"Pat Murphy - Peter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Pat)

I found her sitting by the open window the year that he forgot her. She wore a frock that looked too
young for her. Though she was only eleven, she was growing up fast.

"What do you think has happened to him, Slightly?" she asked, peering out the window. "Do you think
he's sick?"

"He's never sick," I told her. "The bastard just forgot," She slipped his mind. She didn't matter, any more
than the rest of us mattered. I put my arms out to comfort her, but she ran away crying. And after that,
she grew up quickly,

She looks up from the fire and meets my eyes. "It's almost spring," she says. "I wonder if he'll come this
year, I think he will, I have a feeling that he'll come soon. Maybe tonight."

"Forget it, Wendy. Just forget it. Lock the window, for Christ's sake. He's gone."

Though she nods as if she agrees, her gaze returns to the fire. I stay for a little longer, then excuse myself,
She smiles and hugs me when I go, but her thoughts are elsewhere.

When I leave Wendy's house, I go to my motorcycle and then hesitate, considering what Wendy said
earlier. She's right-there's a feeling in the air, a sense of anticipation.

I wait in the darkness by the window to Jane's bedroom. Wendy's left it open, of course. I knew she
would. It's dark, but her husband hasn't come home yet. He'll be home late and drunk, if I know the
type, Through the window, I listen to Wendy read a Disneyfied version of Snow White to her daughter
and bid her goodnight.

The blind at the kitchen window is up. I watch Wendy take a whiskey bottle from the cupboard and pour
herself a glass. I wait in the darkness, watching Wendy drink.

My second wife once asked me about my family. I told her as close to the truth as I could manage: "My
father left me and my mother when I was just a kid." She asked me if I had ever thought about trying to
find my father. I said that if I ever found him, I would kill him for what he did to me,

He didn't mean to do it, He didn't know what he was doing. He was cocky, thoughtless, and innocently
heroic. And he blighted my life. All my life, I have wanted to be like him. I run from continent to
continent, from war to war, writing stories and books and searching for the great adventure that he
always promised us. I look for a leader who laughs in the heart of the battle, sublimely confident in the
way that only a boy can be.

I don't belong in this place, any more than Wendy does. But he left me here. And there's nowhere else
to go.

He'll come tonight, I know he will. And I know that I would fly away with him if I could.

If he took me by the hand and told me I could fly, I would go back to the island with all its joys and
terrors, I would follow him and join the lost boys once again.

But I can't go back. I lost my innocence long ago; now I have lost my youth as well.

Though I am only thirty years old, I feel ancient, worn-out, used up. The butterfly knife that I bought in