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

Deckie was suntanned to the edge of skin cancer, so Paulie's first words to him
were, "What, are you trying to be black?"

"I play tennis."

"Under a sunlamp?"

"I tan real dark." Deckie looked faintly bored, as though he had to answer these
stupid questions all the time but he had been raised to be polite.

"Deckie? What's that short for? Or are you named after the floor on a yacht?"
Paulie thought he was joking, like old friends joke with each other, but Deckie
seemed to take umbrage.

"Deckie is short for Derek. My friends call me Deck."

"Are you sure they aren't calling you duck?" Paulie laughed and then wished he
hadn't. Deckie's eyes glazed over and he began looking toward the house. Paulie
didn't want him to walk off the way Celie had. Deckie was two years older than
Paulie, and it was the important two years. Puberty had put about a foot of
height on him and he was lean and athletic and his moves were languid and Paulie
wanted more than anything to be just like Deckie instead of being a
medium-height medium-strong medium-smart freckled twelve-year-old nothing.

So naturally he tried to cover up his stupid duck joke with an even lamer one.
"Have you noticed how everybody in the family has a nickname that ends with ie?"
Paulie said. "They might as well hyphenate that into the family name. You'd be
Deck Ie-Bride, and Celie would be Ceel Ie-Caswell."

Deckie smiled faintly. "And you'd be Paul Ie-Asshole."

Paulie stood there blushing, flustered, until he finally realized that this was
not a friendly joke, this was Deckie letting him know that he didn't exist. So
Paulie turned and walked away from Deckie. Did Celie feel like this when she
walked away from me? If she did then I'm a rotten shit to make somebody else
feel like this. Why can't I just keep my mouth shut? Other people keep their
mouths shut.

Later he saw Deckie and Celie hanging around together, laughing until tears ran
down Celie's face. He knew they were talking about him. Or if they weren't they
might as well be. That was the kind of laughter that never included Paulie, not
at school, not at home, not here at this stupid family reunion in this stupid
forty-room mansion that some stupid rich person called a "cabin." Whenever
people laughed in real friendship, close to each other, bound by affection or
mutual respect or whatever it was, Paulie felt it like a knife in his heart. Not
because he was particularly lonely. He liked being alone and other people made
him nervous so it wasn't like he suffered. It hurt him because it was exactly
the way people were with Mubbie. Nobody liked him and he still kept joking with
them as if they were friends, even Mother, she didn't like him either, any idiot
could see that, they were probably staying together for the sake of "the child,"