"Diana Wynne Jones - Howl's Moving Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Diana Wynne)

shrank hurriedly down in the grate and flickered his way under his lowest log. Michael grabbed Sophie
by her elbow and dragged her to the door. He spun the knob to blue-down, kicked the door open, and
got them both out into the street in Porthaven as fast as he could.
The noise was almost as horrible out there. Doors were opening all down the road and people were
running out with their hands over their ears.
"Ought we to leave him alone in that state?" Sophie quavered.
"Yes," said Michael. "If he thinks it's your fault, then definitely."
They hurried through the town, pursued by throbbing screams. Quite a crowd came with them. In spite
of the fact that the fog had now become a seeping sea drizzle, everyone made for the harbor or the
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sands, where the noise seemed easier to bear. The fray vastness of the sea soaked it up a little. Everyone
stood in damp huddles, looking out at t he misty white horizon and the dripping ropes on the moored
ships while the noise became a gigantic, heartbroken sobbing. Sophie reflected that she was seeing the
sea close for the first time in her life. It was pity that she was not enjoying it more.
The sobs died away to vast, miserable sighs and then to silence. People began cautiously to go back into
the town. Some of them came timidly up to Sophie.
"Is something wrong with the poor Sorcerer, Mrs. Witch?"
"He's a little unhappy today," Michael said. "Come on. I think we can risk going back now."
As they went along the quayside, several sailors called out anxiously from the moored ships, wanting to
know it the noise meant storms or bad luck.
"Not at all," Sophie called back. "It's all over now."
But it was not. They came back to the wizard's house, which was an ordinary crooked little building
from the outside that Sophie would not have recognized if Michael had not been with her. Michael
opened the shabby little door rather cautiously. Inside, Howl was still sitting in the stool. He sat in an
attitude of utter despair. And he was covered all over in thick green slime.
There were horrendous, dramatic, violent quantities of green slime-oodles of it. It covered Howl
completely. It draped his head and shoulders in sticky dollops, heaping on his knees and hands,
trickling in glops down his legs, and dripping off the stool in sticky strands. It was in oozing ponds and
crawling pools over most of the floor. Long fingers of it had crept into the heart. It smelled vile.
"Save me!" Calcifer cried in a hoarse whisper. He was down to two desperately flickering small flames.
"This stuff is going to put me out!"
Sophie held up her skirt and marched as near Howl as she could get-which was not very near. "Stop it!"
she said. "Stop it at once! You are behaving just like a baby!"
Howl did not move or answer. His face stared from behind the slime, white and tragic and wide-eyed.
"What shall we do? Is he dead?" Michael asked, jittering beside the door.
Michael was a nice boy, Sophie thought, but a bit helpless in a crisis. "No, of course he isn't," she said.
"And if it wasn't for Calcifer, he could behave like a jellied eel all day for all I care! Open the bathroom
door."
While Michael was working his way between pools of slime to the bathroom, Sophie threw her apron
into the hearth to stop more of the stuff getting near Calcifer and snatched up the shovel. She scooped
up loads of ash and dumped them in the biggest pools of slime. It hissed violently. The room filled with
steam and smelled worse than ever. Sophie furled up her sleeves, bent her back to get a good purchase
on the Wizard's slimy knees, and pushed Howl, stool and all, toward the bathroom. Her feet slipped and
skidded in the slime, but of course the ooziness helped the stool to move too. Michael came and pulled
at Howl's slime-draped sleeves. Together, they trundled him into the bathroom. There, since Howl still
refused to move, they shunted him into the shower stall.
"Hot water, Calcifer!" Sophie panted grimly. "Very hot."
It took an hour to wash the slime off Howl. It took Michael another hour to persuade Howl to get off
the stool and into dry clothes. Luckily, the gray-and-scarlet suit Sophie had just mended had been