"Kate Wilhelm - For The Defense" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

"Can I go look at the river?"

"Not now. Later, when we camp, there'll be plenty of time. If you have to go, now's your chance. Back
around the shelter."

As soon as he steps around the little house without a door, it's just as if he's the only one here, a funny
good and bad feeling at the same time. He spots a black-and-brown streaky rock and picks it up,
examines it carefully, then puts it in his pocket.

"Teddy, you want a Coke?"

"Yeah," he calls. He aims at a flat rock sticking out of the ground and pisses. Reid said girls pee, boys
piss. He grins at the rock turning shiny and black under his stream.

He was drowsy before, but when they start driving again, he's wide awake.

"Dad, if you spit on a worm, you'll get a fish every time, won't you?"

Dad laughs.

"Who told you that?"

"Mr. Versins."

"Well, maybe the worm gets more squirmy because it's trying to shake the spit off."

"I'll try it." Under his breath he says, "Wormy squirmy, squirmy worm, wormy squirm..."

Then they see the red truck in the road, with Mr. Praeger standing by the door. He looks mad. Teddy's
stomach gets tight, and Dad reaches over and pats his leg. Mr. Praeger gets back in his truck and drives
on a little dirt road. Dad follows.

"He's a grouch," Dad says.

"Don't pay any attention to him."

"Like the Grinch?"

"Exactly like that."

Maybe this isn't the smallest road they've ever gone on, or the steepest, or the crooked est but he can't
remember another one like it. He strains forward against the seat belt, watching the red truck appear and
vanish, appear and vanish. It looks too big to fit on the road, like it might fall off. He wishes he could

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see over the edge on Dad's side. If he put his hand out the window on his side, he could brush the
mountain with it. Then they turn again, and there's nothing to see on either side, just trees.