"Christopher Pike - Weekend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

"God, Shani, not in my ear," Angie said.

Shani grabbed her Rolaids and downed the whole roll as if it were candy. The furnace in her stomach
roared on unchecked. She had been dying to see Flynn again, yet, all of a sudden, she wished that she
was invisible.




TWO
"This tyre isn't getting less flat with us looking at it," Park said.

"Why didn't you go to the cantina down the road with Bert and Flynn?" Sol asked.

"I still can. Why don't you come with me?"

"I have to guard my van. No way I trust the Cholos down here."

"You're a Cholo."

"Used to be," Sol muttered, lighting a cigarette. Sol chain-smoked.

Park was tempted to split. The inside of their lame van was incredibly stuffy, and out here on the broken
asphalt it was like standing on a frying pan. They had a much brighter sun down here than they did in the
States. His nose would peel this weekend. It would probably rot and fall off. He sure could use a cold
beer. Unfortunately, the strap on his sandals -- his only available footwear -- had snapped and it was a
good ten-minute walk to the canteen. He should have taken Big Bert up on his offer to carry him. He
knew Sol was intentionally mocking him, standing barefoot on the blistering pavement. Sol had feet like a
caveman.

"Why don't we check on your spare?" Park asked for the third time.

Sol chuckled, the sound oddly frightening coming from him. Shani imagined Sol a modern Fonzie, tough
outside but with a heart of gold. Park could attest to the fact that he had a heart, but it was made of a far
less precious metal. Sol was tough to the core. Brought up in L.A's barrios, he'd once admitted to
stabbinghis first person -- a member of a rival gang -- at the age of twelve. He had never said it outright,
but Park had the clear impression that not everyone who had got in his way was still alive. He'd been
arrested twice in his fifteenth year: once for stealing a car, the other time for carrying a gun - a sawn-off
shotgun. He hadn't told him these stories to impress him. Sol didn't give a damn what anyone thought.
Park knew the horrors he'd related had only been the tip of the iceberg.

Once, old friends -- the meanest, most wired Cholos he'd ever seen -- had visited Sol while they were
playing a rough game of one-on-one at the school yard on a Saturday afternoon. Both wore wads of
jewelery and picked at their oily nails with shiny switchblades, talking in guttural Spanish with Sol about
Satan only knew what. In the midst of the conversation, they said something that bothered Sol and he
snapped at them. They paled noticeably and apologized frantically, like their lives depended on it, which
may well have been the case. Afterwards, Sol explained that they had made an obscene reference to
Park. The loyalty hadn't comforted Park.