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

Geoffrey led the way and they walked down the road to where the woods began, and jumped the
ditch and started off through the trees. The sun had set behind the hills and it was dark in the woods, a
sort of gray-dark. Leaves and twigs rustled beneath their feet, and all the birds were still.
The brook hardly ran at all any more, the drought had got so bad, and in places it had collected in
stagnant pools. When they came to his favorite willow, Geoffrey said: "This is where I gave then; the
sandwiches, but they wonтАЩt come around now, even if they are still here."
"I don't guess they would," h, father said.
"I'll show you where their house is. I don't think they'd mind now."
They hopped the brook and walked through the willows and the locusts and then through the maples
and the oaks and the beeches, and it was the way it used to be when his father liked him and they'd
tramped through the woods together, only not quite the same because his father didnтАЩt like him any more.
Geoffrey choked back a sob and walked faster. It was real dark now, and his father had to get his
flashlight out of his hip pocket and snap it on. The beam was a yellow splotch jumping on the forest floor
as his father shone it first one way and then another.
And then a funny thing started to happen. Geoffrey began to hear Sally Sunbeam's voice right in his
head, even though she wasn't anywhere in sight; and suddenly, he realized that that was where he'd
always heard her voiceтАФand Mr. Wings' tooтАФright in his head; that they'd been thinking to him all the
time, instead of talking; and that their thoughts had aligned themselves in words and groups of words that
were already in his mindтАФ
"I'm going to tell you a storey," Sally Sunbeam said. тАЬIt's a story about your mother and rather, but
it's really about us. Please try to understand.
"Suppose your mother and father decide to take a trip to a distant own. Now suppose that the
gasoline tank on their car holds just enough gasoline for them to get to this town and back, and that there
isn't any place, either in this town or along the way, where the tank can be refilled. So before they leave,
they're very careful to fill the tankтАФbut they're so excited about the trip that they don't notice that the
tank has a slight leak in it.
тАЬThey go to this faraway town and have a wonderful time, and finally they start back. And then,
about halfway home, they discover the leak and find that, while they've lost only a few drops of gasoline,
there still isn't quite enough left for them to make it all the way home. You see, not having quite enough
gasoline is just as bad as not having any at allтАФyou've got to use your imagination here, Geoffrey.
Because if they run out of gasoline even a short distance from home, their car will crash and they will be
killed.
"When they discover the leak, they're frantic. They're in a very wild part of the country, far from
civilization. But they decide that the thing to do will be to stop anyway, and try to find something they can
use in place of the gasoline
theyтАЩve lost. So they drive into a big woods and hide their car and start looking around.
"The people in this section of the country are giants, and your mother and father are afraid to ask any
of them for help. Then one day they see a boy-giant sitting by a brook, eating a sandwich that may be
made out of what they're looking for. They watch the boy-giant for some time before they get up enough
courage to approach him. When they do approach him, they're astonished when he gives them one of
the sandwiches, and when they find out that it is made out of a substance that can be processed into a
substitute for the gasoline they need, they're overwhelmed with happiness.
"So they take the sandwich back to the car and build a machine to get the oil out of the peanut butter
and to change it into fuel (your own scientists have discovered the possibilities of peanut oil themselves,
and some day they'll be doing the same thing). Every day the boy-giant brings more sandwiches, and
once he spies on them while they're processing the peanut butter, but they pretend not to notice. Finally
they've got enough fuel to take the place of the little bit they lost, and their problem is solved. Naturally
they're grateful to the boy-giant for saving their lives, and are delighted when they find there's a way they
can repay him.
"We've got to go now, Geoffrey. Thank you for the peanut butter sandwiches . . . and tell your father