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:
We heard what sounded like another slap.
Then Tupper said, “Put that down.”
“No,” she said. “I will not let you hit me again.”
“You haven’t the guts,” Tupper said, “to stab anyone with that.”
“If you try to hit me again,” Miss Delaney warned, “I will use it.”
“You bitch,” Tupper said. “You hid that in here before I came, didn’t you.”
“You’ve hit me before,” Miss Delaney said.
It was quiet below us for a bit.
Then Tupper said, “Perhaps an anonymous letter to the school board...”
“If I have any trouble with the school board or anyone else, I tell everyone about you.”
Again it was quiet. Then there were footsteps and we heard her apartment front door open.
Tupper said, “If you ever tell anyone about me, I will kill you. And I will kill them.”
Then we heard the door close, and very faintly, his footsteps going down the front stairs.
We stayed where we were, trying not to move at all. Below us we heard Miss Delaney walk across the room. And we heard her turn the key in the front door. Then there was silence, as if she might still be standing at the front door. And then she began to cry. Joanie and I stood up carefully and headed for the window. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t hear us.
She was crying really loud.
Chapter 30
I was walking Joanie to her house. The Ford Tudor was nowhere in sight.
“Did you hear Miss Delaney say bastard?” Joanie asked.
“And he called her a bitch,” I said.
We walked past the school. Dark now and perfectly still.
“Do you think she had a knife?” Joanie said.
“That’s what it sounded like.”
Along Church Street, the lights were on in the windows of houses. People were safely inside reading, listening to the radio, playing bridge.
“You think she was married to Reverend Tupper?” Joanie asked.
“I guess so,” I said.
“She’s got a baby,” Joanie said.
“I know.”
“You think they’d fire her if they knew?” she said. “I mean, Mrs. Wood is married.”
“She’s the only one,” I said.
“Mr. Welch is married. He has a little kid.”
“That’s different,” I said. “He’s a man.”
“So?”
“So women when they get married have their husband to take care of them,” I said. “If they work after they’re married, it’s not fair. They’re taking the job from a guy who has to support a family.”
Joanie didn’t say anything for a time.
Then she said, “I guess so.”
“Besides,” I continued, “I never heard of a divorced teacher.”
“And,” Joanie said, “they could say she lied to them when they hired her.”
“Right.”
Joanie’s house was ahead.
“Let’s walk a little more,” I said.
“Yes.”
We turned and walked along Water Street. The smell of the harbor was strong and cold. Ice had started to crust around the edges of the eel pond.
“It’s not exactly right that a father can’t see his son,” I said.
“Would you want Reverend Weirdo for a father?” Joanie asked.
“No.”
“He threatened her at the end,” Joanie said.
“I know.”
“And he hit her at least twice.”
“I know.”
“I wonder what she knows about him,” Joanie said.
“She knows his real name.”
“I wonder why she ever married him,” Joanie said.
I shook my head.
“I hated hearing her cry,” Joanie said.
“Yes,” I said. “Me too.”
“How are we going to stop him?” Joanie asked. “Make him leave her alone?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “We need to figure it out.”
Chapter 31
It had started to snow about an hour after school started. The first snow of the winter. I was sitting in the back of the classroom looking out the window at the snow, which was soft and steady. There had been a lot of times when
I’d said how I’d figure things out later. Now it was later. I needed to figure out why I felt safer with Joanie. I needed to figure out a lot about how Joanie made me feel. I had to figure out what to do about Nick and Joanie. But most of all, I needed to figure out what to do to help Miss Delaney. I was only fourteen, I had time for the other stuff. But there might not be too much time left to figure out Miss Delaney and her problem.
At least I had an idea what her problem was. Maybe I felt safe with Joanie because I knew I could be brave for her. Even brave, I couldn’t go against a grown man. Some of the older guys, war veterans, would probably have been happy to help. But then Tupper would blab, and Miss Delaney would get in trouble. Maybe I felt brave with Joanie because she was brave. Her hair smelled really nice. I had to focus on Miss Delaney. I couldn’t let Joanie keep popping in. I could think about Joanie later, once I’d figured out what to do about Miss Delaney. It was funny, every other girl I thought about sex. I didn’t know a lot about it. And I’d never done it. But I thought about it. Except Joanie. With Joanie, I thought about Joanie. How were we going to get Tupper to leave Miss Delaney alone? I wondered why he changed his name. Did he change it before he got the Medal of Honor? Richard Krauss.
Russell reached over and punched me in the ribs.
“Miss Delaney’s talking to you, Dumbo,” he said.
“Thank you, Russell,” Miss Delaney said.
“I’m sorry, Miss Delaney,” I said. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said the education is going on up here. There’s nothing to be learned out the window.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Have you read Gulliver’s Travels, Bobby?”
“I saw the movie,” I said.
Several people in the class snickered. Miss Delaney shook her head.
“The book is better,” she said. “Marilyn, have you finished the assignment?”
“Yes, ma’am...”
I concentrated on the snow again.
Nick and I hadn’t been quite as easy with each other since I started being friendlier with Joanie. He was my friend, but Joanie was too. Even though she was a girl, I liked her better. The snow came straight down, and quiet. It wasn’t a blizzard or anything, just the quiet steady downfall of big white flakes. If I helped Miss Delaney, the reverend would hurt her. If I didn’t help her, the reverend would hurt her.
The thought that Miss Delaney had been married was kind of odd. She had a kid. That meant she’d had sex. That was almost suffocating to think about. I thought about sex a lot when I thought about Miss Delaney. I never thought about sex when I thought about Joanie. I daydreamed about her. I thought about rescuing her from kidnappers or finding her when she got lost in the mountains and killing a grizzly bear to save her. In my daydream I killed it with a knife. She was very grateful.
I looked at Miss Delaney. I looked at the snow outside. My mind kept jumping around. I had to concentrate. Forget about killing grizzly bears with a hunting knife. I had to concentrate on saving Miss Delaney from Oswald Tupper.
Chapter 32
After school Nick asked me to come across the street to the bicycle shed with him so we could stay out of the snow and talk.
“Joanie says she doesn’t want to go out with me anymore,” he said when we alone in the shed.
I kept my face still.
“How come?” I said.
“She says she’s too young to get serious about dating.”
I nodded.