"Philip Pullman - Dark Materials 02 - The Subtle Knife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pullman Philip)

great aim like that.

So he kept his mother's trouble secret. There were times when she was calmer and clearer than others,
and he took care to learn from her then how to shop and cook and keep the house clean, so that he
could do it when she was confused and frightened. And he learned how to conceal himself, too, how to
remain unnoticed at school, how not to attract attention from the neighbors, even when his mother was hi
such a state of fear and madness that she could barely speak. What Will himself feared more than
anything was that the authorities would find out about her, and take her away, and put him in a home
among strangers. Any difficulty was better than that. Because there came times when the darkness
cleared from her mind, and she was happy again, and she laughed at her fears and blessed him for
looking after her so well; and she was so full of love and sweetness then that he could think of no better
companion, and wanted nothing more than to live with her alone forever.

But then the men came.

They weren't police, and they weren't social services, and they weren't criminalsтАФat least as far as Will
could judge. They wouldn't tell him what they wanted, in spite of his efforts to keep them away; they'd
speak only to his mother. And her state was fragile just then.

But he listened outside the door, and heard them ask about his father, and felt his breath come more
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quickly.

The men wanted to know where John Parry had gone, and whether he'd sent anything back to her, and
when she'd last heard from him, and whether he'd had contact with any foreign embassies. Will heard his
mother getting more and more distressed, and finally he ran into the room and told them to go.

He looked so fierce that neither of the men laughed, though he was so young. They could easily have
knocked him down, or held him off the floor with one hand, but he was fearless, and his anger was hot
and deadly.

So they left. Naturally, this episode strengthened Will's conviction: his father was in trouble somewhere,
and only he could help. His games weren't childish anymore, and he didn't play so openly. It was coming
true, and he had to be worthy of it.

And not long afterward the men came back, insisting that Will's mother had something to tell them. They
came when Will was at school, and one of them kept her talking downstairs while the other searched the
bedrooms. She didn't realize what they were doing. But Will came home early and found them, and once
again he blazed at them, and once again they left.

They seemed to know that he wouldn't go to the police, for fear of losing his mother to the authorities,
and they got more and more persistent. Finally they broke into the house when Will had gone to fetch his
mother home from the park. It was getting worse for her now, and she believed that she had to touch
every separate slat in every separate bench beside the pond. Will would help her, to get it done quicker.
When they got home that day they saw the back of the men's car disappearing out of the close, and he
got inside to find that they'd been through the house and searched most of the drawers and cupboards.