Edenville Owls
- Автор: Паркер Роберт Браун
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Sleuth Philomel
- ISBN: 978-0-399-24656-2
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Edenville Owls». Краткое содержание книги:
I unlocked Miss Delaney’s door and went in. I could feel my heart. I could hear it. The sound filled my head. I was breathing hard. The guy in Black Mask hadn’t been scared. But I was in Miss Delaney’s house. What if I found something awful? What if I got caught? I went up the stairs and into her kitchen. Everything was neat and clean. There was a coffee cup and a saucer with toast crumbs on it in the sink. I went slowly through the house. Downstairs the dog was barking. I looked in her bedroom. I felt embarrassed. But it was just a bedroom. Everybody had them. I thought about her undressing to go to bed. My throat seemed to close. I felt like I couldn’t swallow. I looked in the living room and in the dining room. She must have used the dining room table as a desk. There were papers and stuff on it, in neat piles. I didn’t touch them. I went back to the kitchen. I went back out the kitchen door to the stairs, and up the stairs to the attic. The attic was unfinished. There was a window at either end. There wasn’t any floor, but there were boards laid down that you could walk on. In one corner there were a couple of suitcases and a few cardboard boxes. The rest of the attic was empty. I could still hear the dog barking on the first floor. The space between the rafters was full of insulation, but in several places the insulation was pulled aside and I could see some wires going into a metal box, probably for ceiling lights. I crouched down and put my ear close to one of the boxes. I could hear the dog really well. I stood up and went to the back window. I looked out at the roof of the second-story porch. To the left was one of the big old trees that grew near the house. I nodded to myself. Just like that vacant house we’d snuck into. I tried the window. It was locked. I unlocked it and tried again. It opened easily. I closed it again and left it open just a crack. Then I went back down the stairs and locked the back door and left the key in the lock. I went back up to Miss Delaney’s apartment and went down the front stairs and came to the front door, which had one of those locks that locks behind you when you shut it. I had my book bag. I had the piece of newspaper in the book bag. I had my jackknife. I took a breath and opened the front door and went out.
Chapter 25
I hid my schoolbag in the boys’ room and threw the newspaper away in the trash barrel, then went upstairs to my classroom. I felt so strange. I felt like somebody else. I opened the back door of the classroom silently and slipped in and sat down.
“Bobby?” Miss Delaney said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Where in heaven’s name have you been?”
“Boys’ room, Miss Delaney.”
She nodded.
“See me after class, please,” she said.
When class was over and I went to the front of the room, Miss Delaney said, “Are you feeling all right?”
“I was feeling kind of sick,” I said. “But I’m better now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me where you were?” Miss Delaney said.
“I... I was embarrassed,” I said.
She smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “I can understand that.”
“You can?”
“Of course,” she said. “Some things are embarrassing.”
I nodded.
“But we have rules,” Miss Delaney said. “And you can’t just disappear for much of the day and I let it go.”
I nodded again.
“You’ll need to stay after school today,” Miss Delaney said. “For an hour.”
That wasn’t bad.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
She looked at me for a moment. She had very big eyes. Like Joanie. Except hers were brown and Joanie’s were blue.
“No argument?”
“No, ma’am.”
“And what is all this yes ma’am and no ma’am business?” she said. “You are usually quite a bit more mouthy.”
“I did something wrong,” I said. “I know it. I think the punishment is fair.”
She looked at me some more.
“Very mature,” she said.
“Thank you.”
I was pretty sure she knew I was lying. But she didn’t say so.
She just smiled and said, “Now go sit down, and while you’re serving your time, please write me a two-page essay on why we have to keep track of the students in our classes.”
I went back to my desk, sat down, and got out some lined paper and a pen. I was a good writer. The essay would be easy. I knew that. Miss Delaney knew it too.
I felt bad lying to her, and worse because I thought she knew it. Just like I felt bad about sneaking into her house. I seemed to have to do a lot of bad things to do a good thing. It made me uncomfortable. It was kind of spoiling the adventure. But it wasn’t just an adventure — Miss Delaney really needed help. What I needed to do was talk with Joanie.
Chapter 26
I went up to the Reverend Tupper’s youth group meeting on Sunday afternoon, and slipped into the back row. There were maybe fifteen other kids there. Too few to hide among. The reverend spotted me.
“Bobby Murphy,” he said in his mock Irish brogue, “sure and ye be welcome among us, Bucko.”
I nodded and tried to look pleased. Actually I was so nervous, I thought I might throw up.
“You are just in time, Bobby, to join us in our opening pledge.”
Everyone stood up, so I did too. We stood at attention.
“Until I die...” the reverend said.
Everyone said, Until I die...
“I will serve...”
I will serve...
“This flag...”
This flag...
“And the great country it represents...”
And the great country it represents...
“So help me God.”
So help me God.
We all sat down. Reverend Tupper was wearing a tan uniform, kind of like a Boy Scout leader, except instead of a kerchief, he had a black tie. Over the tie he wore some kind of medal hanging on a blue ribbon around his neck. Behind him on the wall was a big American flag with a crucifix. The same one that had been in the house trailer church.
“As always,” the reverend said, “we begin by reviewing the truth of our mission. The flag of our country is red, white, and blue: red, for the blood shed in the defense of our way of life; blue is for the true-blue loyalty of those who have defended our way; and white for the color of the founding fathers.”
All of us sat silently.
“Those of us who served in the war, including those who won the Medal of Honor” — he touched the medal — “as I did, went to war to keep those colors clean and pure. We trusted this country and we were lied to. We were not preserving those sacred colors. We were fighting to advance the cause of godless Communism. We were fighting to repress white Christians. We were making it more possible for black and yellow hordes to mongrelize the population so that racial purity and Christian virtue could be banished. We were manipulated by Franklin Delano Jewsavelt and international Jewry, who conspired to demonize the German people and advance the cause of godless Bolshevism in the name of victory.”
We all sat perfectly still listening. It was unbelievable. I had never heard anyone talk that way. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, but it was certainly different than anything anyone else had ever said to me about the country and the war. He used words like nigger and kike, as if they were perfectly okay words. He talked as if Jews weren’t white. He spoke of a yellow invasion from Asia. He spoke of the Communist plan to rule the world by stirring up rebellion in the inferior races. He talked like it would have been better if we had joined the Germans and defeated Russia. I was completely amazed.