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

Park wasn't sure how Sol's father had managed to get his two children - Sol had a ten-year-old sister of
whom he was maniacally protective, the cutest little thing - out of the barrios; probably hard work. Mr.
Celaya currently had a flourishing gardening business in Ventura. But apparently, he hadn't felt that
Ventura was far enough north of his son's friends. He rented a house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara,
and Sol ended up in laid-back Hoover High like a wolf among sheep.

Park still remembered the first day they ran into each other - literally. Sol had knocked him out of his
way in the hall. Initially, no one could understand hisSpanglish , and it was probably just as well, for in the
first few days he seemed one angry young man. But first impressions are not always complete. The
passage of a couple of weeks presented a different profile. Sol had his mean streak, and it cut pretty
deep, but he could also be kind, and no one could doubt his intelligence. A month after arriving at
Hoover High, after a couple of expulsion threats from the principal, he apparently made a firm personal
decision to develop his positive qualities, and to only behave like an animal when he could get away with
it. The most immediate demonstration of this decision was the change in the way he spoke. He would
never be mistaken for an upper-middle-class white boy, but he developed a knack for using English
concisely. And damn if he didn't take to spending hours in the library. He wasn't easy to fit in a category.
Of course, he seldom returned a book.

At the end of his junior year, he went out for track and smashed the shot-put record. His bulging
muscles and blinding reflexes made him a natural at the event. Park was also on the team - he ran a
mediocre mile - but what really brought them together was Sol's sudden discovery of surfing. Before
moving to Santa Barbara, he once confessed, he hadn't even seen the ocean and he'd despised, because
of his upbringing, anything associated with the wordsurfing . Yet the sea proved an asylum to him that
seemed to wash away the weight of past cares. Park had already won two minor surfing championships.
Hearing of Sol's interest in the waves, he boldly loaned him a board and taught him a few tricks of the
trade. Soon they were surfing together regularly. Park still wasn't sure what Sol liked about him outside
of his skill on the waves. He had asked once, and Sol had said that hanging around with the school brain
was good for his "tough-but-heart-of-gold-guy image". On the other hand, Park didn't fully understand
what he liked about Sol. Certainly, there wasn't anyone else quite like him.

Shani didn't know anything about Sol's background. She didn't know that five days ago he'd been
kicked out of his father's house and was now sleeping in the park in his van. She didn't know that he was
low on money and was looking to his old ways to get some. Without explanation, while driving through
Tijuana, Sol had dropped Park, Flynn, and Bert off for an hour. Afterwards, he had only allowed
ever-agreeable Bert to sit in the back, with strict orders that he not touch or smell anything. Why didn't
Sol want him to check on the spare? Probably because he'd dumped the tyre and jammed the space with
illicit substances. Sol was reading his mind.

"What's the matter, Preppy Park?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"
 Sol had taken to putting "Preppy" before Park's name, since Harvard had written saying that one Park
Christopher Jacomini looked like Ivy League material to them. Park did not resent the title. It reminded
him of how Ali McGraw had annoyed Ryan O'Neal at the beginning of the movie,Love Story . He
strongly identified with the character Ryan O'Neal played. He also had an annoying rich dad, and also
was going to go to Harvard, and also wanted to be a lawyer and marry a girl with a body like Ali
McGraw's. He even fancied that he resembled Ryan O'Neal, somewhat. Angie said that he did. Of
course, she was always quick to flatter. Robin hadn't done that... hadn't needed to.

Before she'd been hurt, Robin had had a body like Ali's. And he'd always figured that he would have
married her. She had been - still was - the one with the heart of gold. He glanced south down the road, in
the direction where she waited to see him again. He didn't want to think about it. People his age got