"Ian Watson - The FireWorm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

He turned up as late as possible, nearly missing the school bell. Though he was full of jitters all day long,
oddly neither of the bullies paid any attention to him. Could they have entirely forgotten something which
preoccupied Ted so desperately? Although he still worried a bit the next day too, nothing at all
happened. That evening, walking home, he realized that if the headmaster had discovered about Ted
being tied up on the plateau, then he would have demanded to knowwho else went up there with him and
tied him up. Davies and Gibbon would have been punished too; tanned with the slipper, kept in for an
hour or two to write lines.

Following the cartoon and news matin├йe the next Saturday, Ted met Gavin in the usual place, beside the
ostrich which Ted tried not to notice. An early bus had cleared everyone away from the clock tower so
Ted and Gavin went to perch on the edge of the stone horse trough dated 1841 below the tower. The
trough was bone dry, empty apart from a screwed-up fish-and-chip paper; buses didnтАЩt drink from horse
troughs.

From that vantage point they could see a stone man standing in mid-air: statue of a commander in
NelsonтАЩs navy, a victor of Trafalgar now surveying the river protectively from a high column. The column
rose from an imitation castle, and Ted could make out one of the cannons from a man-of-war which
poked riverward over mock battlements.

Gavin took out a red book; his play.

тАЬYou donтАЩt have to go home yet, do you? We could climb up to the monument and act a bit. ItтАЩs super.
Would you like that?тАЭ

тАЬAll right. I can only stop for half an hour.тАЭ

As they climbed the wide, crumbling steps to the battlements, the sun shone bright. Up top, a fresh wind
blew, to discourage other visitors. Over the river herring gulls and kittiwakes milled and screamed. The
kittiwakes nested on all available upper storey window ledges along the river front, distempering walls
with their droppings.

More sheltered spots might be basking in warmth, and the beaches to the north of the real Castle, though
rather exposed, would no doubt be spotted with fly-specks of plodgers and sunbathers. Not the Haven
nestling below by the pier, however. The HavenтАЩs sand was a mess of washed-up cork, sea coal, black
weed, driftwood, nubs of polished glass, on which hulls of beached yachts rested. Several yachts were
tacking out in the bay, with tiny crew. Otherwise, the scene seemed deserted of people.

They sat by a cannon, its wheel sunk in concrete and muzzle plugged likewise тАФ as though someone
might otherwise vandalistically fire a stone ball at a trawler.

Tilting the open play toward Ted, Gavin read aloud:

тАЬLike sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,

Shall with their goat-feet dance an antic hay.тАЭ
Ted felt confused. Was there straw spread to dance on, to stop the satires from spoiling the lawn with
stiletto heels?