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

"if you up and move?"
"I expect that will be all over by then," Howl said absently. "But if I could only think of a way to get the
King off my back...I know!" He lifted his fork, with a melting hunk of cream and cake on it, and
pointed it at Sophie. "You can blacken my name to the King. You can pretend to be my old mother and
plead for your blue-eyed boy." He gave Sophie the smile which had no doubt charmed the Witch of the
Waste and possibly Lettie too, firing it along the fork, across the cream, straight into Sophie's eyes,
dazzlingly. "If you can bully Calcifer, the King should give you no trouble at all."
Sophie stared through the dazzle and said nothing. This, she thought, was where she slithered out. She
was leaving. It was too bad about Calcifer's contract. She had had enough of Howl. First green slime,
then glaring at her for something Calcifer had done quite freely, and now this! Tomorrow she would
slip off to Upper Folding and tell Lettie all about it.
8: In which Sophie leaves the castle in several directions at once
To Sophie's relief, Calcifer blazed up bright and cheerful next morning. If she had not had enough of
Howl, she would have been almost touched by how glad Howl was to see Calcifer.
"I thought she'd done for you, you old ball of gas," Howl said, kneeling at the hearth with his sleeves
trailing in the ash.
"I was only tired," Calcifer said. "There was some kind of drag on the castle. I'd never taken it that fast
before."
"Well, don't let her make you do it again," said Howl. He stood up, gracefully brushing ash off his
gray-and-scarlet suit. "Make a start on that spell today, Michael. And if anyone comes from the King,
I'm away on urgent private business until tomorrow. I'm going to see Lettie, but you needn't tell him
that." He picked up his guitar and opened the door with the knob green-down, onto the wide, cloudy
hills.
The scarecrow was there again. When Howl opened the door, it pitched sideways across him with its
turnip face in his chest. The guitar uttered an awful twang-oing. Sophie gave a faint squawk of terror
and hung onto the chair. One of the scarecrow's stick arms was scraping stiffly around to get a purchase
on the door. From the way Howl's feet were braced, it was clear he was being shoved quite hard. There
was no doubt the thing was determined to get into the castle.
Calcifer's blue face leaned out of the grate. Michael stood stock still beyond. "There really is a
scarecrow!" they both said.
"Oh, is there" Do tell!" Howl panted. He got one foot up against the door frame and heaved. The
scarecrow flew lumpishly away backward, to land with a light rustle in the heather some yards off. It
sprang up instantly and came hopping towards the castle again. Howl hurriedly laid the guitar on the
doorstep and jumped down to meet it. "No you don't, my friend," he said with one hand out. "Go back
where you came from." He walked forward slowly, still with his hand out. The scarecrow retreated a
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little, hopping slowly and warily backward. When Howl stopped, the scarecrow stopped too, with its
one leg planted in the heather and its ragged arms tilting this way and that like a person sparring for an
opening. The rags fluttering on its arms seemed a mad imitation of Howl's sleeves.
"So you won't go?" Howl said. And the turnip head slowly moved from side to side. No. "I'm afraid
you'll have to," Howl said. "You scare Sophie, and there's no knowing what she'll do when she's scared.
Come to think of it, you scare me too." Howl's arms moved, heavily, as if he was lifting a large weight,
until they were raised high above his head. He shouted out a strange word, which was half hidden in a
crack of sudden thunder. And the scarecrow went soaring away. Up and backward it went, rags
fluttering, arms wheeling in protest, up and out, and on and on, until it was a soaring speck in the sky,
then a vanishing point in the clouds, and then not to be seen at all.
Howl lowered his arms and came back to the doorway, mopping his face on the back of his hand. "I
take back my hard words, Sophie," he said, panting. "That thing was alarming. It may have been
dragging the castle back all yesterday. It had some of the strongest magic I've met. Whatever was it-all