"Kate Wilhelm - Julian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

She read with expression that often was comical, sometimes chilling. Julian
began to feel better, less dopey and strange, more relaxed. After half an
hour she stopped to make tea, and he tagged along to the kitchen with her,
talking about the moors. "It's just like that in real life," she was saying,
washing her hands at the sink. She turned to find a towel, and he stared at
her wet hands, and for a moment felt the room spin sickeningly. She took a
step toward him, reaching for him with her wet hands, and he fainted.

....

For the next week Julian was hustled from doctor to doctor, to laboratories
where they took blood samples and x-rays of his head and made other tests. At
the end of the time his doctor said they had found nothing.

"We want to talk to you," his father said that night, and Julian felt crushed
by a sudden depression.

His father waited for him to sit down, his mother was already in her chair.
"Julian, you have missed twelve days of school this spring. You say you're
sick but no one can find any germs, or anything else they can point to. What
have you to say about that?"

Julian shifted uncomfortably and stared at the beige carpeting. It was dirty
under his feet, not bad, but grayer than the rest of the room.

"Julian! Look at me! If you are sick we want you to get well. If you aren't
sick, we want to know why you pretend you are. Are you just too bored with
school to sit through it every day? If that's it, for heaven's sake, say so.
We can understand that."

Julian shrugged. When he said his head ached, it usually did; and if he
stayed home with a stomachache, it really hurt for a while.

"Julian." His mother spoke now for the first time. "Is something else
bothering you? Something on your mind? Something that puzzled you or
frightened you?"

He stared at her uncomprehendingly, then shook his head.

"Honey, sometimes it isn't easy to tell parents if things are really
bothering you. Sometimes it's much easier to tell someone new, someone who
has studied kids, a child psychologist, someone like that. Is there anything
you'd like to talk over with someone like that?"

Again he shook his head. "I guess I just don't like school too much. It's
boring," he mumbled.

He could sense his father's relief. His mother leaned back in her chair and
her face smoothed out again, and he knew he had said the right thing.