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

to her stick as she got it out, ready to leave. She could hear Howl singing in the bathroom as if he had
never had a tantrum in his life. She tiptoed to the door as fast as she could hobble.
Howl of course came out of the bathroom before she reached it. Sophie looked at him sourly. He was
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all spruce and dashing, scented gently with apple blossom. The sunlight from the window dazzled off
his gray-and-scarlet suit and made a faintly pink halo of his hair.
"I think my hair looks rather good this color," he said.
"Do you indeed?" grumped Sophie.
"It goes with this suit," said Howl. "You have quite a touch with your needle, don't you? You've given
the suit more style somehow."
"Huh!" said Sophie.
Howl stopped with is hand on the knob above the door. "Aches and pains troubling you?" he said. "Or
has something annoyed you?"
"Annoyed?" said Sophie. "Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic,
and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts.
Why should that annoy me?"
Howl laughed. "I apologize," he said, turning the knob to red-down. "The King wants to see me today. I
shall probably be kicking my heels in the Palace until evening, but I can do something for your
rheumatism when I get aback. Don't forget to tell Michael I left that spell for him on the bench." He
smiled sunnily at Sophie and stepped out among the spires of Kingsbury.
"And you think that makes it all right!" Sophie growled as the door shut. But the smile had mollified
her. "If that smile works on me, then it's no wonder poor Martha doesn't know her own mind!" she
muttered.
"I need another log before you go," Calcifer reminded her.
Sophie hobbled to drop another log into the grate. Then she set off to the door again. But here Michael
came running downstairs and snatched the remains of a loaf off the bench as he ran to the door. "You
don't mind, do you?" he said in an agitated way. "I'll bring a fresh loaf when I come back. I've got
something very urgent to see to today, but I'll be back by evening. If the sea captain calls for his wind
spell, it's on the end of the bench, clearly labeled." He turned the knob green-downward and jumped out
onto the windy hillside, loaf clutched to his stomach. "See you!" he shouted as the castle trundled away
past him and the door slammed.
"Botheration!" said Sophie. "Calcifer, how does a person open the door when there's no one inside the
castle?"
"I'll open it for you, or Michael. Howl does it himself," said Calcifer.
So no one would be locked out when Sophie left. She was not at all sure she would be coming back, but
she did not intend to tell Calcifer. She gave Michael time to get well on the way to wherever he was
going and set off for the door again. This time Calcifer stopped her.
"If you're going to be away long," he said, "you might leave some logs where I can reach them."
"Can you pick up logs?" Sophie asked, intrigued in spite of her impatience.
For answer, Calcifer stretched out a blue arm-shaped flame divided into green fingerlike flames at the
end. It was not very long, nor did it look strong. "See? I can almost reach the hearth," he said proudly.
Sophie stacked a pile of logs in front of the grate so that Calcifer could at least reach the top one.
"You're not to burn them until you've got them in the grate," she warned him, and she set off for the
door yet again.
This time somebody knocked on it before she got there.
It was one of those days, Sophie thought. It must be the sea captain. She put up her hand to turn the
knob blue-down.
"No, it's the castle door," Calcifer said. "But I'm not sure-"
Then it was Michael back for some reason, Sophie thought as she opened the door.