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

place only he knows about.

At the top, Mr. Praeger stops to catch his breath and wait for Dad.
Teddy stops, too, staring; then he races ahead.

"Wow!" he yells. There are piles and piles of rocks, hills of rocks,
rows of rocks, rocks everywhere. He squats at one of the hills and
begins picking up rocks, some as big as his hand, some bigger than his
head, some with shiny little specks, like mirrors. He tosses most of
them down again, puts a few in his collection bag. He darts to another
pile, then another. He doesn't need his hammer here; someone else
already broke them up.

Mr. Praeger and Dad look at a map and make lines on it while Teddy
examines the piles of rocks. He pays no attention to them until he hears
Dad say in his mean voice, "Jesus, Praeger, give it a rest. Who's he
going to tell? I'm not leaving him out here. If I go in, so does he."

Mr. Praeger starts to talk too low for Teddy to hear; he walks toward
the cliff behind the piles of rocks.

"Come on, Teddy," Dad says in his usual voice.

"Now's your chance to see a mine."

Teddy watches Mr. Praeger bend over and go in a hole in the mountain;
then Dad goes in the same way, bent over, and he ducks and follows them.
It's a cave, he thinks in excitement, maybe a bear cave. But bears don't
stay in caves in the summer, he remembers. They go through a little
hall, and into a bigger room made out of stone, with a lot of rocks and
stones all over the floor, everywhere. These stones and rocks are big,
not already broken in little pieces like the ones outside.

Dad and Mr. Praeger go across the room; then Dad comes back and says,
"We're going in a little farther. You stay in here until we get back,
okay?"

"Can I break some rocks?"

"Sure. Help yourself." He goes out through another hole that looks black
as night. He turns his flashlight on.

This room doesn't need a flashlight, even if the light is dim, like
after the sun is down, but not really dark yet. Teddy begins to examine
the rocks, and soon he starts to hammer on one to break off a chunk.

His collection bag is bulging when he hears Dad's and Mr. Praeger's
voices again. He is turning -a rock over and over, waiting to show it to
Dad, but Mr. Praeger comes in first. Teddy drops the rock into his bag.