"Andre Norton - Long Night of Waiting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Rick had pointed out that the words did not read like those on the stones in the cemetery where they
went on Memorial Day with flowers for Grandma and Grandpa Targ. It was different because it never
said "dead" but "disappeared."

Rick had been excited, said it sounded like a mystery. He had begun to ask around, but none of the
neighbors knew anythingтАФexcept this had all once been a farm. Almost all the houses on the street were
built on that land. They had the oldest house of all. Dad said it had once been the farm house, only
people had changed it and added parts like bathrooms.

Lizzy and MattтАФ

Rick had gone to the library and asked questions, too. Miss Adams, she got interested when Rick kept
on wanting to know what this was like a hundred years ago (though of course he did not mention the
stone, that was their own secret, somehow from the first they knew they must keep quiet about that).
Miss Adams had shown Rick how they kept the old newspapers on film tapes. And when he did his big
project for social studies, he had chosen the farm's history, which gave him a good chance to use those
films to look things up.

That was how he learned all there was to know about Lizzy and Matt. There had been a lot in the old
paper about them. Lizzy Mendal, Matthew Mendal, aged eleven and fiveтАФLesley could almost repeat it
word for word she had read Rick's copied notes so often. They had been walking across this field,
carrying lunch to their father who was ploughing. He had been standing by a fence talking to Doctor Levi
Morris who was driving by. They had both looked up to see Lizzy and Matthew coming and had waved
to them. Lizzy waved back and thenтАФshe and MatthewтАФthey were just gone! Right out of the middle of
an open field they were gone!

Mr. Mendal and the Doctor, they had been so surprised they couldn't believe their eyes, but they had
hunted and hunted. And the men from other farms had come to hunt too. But no one ever saw the
children again.

Only about a year later, Mrs. Mendal (she had kept coming to stand here in the field, always hoping,
Lesley guessed, they might come back as they had gone) came running home all excited to say she heard
Matt's voice, and he had been calling "Ma! Ma!"

She got Mr. Mendal to go back with her. And he heard it, too, when he listened, but it was very faint.
Just like someone a long way off calling "Ma!" Then it was gone and they never heard it again.

It was all in the papers Rick found, the story of how they hunted for the children and later on about Mrs.
Mendal hearing Matt. But nobody ever was able to explain what had happened.

So all that was left was the stone and a big mystery.

Rick started hunting around in the library, even after he finished his report, and found a book with other
stories about people who disappeared. It was written by a man named Charles Fort. Some of it had
been hard reading, but Rick and Lesley had both found the parts which were like what happened to
Lizzy and Matt. And in all those other disappearances there had been no answers to what had happened,
and nobody came back.

Until Lizzy and Matt. But suppose she and Rick and Alex told people now, would any believe them?
And what good would it do, anyway? Unless Lizzy was right and people should know so they would not