer. If you look close, you can see his name in little letters under lots of magazine photos. Clay ton Weiss. He travels all over
the world on photo assignments. That week he was in London, England.
Our best article idea so far was "You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks." I thought it up. Nora was perfect for the article because she's ten years old and she never learned tricks when she was young. My parents got her when Kenny was four and I was two, and Mom says they were much too busy teaching us stuff like not sticking our fingers in electric sockets to worry about training Nora. But she's very intelligent. She's probably the only dog in the world who knows what "Dairy Queen" means. If you even whisper those words, she runs to the car and tries to jump in. A dog that smart should be able to learn how to fetch.
Nora stood there wagging her tail.
"You're a smart dog," I said, to build up her confidence. I pointed to the stick. "It's out there-go get it!"
Nora yipped and wriggled-but she didn't take off.
Rachel stood up. "Come on, Nora. Let's go get it!" She started running.
Nora ran after her. But when they reached the stick Nora just jumped around it, wagging her tail.
"I give up." Rachel picked up the stick and started back.
"Fetch, Rachel!" I called, to connect the command to the act in Nora's mind.
But Nora didn't get the connection. She followed
Rachel back to the steps and scrambled up across our laps, panting.
I scratched her behind the ear. "You're a dumb old dog, that's what you are."
Nora wriggled appreciatively. In the sun, her fur was the exact color of honey.
Rachel stroked Nora's back. Rachel doesn't have a dog, so she shares Nora with me. Nora loves her next best to anyone in our family. Maybe she thinks Rachel's part of the family. Rachel and I have "been best friends ever since nursery school. She's always over at my house, unless I'm at hers.
"Not to insult Nora," Rachel said, "but maybe she really is too old to learn tricks." She bent down and kissed Nora on the nose. "Why should you, you sweet thing-you know we still love you, even if you won't fetch."
Nora's tail thumped quietly.
"It's probably hopeless," I admitted. "It's just that the idea of it was so cute. But we can think of something else."
Nora seemed to understand that the training period was over. She climbed down off our laps, walked over to a corner of the yard where the sunlight came through the trees, and sank down slowly onto the grass. Right away, she went to sleep.
Rachel reached behind her for her camera bag, unzipped it, and took the camera out. She walked over
to Nora, focused carefully down at her, and snapped. Nora's ear twitched at the sound, but she didn't stir. Once Nora's asleep, nothing bothers her. Rachel squatted down beside her and took another picture. Then she came back and put her camera away.
"It's so nice out," she said, leaning back against the steps and closing her eyes. "I love it when spring finally comes."
It was a warm April afternoon. The sun shone through dark clouds, turning the forsythia bush gold. Each separate little flower was lit up. There was a sweet smell of onion grass in the air. The porch steps felt warm under my jeans. All of a sudden this ordinary moment, with me and Rachel sitting on the steps and Nora curled up in the sunny yard and the spring just beginning, seemed so beautiful I could hardly bear it. It was as though time had stopped still and I was taking a picture of it in my mind to remember forever how I felt that exact, bright second. But I knew that in the moment it took to notice it, the moment would be gone: Nora would flick her ear, Rachel would sit up and scratch her ankle. And I would never have that exact same feeling again, because things are always changing.
Sometimes I wish that they wouldn't. Right then April was so perfect I wanted it to last forever. And I wished Rachel and I could stay the way we were for a long, long time before we had to change and grow up.
I'm not ready to change, even though I'm starting to
get breasts, People always stare at my chest and tell me I'm turning into a young lady. But I don't want to turn into anything, yet. Anyway, not so fast.
Some kids in our class do. Kids like Debbie Gold-stein and Iris McGee. They act as though they just can't wait to be teen-agers. Debbie even wears green eye shadow to school. She and Iris go around passing notes to each other and giggling and shouting things at boys. I think it's sickening. I never want to grow up if that's how you're supposed to act.
Rachel sat up and scratched her ankle absently. "Boy. I wish it would stay like this forever."
"That's just what I was thinking!" I said. Rachel and I are always reading each other's minds like that. We probably have some kind of ESP. When we were little, we used to play we were identical twins. In some ways we are identical: we're almost exactly the same height and we both hate cottage cheese and purple is both of our favorite color. We're both twelve, except that Rachel's a month older than I am. Neither of us got our period yet, that's another identical thing. We don't really talk about it much, but I know Rachel doesn't like the idea. I know, because we're so much the same.
But we don't look too identical. I like Rachel's looks better. She has brown hair and her nose turns up at the end. She wears glasses, but they're the neat round kind. Rachel has real breasts. I just have sort of lumps. I have reddish hair and freckles and no glasses.
Rachel says she likes my looks better, but I think she just says that so we'll match.
Anyway, the same things strike us funny. Like words that bother you when you read them. Rachel's worst example is the way the o's don't match in good food. My worst is sweetheart. It's a disgusting word anyway, and when you read it you read too far and get tangled in the sweeth before you catch yourself. Maybe other people might not think words like that are funny, but we do.
We like the same books, too. Little Women is our favorite. Rachel's read it thirteen times and I've read it fourteen. We've read all the Little House books over and over. We watch it on TV, too, but we think the books are better. For our last book report we both read Watership Down. It's about wild rabbits, but it's not a little kids' book. It's very mature and deep.
"You know what Debbie Goldstein was reading in study hall yesterday?" I asked Rachel. "Now and Forever." That's a book by John Paul Marsten about teen-age problems. I haven't read it. I wouldn't want to, after I heard Iris and some kids talking about it in the girls' room. It sounded stupid.
"I don't know why she wants to read things like that," Rachel said. "I guess she thinks it's sophisticated. Like reading Seventeen."
Iris has a subscription to Seventeen. She brings it to school and passes it around in class. She never passes
it to me. I can read it in the library, if I want to.
"There ought to be a magazine called Twelve" I said. "For kids like us."
"If there was, I bet they'd buy our article. That is, if Nora would learn tricks so we could do the article."
"Right," I said, seeing the chance to use my favorite expression. "And if your grandmother had wheels, she'd be a streetcar. And," I went on, "we could sell an article about that to Streetcar Life. If there was such a magazine."
"Oh, Annie, you're nuts." Rachel laughed.
Just then Mom came to the porch door. "Rachel," she said, "your mother called. She wants you to go home right away. Your father's back; he phoned from the airport."
"Oh, wow!" Rachel said, gathering her things. "He's early. I didn't know he'd get back today." She looked pleased but a little bit worried. "Wow-I'd better hurry." She threw her jacket over her shoulder and ran down the driveway. "So long," she called back.
"So long." I watched her run down the street and go around the corner. I wondered what she was thinking. Of course she's always glad to see her father. Mr. Weiss is a big, friendly man with a fuzzy beard who hugs you like a bear and tells funny stories. He's really nice, besides being famous.