"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Frog Pond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

"Yeah, I live at the Baxter place." It was a lie, but he'd told me oneтАФand besides, Pop said I wasn't to
tell people where we live, just in case.

"Where's that?" He said it like he wasn't really interested, like he didn't give a damn where the Baxter
place was. He just wanted to talk to someone. I pointed back toward the Baxter place and told him it
was about a mile along the road.

"Do a lot of people live there, at the Baxter place?"

"Not too many. About six or seven. You planning on moving in, mister?"

He laughed at that. It was one of those high laughs that sounds like crying. My brother Davey cries like
that a lot. It ain't right a six-year-old kid should cry like that. About this StanтАФor whoeverтАФI didn't
know.

"What's funny, mister?" I would have gone and left him there, but I saw that he was standing almost in
some green gunk that comes out of the pipe and washes on shore so I said to him a little louder, "And
you better get away from there."

He stopped laughing. "From where? Why?"

Wow, he was nervous.

"From that." I pointed so he would not get panicked again. "That stuff is bad for you. It can give you
burns if you're not used to it." That isn't quite right. Some people can't get used to it, but it never burned
me, not even the first time. Mr. Thompson says that means selective mutations are adapting to the new
demands of the environment. Mr. Thompson thinks that just because he's a geneticist, he knows
everything.

Stan leaped away from the green stuff like it was about to bite him.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Just stuff that comes out of the pipe. When the Santa Rosa pumping station got blown up
a couple of years back, this broke and started dripping that green stuff." I shrugged. "It won't hurt you if
you don't touch it." Stan looked like he was going to start laughing again, so I said, real quick, "I bet
you're from Santa Rosa, huh?"

"Santa Rosa? What makes you think that?" He sure got jumpy if you asked him anything.

"Nothing. Santa Rosa's the first big city south of here. I just figured you probably had to come from
there. Or maybe Sonoma or Napa, but those ain't too likely."

"Why do you say that?" He was real close now, and his hands were balling into fists.

"Simple," I said, trying to keep my eyes off his fists. He must have been sick or something, the way he
kept tightening and loosening his fingers. "The big highway north is still open, but not the one between
Sonoma and Santa Rosa."

He wobbled his head up and down at that. "Yes; yes, of course. That would be why." He looked at me,