"Geoff Ryman - Was" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ryman Geoff)

None of it made sense. Everything was so strange. It was like a dream.
Dorothy knew that she would never wake up from it.

"There," said Aunty Em, at the top of the hill.

More shadows, more trees, fields.

"Isn't it pretty? Prime river-bottom land. They talk about pioneer hardships.
Well, we must have been lucky. What we had, Dorothy, was pioneer
beauty."

What Dorothy saw on the other side of the hill was flat, open land. There
would be no secret places in Zeandale like there had been in St. Louis, no
nooks and crannies, no sheltering alleyways. Even the trees were small, in
planted rows, except on some of the farther hills, and they looked dim and
gray. White, spare houses stretched away at regular intervals between
harvested fields. Dorothy could see a woman hanging up sheets. She could
see children chasing each other around a barn. The soil that was gray on
top was black where broken open.

"We'll get you back home and give you a nice, hot bath, first thing," said
Aunty Em. She was still thinking about the Dip.

It took another hour to get to Zeandale. They turned right at a
school-house and went down a hard, narrow lane. The wagon pitched from
side to side. Its old gray timber threatened slivers. Dorothy pushed with
her feet to stay seated on the trunk as it was bumped and jostled.

Ahead there was a hill, mostly bald, with a few patches of scrub. To the
right of that, more wooded hills folded themselves down into the valley.
The lane bore them around to the right toward the hills. The sky was slate
gray now; everything was dim. As the wagon turned, Dorothy saw
something move beside the lane. Had it stood up? Its sleeves flapped. As
it walked toward them, Dorothy saw it was a boy. He was whipping his
wrist with a long dry blade of grass. As he neared the wagon, he doffed a
floppy, shapeless hat.

"Good evening, Mrs. Gulch, Mr. Gulch."

"Good evening, Wilbur," said Aunty Em.

"Mother saw you leaving this afternoon, so I thought I'd just set by the
road till you came back along so I could hear the news."

"I brought the news with me," said Aunty Em. "Wilbur, this is my little
niece, Dorothy, come all the way from St. Louis to live with us. Isn't she
the prettiest little thing?"

"Sure is," said Wilbur. He had a long, slightly misshapen face, like someone
had hit him, and he had a front tooth missing.