"Ian Watson - The Boy Who Lost an Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

THE BOY WHO LOST AN HOUR, THE GIRL WHO LOST HER
LIFE
Ian Watson

[25 may 2002тАФproofed for #bookz]

Tony woke with such a start. Light from the full moon flooded through the window of his bedroom
at the side of the bungalow. Moonlight clearly lit the Donald Duck clock on the wall. The clock hung
higher than Tony could reach, unless he stood on a chair. Little hand between three and four. Big hand at
the bottom. Half-past three.
Panic seized him. He jerked up his left wrist. On his new Aladdin watch the big hand was at the
bottom but the little hand pointed between two and three. It was half-past two by his wristwatch. Despite
Daddy's promise, despite Tony's own vows, he'd woken up too late. Daddy must have tiptoed around
the house at two ay-em. He had come in here, but he hadn't wakened Tony.
Aunt Jean, who always wore jeans, had given Tony the watch the day before for his fifth birthday.
He was Big Five. Soon he'd be starting real school. Pride was one reason why he kept the watch on
when he went to bed. But mainly, if he took it off, he might forget exactly where it was when the time
came to change all the clocks.
At the birthday party he had gone round showing the wristwatch to Tim and Michael and Sarah and
the others just a bit too much, until Sarah and Tim had thrust their own presents at him a second time, as
if he hadn't liked those enough: the toy police car, the bendy dinosaur...
Home wasn't big enough to hold a party in. In the wooden community hall along the road there'd
been balloons and cakes and musical chairs and pass-the-parcel and a magic-man. When he went to bed
Tony had been so tired. He'd asked for his curtains to stay open. Mummy said the moon would keep him
awake later on. Maybe she thought he was scared of the dark. Oh no. He hadn't wanted Daddy to need
to switch on the light at two, and dazzle him. Because the curtains were open, before he fell asleep Tony
had seen the real police car cruise slowly past. It had stopped by the high wall of the huge house along
the road where children lived who were odd because they didn't have Mummies and Daddies.
From the bottom of the bed, Big Bear and Little Bear stared at Tony now with glittery eyes. The
birds hadn't started their chorus yet. It was so quiet. Tony squirmed along the duvet toward the bears.
Pressing himself right up against the window, he stared at his Aladdin watch again.
It was half-past two for Tony. It was half-past three for Daddy and Mummy and the rest of the
world.

The top bit of window was open for air because the weather was warm earlier this
year than usual. He heard a voice calling softly, "Hey there!"
When Mummies and Daddies came to collect their children from the party, they
stood around for a while drinking glasses of wine.
"This is the night, isn't it? It is forward, not back--?"
"Do we lose an hour or do we gain--?"
"Look: when it's two o'clock it becomes three o'clock. We're an hour ahead of where we were. So
it stays dark longer in the morning--"
"Seven o'clock is really six o'clock--"
Wine could make grown-ups silly. They seemed to be getting heated up about nonsense, but this
was important to Tony in view of his new Aladdin watch. During the magic show Aunt Jean had been
sipping wine at the back of the hall with Mummy and Daddy. Now she was sitting on her own. So Tony
asked her about this business of "changing the clocks."
She'd laughed. "I'm not sure a child can follow this!! Grown ups get flummoxed enough. Foreigners
must think we're crazy, unless the same thing happens in their own countries. Well, in our country twice a
year the time changes. Spring forward, Fall back: that's how you remember. Fall's another name for