"Cooper,.Susan.-.Dark.Is.Rising.2.-.Dark.Is.Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cooper Susan)

Booted and muffled, they clumped out through the
sprawling kitchen. A full symphony orchestra was swelling
out of the radio; their eldest sister Gwen was slicing onions
and singing; their mother was bent broad-beamed and red-
faced over an oven. "Rabbits!" she shouted, when she
caught sight of them. "And some more hay from the farm!"

"We're going!" Will shouted back. The radio let out a
sudden hideous crackle of static as he passed the table- He
jumped- Mrs Stanton shrieked, "Turn that thing DOWN."

Outdoors, it was suddenly very quiet. Will dipped out a
pail of pellets from the bin in the farm-smelling barn, which
was not really a barn at all, but a long, low building with a
tiled roof, once a stable. They tramped through the thin
snow to the row of heavy wooden hutches, leaving dark
footmarks on the hard frozen ground.

Opening doors to fill the feed-boxes. Will paused, frown-
ing. Normally the rabbits would be huddled sleepily in cor-
ners, only the greedy ones coming twitch-nosed forward to
eat. Today they seemed restless and uneasy, rustling to and
fro, banging against their wooden walls; one or two even
leapt back in alarm when he opened their doors. He came to
his favourite rabbit, named Chelsea, and reached in as usual
to rub him affectionately behind the ears, but the animal
scuffled back away from him and cringed into a corner, the
pink-rimmed eyes staring up blank and terrified.

"Hey!" Will said, disturbed. "Hey James, look at that.
What's the matter with him? And all of them?"

"They seem all right to me."

"Well, they don't to me. They're all jumpy. Even Chelsea.
Hey, come on, boy—" But it was no good.

"Funny," James said with mild interest, watching. "I dare
say your hands smell wrong- You must have touched some-

Midwinter's Eve I 5

thing they don't like. Same as dogs and aniseed, but the
other way round."

"I haven't touched anything. Matter of fact, I'd just
washed my hands when I saw you."

"There you are then," James said promptly. "That's the
trouble. They've never smelt you clean before. Probably all