"Robert F. Young - Operation Peanut Butter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

didn't any more. All his father did now was glower at the sky and say mean things to his mother.
Last summer his father had even gone fishing with him a few times, and once, while they were
tramping through the woods, he had recited a poem about a Barefoot Boy. It was a long poem and
Geoffrey had thought how smart his father must be to have remembered all of it. He wondered if his
father still remembered it. He didn't think so. Something had happened to his father lately, and Geoffrey
knew it was the drought.
When he came to the house he ran across the bleached grass to where his mother was hanging
clothes in the summer wind. "Ma!" he shouted. "Ma! I saw two fairies in the woods!"
His mother took two clothespins out of the clothespin bag and secured one of his father's T shirts to
the clothesline. "Now Jeff, you shouldn't tell such stories. Why, I'll bet you fell asleep and dreamed
them!"
"But I didn't, Ma! Honest. I really saw them!"
His mother laughed. It was the laugh his father used to call her "summer laugh." Whenever she
laughed that way, her pretty face got even prettier, and her eyes twinkled like tiny stars. The trouble was,
she hardly ever laughed that way any more.
"Okay, okay," she said. "So you saw them. I see one myself right nowтАФthe good fairy who's going
to help me with the rest of the washing . . . There's another basket of clothes on the backporch. Think
you can carry it?"
He knew she didn't believe him for a minute. That was the way it was with grown-ups: they didn't
believe in anything.
He gave a little sigh. "All right, Ma, I'll get it for you," he said.

Next morning he packed an extra peanut butter sandwich, just in case. He could hardly wait till noon
came, he was so excited; in fact he didn't really wait, he opened his little green lunch box an hour ahead
of time. He'd hardly got the cover off when there were two flurries of wings over the brook, and first
thing he knew he had company for dinner.
Sally Sunbeam's eyes were more like pieces of the sky than ever. Geoffrey couldn't get over them.
She smiled a soft little smile when he gave her a sandwich and she said "Thank you" again in her sweet,
soundless voice. And then away she went, sandwich and all, a golden blur over the brook and among the
willow branches. Mr. Wings said "Thank you" too, when Geoffrey gave him a sandwich, and then away
he went, a silver blur; and then the sun was bright on the brook and there were bird calls everywhere,
and the water ran in ripples like it always did, and the fish didn't bite as usual, and the day was so
common and ordinary that it was as though Mr. Wings and Sally Sunbeam hadn't come around at all. But
they'd been around all right, Geoffrey knew. He had only one sandwich left, and he was sure he hadn't
eaten the other two; and besides, there was no doubt in his mind, anyway, as to the reality of Mr. Wings
and Sally Sunbeam, and their penchant for peanut butter sandwiches was the most natural thing in the
world. The only thing he couldn't understand was their apparent reluctance to eat them in his presence.
But they probably had their reasons, he decided. Perhaps they were bashful; perhaps they didn't
want him to think that fairies got hungry like everybody else and sometimes had to panhandle for their
meals. Whatever their reasons were, Geoffrey was sure they were good ones, and he was content to let
the matter rest, so long as he could keep on seeing Sally Sunbeam's and hear her gentle voice.
And so the days drifted by, hot summer days; the rainless summer days . . . His father's face got
thinner and thinner, and his mother never smiled her summer smile at all any more; but every noon Mr.
Wings and Sally Sunbeam flew down from the willows and perched upon his shoulders and importuned
him with their eyes, and then flew happily away with the sandwiches he gave them ...
He kept wondering where they went, and one day he decided to investigate. He didn't think they
went very far; the weight of the sandwiches precluded that. Maybe if he walked a little ways into the
woods beyond the brook he'd find their hiding place and be able to watch them eat from the concealment
of the underbrush.
The brook had dwindled to a mere trickle in some places, and it was easy to jump across it. There