"WILHELM, KATE - FOR THE DEFENSE" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Maybe they're almost there, at last.

"Scared?" Dad asks.

Teddy looks at him, puzzled, and Dad grins.

"You'll have to put on socks and your boots when we get out," Dad says.

"Can I take my hammer and collection bag?"

"Sure."

After they stop, while Teddy is putting on his boots, Mr. Praeger and
Dad start to argue. Teddy doesn't look at them; he pretends he can't
hear them, because Mr. Praeger is mad at him again, because he's there.

"He'd better keep up. I don't intend to wait for him."

"He can keep up. I'll have to rein him in, in fact."

Then they start hiking, with Mr. Praeger way out in front.

Teddy asks, "What does rain him in mean?"

"Rein in means 'hold back," like you have to do with a horse that wants
to run."

"Rain, like raining? "Nope. Different rein. Then there's another reign,
like to be boss, to be a king. They just sound alike." Dad spells the
three kinds of rain.

Teddy thinks Mr. Praeger wants to be a king, and Dad won't let him.
Teddy likes the woods better than anything--the way it smells here, how
it feels under his feet, the way the air is cold and hot at the same
time. Where the trees don't make a roof, the sun makes slanty lines,
like sliding boards. He can smell mushrooms.

Big rocks are sticking up out of the ground, but no little ones he can
pick up; they're all covered with needles and moss and stuff. But Dad
said they'd go to a place where there are lots of rocks.

Mr. Praeger started off pretty fast, but he's going slower all the time;
now Teddy is impatient. When the two men stop to rest, he darts off to
one side of the trail, then the other, just looking at stuff. He likes
to feel the cool moss on tree trunks.

They leave the trail to go up a steeper way, and Dad makes him stay in
the middle, between him and Mr. Praeger. Teddy pretends he's Swift Foot,
climbing the highest mountain in the world, leading Dad to a special