"Laura Resnick - A Fleeting Wisp of Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

Jackie thinks the box is really interesting, and she believes that
stuff about the whales. She mostly likes to go to Jonah's cave, though, to
hear about Camelot. That's her favorite story, and I don't think I could count
how many times I've heard it. It's my mother's favorite story, too, and she
even believes it's all true. Since my father can't speak or hear, I'm not sure
what he thinks about Camelot, or if he even knows the story. That's all there
is in my family now -- me, my mother, and my father. I had two brothers once,
but they caught the Sickness and died, one right after the other, blind,
vomiting, and screaming. Sometimes I'm afraid Jackie will get the Sickness,
but she says she's as strong as me and won't. She doesn't look that strong,




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though. She's sort of delicate, all blond and pale and skinny, with blue eyes
that water under the hot yellow sky.
I don't usually tell her that I worry about the Sickness killing her,
or Marauders taking her, because she just gets huffy and tries to pretend that
she's as tough as me, even though she's a girl. Anyhow, I'm a full year and a
half older than Jackie, and I just know some things that she doesn't. I know
that people die even when you don't want them to, and I know that the Sickness
comes without warning and takes your mind away before anyone has a chance to
say goodbye.
I also know that Jonah's stories are just a lot of toxic waste.
"If you don't want to listen, then don't _come_," Jackie says as we
approach Jonah's cave. The entrance is pretty well camouflaged. You've got to
know right where it is, or you could stumble around the hill half the night.
I shrug. "I got nothing else to do."
"And be nice to Jonah," she adds, crawling between the branches that
cover the mouth of the cave.
"I'm _always_ nice to him."
"And don't look so bored when he talks," she whispers.
"Okay, okay." She can be really bossy sometimes.
It doesn't smell too good in Jonah's cave. Odors of sweat and blood
have been trapped in here without a good breeze for as long as the moon has
been red. Sometimes I sit very close to Jackie, who smells of grass and wet
bark and the wind, and I forget that I don't like this cave very much.
Jonah has boiled a bunch of leaves again, and he makes us drink the
brew, which he always says will stop our bowels being all yellow and runny.
After we finish every last drop, he gives Jackie some more of the
sweet-smelling salve he always wants her to put on her skin before going out
in the sunshine. He tries to make me take some, too, and Jackie pokes me, but
I don't want to go around smelling like that, so I refuse again. Jonah sets
great store by these medicines, but most folks don't believe that there are
secret colors in the sun that can kill you, though my mom always tells me to
drink the brew in case you really can catch the Sickness from invisible
spirits in the water.
Jonah finally asks if there's anything else he can do for us, as if he
doesn't know why we've come, and Jackie says, "Tell us the story, Jonah!" She