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

was happening there.

Her brother shrugged. It was as if he did not want to look at what was happening. Instead he spoke to
both of them sharply.

"Listen, shrimp, Les, it's getting late. Mom and Dad will be home soon. We'd better get there before they
do. Remember, we left all the things Matt and Lizzy used out in the summer house. Dad's going to work
on the lawn this afternoon. He'll want to get the mower out of there. If he sees what we left there he'll ask
questions for sure and we might have to talk. Not that it would do any good."

Rick was right. Lesley looked around her regretfully now. She was not frightened any moreтАФshe, well,
she would like to just stay awhile and watch. But she reached for Alex's sticky hand. To her surprise he
did not object or jerk away, he was still hiccuping a little as he did after he cried. She was thankful Rick
had been able to manage him so well.

They scraped through their own private hole in the fence into the backyard, heading to the summer house
which Rick and Dad had fixed up into a rainy day place to play and a storage for the outside tools. The
camping bags were there, even the plates and cups. Those were still smeared with jelly and peanut
butter. Just think, Matt had never tasted jelly and peanut butter before, he said. But he had liked it a lot.
Lesley had better sneak those in and give them a good washing. And the milkтАФLizzy could not
understand how you got milk from a bottle a man brought to your house and not straight from a cow. She
seemed almost afraid to drink it. And she had not liked Coke at allтАФ said it tasted funny.

"I wish Matt was here." Alex stood looking down at the sleeping bag, his face clouding up again. "Matt
was funтАФ"

"Sure he was. Here, shrimp, you catch ahold of that and help me carry this back. We've got to get it into
the camper before Dad comes."

"Why?"

Oh, dear, was Alex going to have one of his stubborn question-everything times? Lesley had put the
plates and cups back into the big paper bag in which she had smuggled the food from the kitchen this
morning, and was folding up the extra cover from Matt's bed.

"You just come along and I'll tell you, shrimp," she heard Rick say. Rick was just wonderful today.
Though Mom always said that Rick could manage Alex better than anyone else in the whole family when
he wanted to make the effort.

There, she gave a searching look around as the boys left (one of the bags between them) this was
cleared. They would take the other bag, and she would do the dishes. Then Dad could walk right in and
never know that Lizzy and Matt had been here for two nights and a day.

Two nights and a dayтАФLizzy had kept herself and Matt out of sight yesterday when Lesley and Rick had
been at school. She would not go near the house, nor let Matt later when Alex wanted him to go and see
the train Dad and Rick had set up in the family room. All she had wanted were newspapers. Lesley had
taken those to her and some of the magazines Mom had collected for the Salvation Army. She must have
read a lot, because when they met her after school, she had a million questions to ask.

It was then that she said she and Matt had to go away, back to where they had come from, that they