"Orson Scott Card - Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

streetlight showed the paper lying there, but Tim couldn't see the
masthead or even the headline without jogging onto the gravel, his
shoes making such a racket that he half-expected to see lights go on
inside the house.
He bent over and looked. The rubber band had broken and the paper
had unrolled itself, so now it lay flat in the driveway. Dominating
the front page was a familiar picture. The headline under it said:
Babe Ruth, Baseball's
Home Run King, Dies
Cancer of Throat Claims Life
Of Noted Major League Star
I thought he died years ago, Tim thought.
Then he noticed another headline:
Inflation Curb Signed By Truman
President Says Bill Inadequate
Truman? Tim looked at the masthead. It wasn't the "News and Record,"
it was the "Greensboro Daily News." And under the masthead it said:
Tuesday Morning, August 17, 1948 ... price: five cents.
What kind of joke was this, and who was it being played on? Not Tim
-- nobody could have known he'd come down Yanceyville Road today, or
that he'd follow the paperboy to this driveway.
A footstep on gravel. Tim looked up. An old woman stood at the head
of the driveway, gazing at him. Tim stood, blushing, caught. She
said nothing.
"Sorry," said Tim. "I didn't open it, the rubber band must have
broken when it hit the gravel, I --"


He looked down, meant to reach down, pick up the paper, carry it to
her. But there was no paper there. Nothing. Right at his feet, where
he had just seen the face of George Herman "Babe" Ruth, there was
only gravel and moist dirt and dewy grass.
He looked at the woman again. Still she said nothing.
"I ..." Tim couldn't think of a thing to say. Good morning, ma'am.
I've been hallucinating on your driveway. Have a nice day. "Look,
I'm sorry."
She smiled faintly. "That's OK. I never get it into the house
anymore these days."
Then she walked back onto the porch and into the house, leaving him
alone on the driveway.
It was stupid, but Tim couldn't help looking around for a moment
just to see where the paper might have gone. It had seemed so real.
But real things don't just disappear.
He couldn't linger in the driveway any longer. An elderly woman
might easily get frightened at having a stranger on her property in
the wee hours and call the police. Tim walked back to the road and
headed back the way he had come. Only he couldn't walk, he had to
break into a jog and then into a run, until it was a headlong gallop
down the hill and around the curve toward Yanceyville Road.
Why was he so afraid? The only explanation was that he had