"Haddix, Margaret Peterson - Dont You Dare Read This Mrs Dunphrey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haddix Margaret Peterson)

What was I supposed to say to that? After a while, Matt said, "What are they fighting about?"
I'd been trying not to listen, but I would have had to have been deaf not to hear some of it. Mom was all whimpers now-pitiful apologies- but Dad was going on and on in a loud voice about Haggarty's and someone Mom worked with. I think Dad thought Mom two-timed him while he was away. That's so crazy. I don't think she's looked at another man, ever, maybe-but so what if she did? He was away for two years! What'd he expect?
Anyhow, I told Matt they were fighting about grown-up stuff. I told him he'd have to be a lot older to understand.
"Do you understand?" he asked. "You're a lot older than me."
The way he looked at me with his innocent eyes, I could have cried. I don't want him thinking that's how people are supposed to act. But what was I going to say-"Mom and Dad are horrible people"? They are horrible. I hate them-hate them, hate them, hate them! I wish they would both run away to Flagstaff, Arizona, or Burlington, Vermont. Maybe I even wish they were dead. I don't care where they go, how bad they ruin their own lives. But do they have to ruin everything for Matt and me, too?
Don't you dare read this, Mrs. Dunphrey.
Well, it looks like it's Monday night at the fights. Again. Tonight, Dad didn't like the way Mom cooked his spaghetti. Last night, she didn't turn the TV on right away when he asked her to. The night before-I don't even remember what the fight was about the night before. Except, every night, Matt and I hide in his room. At first, I tried to read to him, play games with him, anything to keep him from hearing them in the living room. But he just stares at the Dr. Seuss pages, he forgets to take his turn in Candyland. I have trouble remembering, too.
Tonight Matt asked me, "How much more do they have to fight about?"
It's like he thinks there's some end I can tell him about, like medicine you only have to take for two weeks. Even if it tastes awful, you can choke it down thinking, "Only ten more times, only nine more times, only . . ."
I told Matt I didn't know how they could possibly have anything left to fight about. But that's not true. The more I listen to them fight, the madder I feel. I don't think I could ever get rid of that mad, even if I went out and screamed at them for the rest of my life. I've started thinking crazy things. Tony Brill next door has a whole gun collection. I could just borrow one of them. I wouldn't even have to shoot anyone, just use it to scare Mom and Dad, just make them shut up. I lie in bed at night and I picture me holding them hostage, at gunpoint. I'd tie them up and gag their mouths so they wouldn't be able to yell. Or-better yet-I'd let them talk to one another, but only in good ways. I'd say, "Talk nice." Granma used to say that to Matt and me.
I scare myself. I think if I had a gun, I really might use it.
Maybe I'm not any better than Dad or Mom.
Don't read this, Mrs. Dunphrey.
Last night I remembered why Granma taught me to crochet.
She was always crocheting something-both Matt and me have baby blankets she made. Mine is pink with white bows and his is green with fruit shapes on it. And every year at Christmas and for our birthdays, we'd get something else crocheted-mittens, scarves, sweaters. I was proud of them, until about third grade when one of the other girls, Heather Richards, I think it was, made fun of me having everything homemade. I started hinting to Granma that I'd rather have
something store-bought. It'd be easier, I said. Why did she have to crochet all the time?
"It's better than hitting someone," she told me.
That was a time kind of like now, when Mom and Dad were fighting about everything. It didn't seem so bad then, because Granma was always there, telling Matt and me stories, singing songs to us so we didn't hear Mom and Dad. (She didn't forget to turn the Dr. Seuss pages.)
But then one day, Dad came home and Mom was out somewhere, at the grocery maybe, and he started yelling at me. And I yelled back. I told him to shut up. I told him he was bad. And then he hit me so hard it knocked me across the kitchen. I still have a little scar on my forehead where I hit the table.
Granma was there right away, and she took me away and washed the blood off my face. Then that night she gave me a crochet hook and some orange yarn and said, "Here, let me show you how to do a chain stitch . . ." She said more, she said, "You can control the yarn, even if you can't control anything else."
And then for a long time, both of us crocheted every night, back in Granma's room. Matt would hide in the yarn between us. He said it was better than listening to songs or books. He said in the yarn, he couldn't hear anything.
It all sounds so stupid now. Did Granma really think I could solve anything by crocheting?
Did she ever solve anything?
Tish,
Okay. I would appreciate getting to read another of your entries sometime soon. I know I said you could mark every entry "Don't read," if you wanted-but do you really have to?
DON'T read this, Mrs. Dunphrey.
So you'd appreciate the chance to get to read one of my entries, Mrs. Dunphrey? Oh great, wonderful. I'm sure they'd make you very happy. Oh, isn't this precious, you could say, how well Tish writes about her parents' fights. "Tish," you'd ask, "would you mind if The Lodestar reprinted that wonderful description of you and your brother cowering in his room while your father throws flowerpots at your mother? It's so exquisitely done." Or wait, maybe if you read my journal, you'd understand why I'm not exactly keeping up with Julius Caesar right now. What would you do then-say, "Sure, Tish, you don't have to read Act II. I understand completely"? Would you stop calling on me? Would you stop looking disappointed when I don't know the difference between Cassius or Brutus or anyone else?
Mrs. Dunphrey, I don't really dislike you. It's just, your problem is you're too innocent. You're even worse than Matt. You look out at us in the classroom and you think we're all there ready and eager to learn about literature and grammar. I don't know, maybe we would be, if we weren't too busy thinking about our real lives. It's not just me, either. I'm not the only one whose parents fight all the time. There are other kids who can't think about Julius Caesar because they're worrying about their parents being out of work. Or they're afraid they're pregnant. Or they're on drugs.
Hey, we're all just your basic wonderful kids, with your basic wonderful lives. If you think anyone's being honest in the journal entries they let you see, you're really fooling yourself. I'm probably the only one writing anything real at all in here. And I'm not really sure why I do. I guess it's like my Granma said about crocheting. It is better than hitting someone.
And if I thought for a minute that anyone would read this, I'd destroy it so fast your head would spin.
But, okay, if it really makes you happy, I'll give you one entry, Mrs. Dunphrey. It's going to be the fakest entry anybody ever wrote.
Yes, you MAY read this, Mrs. Dunphrey.
Today I'm going to write about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is just a week away. It's wonderful because we get out of school for two days. Hurrah! (No offense, Mrs. Dunphrey. I'm sure we'll all miss your class.) And everybody gets to eat like pigs. At my house, we'll get up early and watch the parades on TV I lake the one from New York, the Macy's parade, but my mom always likes to watch the one in Hawaii. She wants to go to Hawaii someday.
The whole time we're watching the parades, the house fills up with really great smells, of turkey roasting and pumpkin pies baking, and sweet potatoes cooking . . . I'm making myself
hungry just thinking about it. When it finally is time to eat, we all go around the table saying what we're thankful for this year. Then we dig in and eat, and don't get up until we are full to bursting.
Don't read this entry, Mrs. Dunphrey.
I showed Rochelle the last entry I wrote, the fake one, and she thought it was really sweet. (Oh, gag.) She asked me if we really did go around the table, saying what we're thankful for this year. She thought that was cute. Then I told her I'd made the whole thing up-I think I got the saying-what-we're-thankful-for bit from one of those Thanksgiving or Christmas TV specials. "The Waltons," maybe.
Except, now that I think about it, it seems like Granma used to make us do that sometimes.
Tonight I took Matt with me when I went in to work at the Burger Boy. I told him to sit still and color or play with his Matchbox cars while he waited on me. He was really good and quiet- he didn't disturb anyone, not like a lot of the kids his age who come in with their parents. And I bought him a Coke and a burger, so it wasn't like he wasn't a paying customer. But Bud was still upset. He said my job while I'm at the Burger Boy is cashier, not babysitter, and if my first priority is taking care of my brother, then I shouldn't try to work at Burger Boy, too.
I don't think Bud's forgiven me yet for not going out with him. Maybe Sandy was right- maybe I should have gone out with him, so he would be nicer to me. And then I could take Matt to work with me every night.
Except, the funny thing is, it turned out Matt would have been fine staying at home tonight. When we got home Mom was just sitting in her chair in the living room watching T\f like always. She said Dad was out bowling. He hadn't even been home for supper. (Matt asked. I sure didn't care.)
Don't read this entry, Mrs. Dunphrey.
It's Thanksgiving-oh boy, what a great holiday at the Bonners'. Dad didn't come home again last night, and I don't know that Mom even bothered to go to sleep. When I went to bed, she was sitting and rocking in the living room, kind of in a trance, and when I got up this morning she was just the same. About 11:30 this morning I asked her if she was going to fix anything for Thanksgiving, and she looked at me like she didn't even know what I was talking about. So I went and got some stuff at Haggarty's-I was lucky, because they were going to close at noon. It was just deli turkey and instant potatoes and canned cranberry sauce and a store-bought pie, but it cost everything I had left from my last Burger Boy check. I just meant it to be for Matt and me,
but when I was putting it on the table, Mom came out and ate with us.
And then an hour or so later, after Matt and I did all the dishes and put everything away, we heard Dad's pick-up outside. Mom had been acting like walking to the kitchen was about as much as we could expect out of her-she didn't even put her dirty plate in the sink. But as soon as Dad pulled up out front, she started scurrying around straightening up pictures on the wall, shoving these ratty old cushions of Granma's under the sofa, hiding the pile of Soap Opera Digests under a chair. And she kept telling Matt and me, "Don't do anything to make your dad mad. He's got to see how much we love him. Then everything wUl be all right. . ."
I was all ready to say, "Sure, Mom. What if I don't love him?" But then Dad walked in, and Mom couldn't do anything but smile at him. He brought a big roast turkey and something like a vat of mashed potatoes and lots of other stuff: green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and three kinds of pie. I think he got it at some restaurant. It was a thousand times better than what I bought. And he was all jolly and friendly, like he thought he was Santa Claus. Matt started to say we'd already eaten, but Mom real fast clamped her hand over his mouth. She said things like, "Oh, what a wonderful surprise! Ray, you are the best husband and father any family could have!"
Yeah, right.
We all sat down and pretended to eat like we
were really hungry. Matt kept looking at me like he was confused, but I kicked him under the table and shook my head. He got sick afterward and threw up all over the kitchen floor. My stomach didn't feel so hot, either.
Tish, Okay. Fine.