"A.C.H. Smith - Labyrinth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith A.C.H)

She got no further. Another clap of thunder, nearer this time, made
her jump. It also alarmed a big, shaggy sheepdog, who had not minded
sitting by the pool and being admonished by Sarah, but who now
decided that it was time to go home, and said so with several sharp
barks.

Sarah held her cloak around her. It did not give her much warmth,
being no more than an old curtain, cut down, and fastened at the neck
by a glass brooch. She ignored Merlin, the sheepdog, while
concentrating on learning the speech in the book. "You have no power
over me," she whispered. She closed her eyes again and repeated the
phrase several times.

A clock above the little pavilion in the park chimed seven times and
penetrated Sarah's concentration. She stared at Merlin. "Oh, no," she
said. "I don't believe it. That was seven, wasn't it?"

Merlin stood up and shook himself, sensing that some more interesting
action was due. Sarah turned and ran. Merlin followed. The
thunderclouds splattered them both with large drops of rain.

The owl had watched it all. When Sarah and Merlin left the park, he
sat still on his branch, in no hurry to follow them. This was his
time of day. He knew what he wanted. An owl is born with all his
questions answered.

All the way down the street, which was lined on both sides with
privet-hedged Victorian houses similar to her own, Sarah was
muttering to herself, "It's not fair, it's not fair." The mutter had
turned to a gasp by the time she came within sight of her home.
Merlin, having bounded along with her on his shaggy paws, was
wheezing, too. His mistress, who normally moved at a gentle, dreamy
pace, had this odd habit of liking to sprint home from the park in
the evening. Perhaps that owl had something to do with it. Merlin was
not sure. He didn't like the owl, he knew that.

"It's not fair." Sarah was close to sobbing. The world at large was
not fair, hardly ever, but in particular her stepmother was
ruthlessly not fair to her. There she stood now, in the front doorway
of the house, all dressed up in that frightful, dark blue evening
gown of hers, the fur coat left open to reveal the low cut of the
neckline, the awful necklace vulgarly winking above her freckled
breast, and -- wouldn't you know? -- she was looking at her watch.
Not just looking at it but staring at it, to make good and sure that
Sarah would feel guilty before she was accused, again.
As Sarah came to a halt on the path in the front garden, she could
hear her baby brother, Toby, bawling inside the house. He was her
half brother really, but she did not call him that, not since her
school friend Alice had asked, "What's the other half of him, then?"