"Jane Yolen - Lost Girls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yolen Jane)

here."
At that Darla burst into tears, half in frustration and half in fear. She
actually liked her dad, as well as loved him, despite the fact that he'd left
her for his new wife, and despite the fact of the twins, who were actually
adorable as long as she didn't have to live with them. The thought that
she'd been caught in Neverland with no way to return was so awful, she
couldn't help crying.
Peter shrugged and turned to the boys. "Girls!" he said with real
disgust.
"All Wendys!" they shouted back at him.
Darla wiped her eyes, and spoke right to Peter. "My name is not
Wendy," she said clearly. "It's Darla."
Peter looked at her, and there was nothing nice or laughing or young
about his eyes. They were dark and cold and very very old.
Darla shivered.
"Here you're a Wendy," he said.
And with that, the dark place where Tink had disappeared grew
increasingly light, as a door opened and fifteen girls carrying trays piled
high with cakes, cookies, biscuits, buns, and other kinds of goodies
marched single file into the hall. They were led by a tall, slender, pretty girl
with brown hair that fell straight to her shoulders.
The room suddenly smelled overpoweringly of that sickly sweetness of
children's birthday parties at school, when their mothers brought in
sloppy cupcakes greasy with icing. Darla shuddered.
"Welcome Feast!" shouted the boy who was closest to the door. He
made a deep bow.
"Welcome Feast!" they all shouted, laughing and gathering around a
great center table.
Only Darla seemed to notice that not one of the Wendys was smiling.



The Feast went on for ages, because each of the boys had to stand up
and give a little speech. Of course, most of them only said, "Welcome,
Wendy!" and "Glad to meet you!" before sitting down again. A few
elaborated a little bit more. But Peter more than made up for it with a
long, rambling talk about duty and dessert and how no one loved them out
in the World Above as much as he did here in Neverland, and how the
cakes proved that.
The boys cheered and clapped at each of Peter's pronouncements, and
threw buns and scones across the table at one another as a kind of
punctuation. Tink circled Peter's head continuously like a crown of stars,
though she never really settled.
But the girls, standing behind the boys like banquet waitresses, did not
applaud. Rather they shifted from foot to foot, looking alternately
apprehensive and bored. One, no more than four years old, kept yawning
behind a chubby hand.
After a polite bite of an apple tart, which she couldn't swallow but spit
into her napkin, Darla didn't even try to pretend. The little pie had been
much too sweet, not tart at all. And even though Peter kept urging her