"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

over in bed and looked resentfully at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Mickey Mouse's hands
pointed unfeelingly at nine o'clock. The alarm was still silent. Toby liked to lie in on a
Saturday morning, preferably till ten or eleven or even later. One of the joys of Saturday morning
was knowing he wasn't going to be driven from his nice warm bed by Mickey's shrill clamour at
seven o'bloody clock. Toby lay back in his bed, vaguely contemplating the ceiling. Something had
woken him up. Almost as though someone had called his name, in a voice that could not be ignored.
Saturday morning. He always looked forward to Saturdays, especially at the beginning of the week,
when the days and the hours and the minutes at work seemed just to crawl past, stretching
endlessly away before him, and Saturday might as well have been another planet. But what did he
actually do, when Saturday and the weekend finally came around? He'd sleep in. Get up only when he
absolutely had to (usually forced out of bed by bladder pressure), and stagger downstairs in his
dressing gown to watch kids' cartoons on television, usually while eating a big bowl of whatever
cereal he was currently addicted to. All the while grousing, sometimes aloud, that today's
cartoons weren't a patch on the cartoons of his youth. Scooby Doo in particular had deteriorated
dreadfully. He wouldn't even watch the ones that contained Scrappy Doo. (Once voted by the readers


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of a leading men's magazine as the cartoon character they'd most like to punch in the head
repeatedly. Even more than Jar Jar Binks.) And where did the two good-looking kids always
disappear to, while Shaggy and Thelma were busy being chased by men in monster masks? They'd
probably found a bedroom and were rutting like crazed weasels.
Come midday he'd get dressed and wander down into town for a drink, to see what was happening and
who was around. And it was always the same old faces, doing the same old things. Which was
sometimes comforting, but more often not. Then back home, to open a packet and stick it in the
oven, and that was lunch. Usually eaten straight from the plastic container because that saved on
washing-up. Then sit slumped in front of the television all afternoon, watching the sports. Any
sports - he wasn't fussy. And in the evening, call around to see if anyone fancied a drink. And
after drinking too much, in the company of people who only counted as friends because he saw them
every weekend, stagger home and try to get to sleep with his bedroom revolving slowly around him.
Repeat on Sunday. Then back to work again. Not much of a life, really. Not much of a life at all.
Toby tried really hard to get back to sleep again so he wouldn't have to think any more, but his
body was having none of it. His body felt decidedly restless. Like it needed to be up and about,
doing things... important things. Even though Toby had no idea what they might be. He turned onto
his side, pulling the blankets up around his neck, trying to get comfortable so he could fool his
body into dozing off, but the bed felt cold and hard and unwelcoming, as though it knew he
shouldn't be there. In the end, Toby swore briefly but feelingly, threw back the covers and
lurched out of bed. It was clearly going to be one of those days.
He pulled off his pyjamas and threw them roughly in the direction of the dirty laundry basket, and
got dressed. It didn't feel like a dressing-gown-and-cartoons day. He stomped downstairs, yawning
and scratching as the mood took him, collected the usual pile of junk mail from his doormat and
headed for the kitchen, trying to decide whether he could be bothered to make himself a proper
breakfast. One bowl of milky cereal and a compromise glass of orange juice with added vitamin C
later, he rinsed the bowl and glass under the hot tap and put them on one side to dry. He sat down
again at the kitchen table and considered the morning's mail. Which turned out to be strange and
weird enough to snap him fully awake.

A folded glossy pamphlet offered six foolproof ways to avoid elf-shot, proven cause of most chills