"Kit Reed - What Wolves Know" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Kit)

now. Brent slaps the door and a remote bell rings. Footsteps come.

Terrified, he begins to struggle.

тАЬBrent, heтАЩs waking up!тАЭ

тАЬNot for long.тАЭ

Happy yips as the needle goes into his butt. What they do and say
when the door opens is forever lost to him.

When he wakes everything is as it was and nothing is the same. Will
his life always be like this? Happy is curled up in his room. He knows it is
his room because it used to be his room in the old life, and he knows from
the sights and smells that nothing has changed here. It feels good and bad,
lying in the old place. From here he can see the pretend bearskin rug in the
center of the room with its plastic fangs and empty glass eyes, and lodged
in the corner, the faded pink volleyball that he remembers from his very first
time on the floor in this room and his very last day here.

When wolves quit the lair they stalk away leaving it untouched
because they are done with it forever; they do not expect to come this way
again. Is this what not-wolf mothers do?

Not-wolf mothers leave the lost sonтАЩs room exactly as it was in hopes
he will come back, but there is no way Happy can know this. He has no idea
who he is or why he feels both good and bad about being back here,
although he is a little frightened. He doesnтАЩt know why all this makes him
miss Sonia so terribly or why, on that night so long ago, his hateful big
brother slammed the door to the family car and let them drive away without
him.

Brother. ThatтАЩs what Brent is.

Oh.

Happy would throw back his head and howl for Sonia but his hideout
is constricted, the woods are lost to him and Sonia is dead now. He could
howl for this other mother but before, when he was small and crying out
lonely, she was a long time coming and when she did.... There are things
you donтАЩt remember and things you donтАЩt want to know.

Can you want to belong in two places at once and know you donтАЩt
belong in either?

At least Happy is safe. When he came to, instinct sent him off the bed
where theyтАЩd dumped him and under here, where they wonтАЩt see him before
he sees them. Holed up, he counts the cobwebs hanging from rusting
springs. He wants to weep for the blue dogs and pink teddies cavorting on
the plastic mattress cover. He is under his old crib.