"Winter-NaturalBoy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winter Laurel)

pizza, the dead cat.

It had been arranged on a filthy silk pillow near the fireplace, eyes open a
slit, ribs defined through the tabby fur, legs like sticks. "Poor things" they
said, in the same breath, kneeling down near -- but not touching m the
desiccated corpse. "Poor little thing."

They decided, eyes brimming over, that such a thing would not be allowed to
happen again. They would see to that, looking through windows, spying on the new
occupants of the house, alert for hints of insanity, cruelty, or imminent death.
And then, just to be sure they could get in and remedy any future problems, they
swiped the key to the back garage door from a keyring in the kitchen. Just one
key, not the whole bunch, nothing anyone would notice.

Just one key. Not two halves, not something that could be divided so the two
parts that made them could each carry some. One key. Maddy stuck it in her
pocket. Then they were gone, running through "their" door in the garage. Except
Maddy had to stop and lock it behind her. Matt squeezed through the hedge first,
waited on the other side, hissing for her to hurry.

For a while, they took turns carrying the key. After all, identical pockets,
right ? A professional cleaning crew spent a couple days in the house. The two
of them, watching from the hedge again, wondered which of the many garbage bags
held the cat. Somewhere in there, they got mixed up, each thinking the other had
the key. It went through the wash in Matt's jean pocket.

Actually in Maddy's, for that was one of the days he had worn her ieans. The
next time she put them on, poking her hands down into the pockets to flatten and
smooth them out, the key scraped her skin. That was it, she decided, closing her
fingers around the bit of metal. She was going to be in charge of the key from
now on. It could have fallen out in the wash. Their mother could have found it.

Matt didn't care. As long as one of them had it, he told her, it didn't matter
which one did. By that time, a "For Sale" sign stood in the front yard of the
house across the street. People toured the house under the gushing attention of
a woman in a pukey gold jacket -- and the watchful eyes of two hidden children
in red-and-white shirts.

Sometimes, they didn't hide. They pretended to play jacks or hopscotch
(detestable games) on the sidewalk in front of their apartment building, making
random moves while they scanned the potential purchasers.

"Yuck," they breathed to one another. [Two men wearing business attire and
carrying their own personal copies of The Wall Street Journal.)

"Gross." (A couple with a new baby in a reeking diaper-- by the time they left
the house, a rim of brown was oozing out one leghole.)

"All right." (A family with a kid about their age.)