"Steven Gould - Jumper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

Get a grip. I'd never seen him do anything like that. Instead, I'd seen him stumble down the
street a half mile to the Country Corner, to buy beer when he'd run out, hardly able to walk or talk. If
he could teleport, surely he'd have used it then.

I sat on the narrow bed and dressed myself, putting on my most comfortable clothes. With
extreme care, I combed my hair, checking the result in the tiny mirror on the wall. The bump, still large
and aching, looked like a barber's mistake. There was some slight seepage of blood, but it wasn't
really visible through the hair.

I wanted some aspirin and I wanted to know if I was crazy. I stood up and thought about the
medicine cabinet in our house. It was funny that I still thought about it as our house. I wonder what
my dad would say about that?

I didn't know what time it was, other than after midnight. I wondered if Dad was asleep, awake,
or even home. I compromised and thought, instead, of the large oak tree in the corner of the
backyard. It was another place I used to read. It was also a place I used to go when Mom and Dad
fought, where I couldn't hear the words, even though the volume and anger still carried that far.

I jumped and my eyes opened on a yard that needed mowing. I'll bet that pisses him off. I
tried picturing him behind the mower, but I just couldn't. I'd done the lawn since I was eleven. He
used to sit on the back porch with a beer in his hand and point out the spots I missed.
 The house was dark. I moved carefully along until I could see the driveway. His car wasn't
there. I pictured the bathroom and jumped again.

The light was out. I flipped the switch and took a bottle of ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet.
It was half full. I took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some gauze pads as well.

I jumped to the kitchen then, because I was hungry and to see if I still could. He'd bought
groceries since the night I'd left for New York. I made myself two ham-and-cheese sandwiches and
put them and the stuff from the bathroom in a paper bag I took from the pantry. Then I carefully
cleaned up, trying to make it no more clean or messy than I'd found it. I drank two glasses of milk,
then washed the glass and put it back in the cabinet.

There was the sound of tires in the driveway, that old sound of dread and tension. I picked up
the bag and jumped back to the backyard. I didn't turn off the light, because he would have seen it
through the window. I hoped he'd think he'd left it on himself, but I doubted it. He used to scream at
me enough for leaving the lights on.

I watched the lights go on down the length of the house—front hall, living room, back hallway.
The light in his bedroom went on, then off again. Then the light in my room went on and I saw him
silhouetted in the window, a dark outline through the curtains. The light went out then and he walked
back to the kitchen. He checked the back door to see if it was locked. I could see his face through
the window, puzzled. He started to open the door and I ducked around the trunk of the oak.

"Davy?" he called out, barely raising his voice above conversational level. "Are you out there?"

I remained perfectly still.

I heard his feet scrape on the back porch and then the door shut again. I peered around the
trunk and saw him through the kitchen window, taking a beer from the refrigerator. I sighed and